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Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

Jan 24, 2021 • 36 tweets • 13 min read • Read on X

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https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1351752156517433347

THREAD: on 2nd day of Steele October 2017 interview. Long thread on first day of Steele Oct 2017 hre

https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1351752156517433347

2/ the second day portion of 302 appears to begin on page 15 with FBI recording Steele's statement that "sub-sources are not paid for information". Indeed, sometimes (e.g. Millian), PSS never even met or talked to supposed "sub-source".

3/ notwithstanding Steele's claim, Danchenko has previously told FBI that he had sought help from Orbis to assist Source 1(Abyshev)'s [daughter?] in obtaining a "scholarship for language courses". However, FBI didn't challenge Steele on this.

4/ Steele also advised FBI of "one situation" in which they supplied "money 123456789" to a sub-source. Curiously, Fusion GPS was involved. Fusion obtained the "money 123456789" which were wiped for prints before giving to subsource. Who? No record of FBI asking.

5/ 302 for day 1 closely followed Auten notes, which had already been released by HGSAC on Dec 3, 2020. 302 for day 2 is new info. Steele said that time between PSS debrief and report was 1 day to 1 week; under redaction apparently that PSS sometimes sent report (ie not in person

6/ now here's something very surprising. Steele told FBI that part of several reports - the paragraphs entitled "COMPANY COMMENT" were generated by Fusion GPS (!?!), not by Orbis.

7/ when one examines actual "Company Comments" in Steele dossier (screengrabs here from 111, 134-court version, 135 and 136 ), they don't seem like comments that Fusion would be in position to assert - as opposed to Orbis. Something doesn't make sense here.

8/ A puzzle. After report sent to Fusion, 123456789012 (presumably Glen Simpson), 123456789 and Steele "went over each" of the reports in Steele dossier. 123456789 is too short for Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, even Marc Elias. Bruce Ohr would fit, but surely it can't be him. Who?

9/ I received message that it's "GlenN Simpson" - 13 characters. D'oh. So both identifications need to be proven. "Nellie Ohr" doesn't fit either. Nor does "Ed Baumgartner" or "Baumgartner". Easy to lob names, harder to fit everything.

@walkafyre

10/ D'oh. We were all looking under the wrong streetlight. Walkafyre sent me a DM explaining the redaction. The paragraph is introduction to subsequent sequence of comments. Answer is SSA Woodbery, SIA Auten and STEELE. H/t @walkafyre.

11/ finally, in 2nd day, FBI asks about Steele dossier, starting with Report 80, first report. It and Report 95 (the collusion report) are two most important, inserted amidst much chickenfeed. FBI interview on #80 is so obtuse as to defy credulity.

12/ let me review the stark and fundamental inconsistency between Danchenko interview and Steele dossier #80.

First, Danchenko told FBI that information in 80 paragraph 3 (Ritz Carlton pee tape) came from Source 2 (Ivan Vorontsov).

13/ Vorontsov told Danchenko that there was a "well known story", but it needed to be confirmed and that Danchenko should check with Ritz Carlton staff. Danchenko told FBI he was unable to confirm with hotel staf and reported to Steele that it was just "rumor and speculation"

14/ but in Steele dossier, instead of Vorontsov as source of unconfirmed, it said story was "confirmed", attributing it to "Source D", said to have been a "close associate" of Trump's and identified by Steele to FBI and others as "Millian" (who never met Danchenko or Steele).

15/ Danchenko had told FBI that he had been unable to confirm story with hotel staff and had said so to Steele, but Steele dossier stated that story had been confirmed by hotel staff. Danchenko also said last sentence attributed to SourceB was not valid, but "analytic conclusion"

16/ these contradictions between Steele and Danchenko (together with similar contradictions re Report 95) were the most important issues concerning Steele dossier and ought to have been top priority for Auten and Woodbery. Now watch their obtuseness.

17/ Steele didn't mention either Vorontsov or Sergei Abyshev (Source 1), but instead identified the shiny objects (Trubnikov etc) about who they were gossiping.

Steele re-iterated dossier attribution of Ritz Carlton story to the mythical "Source D", rather than Vorontsov.

18/ Auten and Woodbery appear to have sat their like bumps on a log, duly stenographing Steele, but without challenging him to explain the multiple inconsistencies with Danchenko's story. One of them was lying. Questioning was worse than useless.

19/ the "questioning" of SIA Auten by Gonna Graham's Senate staff compounded the obtuseness. The #1 question for Auten - if Gonna wanted to get to "bottom" of Russiagate hoax - was why he didn't get answer on contradiction between Danchenko and Steele on Report 80.

20/ FBI questioning on report #95 was, if anything, even worse. Report 95 was even more important than #80 in ICA which cited it. It purported to describe conspiracy between Trump campaign and Russian intel & was attributed to Source E, already identified by Steele as "Millian"

21/ in Dec 2019, Horowitz had pointed out a huge issue arising in respect of Report 95 from Danchenko's testimony: Danchenko never met Millian; his only contact with Source E was said to be a single anonymous telephone call of 10-15 minutes, which Danchenko presumed to be Millian

22/ yet four reports in dossier, ranging from June 22 to August 10, were supposedly sourced entirely or in part from this single anonymous telephone call. While this information from Horowitz was not publicly known beforehand, it was known to Auten and FBI from Danchenko 302.

23/ Steele dossier required that Millian disclose information to Danchenko on four different occasions: in June, then twice in late July and finally on August 9. Millian's records (which FBI would have had in their possession) clearly show that Danchenko and Millian never met.

24/ the inconsistency between attributions to Millian in Steele dossier (especially, #95) and Danchenko evidence to FBI was so stark and on such a vital report that it would be negligent for FBI not to clarify.

25/ so what happened in interview? Nothing. Beneath the redaction, it appears that Steele repeated his (false) identification of Millian as Source E. Which FBI duly wrote down without asking questions of when and where Danchenko met Source E? Total negligence by FBI.

26/ another curious FBI oversight.

Steele report 95 was undated. FBI reported that it had "handwritten date 29 August 2016" and considered it after reports with lower numbers. However, FBI's own records showed datestamp of Jul 28, 2016.

Why did Steele show false date?

27/ it appears more or less certain that Steele named "Millian" as source for paragraphs 1-5 of report 95 in this interview, as he had done earlier. Millian fits the redaction in 3rd line, but I can't figure out longer redaction in 2nd line. Sergei's patronymic too long.

28/ continuing with parsing 2nd day of Steele 302. In the first paragraph, Steele identified Source D using 23 characters. I believe that this redaction is Sergei (Kukuts) Millian. I'll elucidate this downthread in discussion of related dossier reports 97 and 102.

29/ next FBI asked about Report 94, the report which first bruited imaginary Page-Sechin and Page-Diveykin meetings, information attributed by Danchenko to Lyumila Podobedova and Olga Galkina respectively. This section is heavily redacted.

30/without much confidence, I speculate that infill in 1st para information is collected "from two sub-subsources" and in 4th paragraph "was not collected during an overseas trip". We KNOW that info for #94 arrived while Igor in DC in mid-July at DC swimming pool. Prob on Jul 16

31/ next #97. This is follow-up to explosive #95, which initially associated Wikileaks publication of DNC emails to supposed collusion between Trump campaign and Russian intel. Like #95, attributed to "Russian emigre" supposedly linked to Trump.

32/ consistent with Steele's previous framing of Millian as (fabricated) "subsource" within Trump campaign, infills of redactions here indicate that Steele again named Millian in Oct 2017 interview: 7 letter surname and 23-character long format.

33/ Steele told FBI/Auten in Oct 2017 tht "Millian" has "provided information directly" to Danchenko, but Danchenko already told Auten that he never met Millian. So why didn't Auten challenge Steele on inconsistency between Danchenko and Steele? This isn't rocket science. WHY?

34/ And why didn't Gonna Graham's highly paid lawyers challenge Auten at his failure to challenge Steele on inconsistency? WHY?? By the time of Auten's interview, Barr and Graham already raised inconsistency between PSS interview and dossier as a major priority.

35/ next report 100. irrelevant to collusion. It was typical Steele/Danchenko fantasy set inside Kremlin that was a sort of intel porn for US agencies. Steele said that he didnt know identity of sub-subsource since he had destroyed documents. Solid enough for FBI.

36/ Danchenko previously told FBI that "source" of information about Peskov, Ivanov (eg #100) was Source 3/Olga Galkina, his BFF from Perm, who, in 2016, was in Cyprus, had just quit PR job with Webzilla. Yet supposedly privy to most intimate conversations in Kremlin. Yeah, sure

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Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

Oct 24

Some readers have probably noticed that Microsoft has recently become one of the leading retailers of lurid allegations about "Russian influence operations targeting U.S. elections".

What is being overlooked is the lead author of the Microsoft articles is none other than Clint Watts, the founder (fpri.org/news/2017/08/f…) of the infamous Hamilton 68 dashboard, which was exposed by @mtaibbi in #TwitterFiles 15 (x.com/mtaibbi/status…) as the "next great media fraud".

Taibbi comprehensively exposed the total sham of the Hamilton 68 dashboard. Nonetheless, Clint Watts, the main proponent of the sham Hamilton 68 dashboard, has risen to a more lucrative and more prominent platform at Microsoft, where he continues to propagate the same warmonging claims as he has for more than a decade.

less well known is that Watts also had a curious role in the original Russiagate hoax. Christopher Steele had met Kathleen Kavalec, a senior State Department official on October 11, 2016, where he spun an even more lurid fantasy than the "dossier" itself, adding in Sussmann's false Alfa Bank hoax and naming Millian as a supposed source (notwithstanding his supposed reluctance to identify sources because of "danger".) Kavalec later met with Bruce Ohr, who became Steele's conduit to FBI after November 1, 2016.
Kavalec read Watts' lurid November 6, 2016 article entitled "Trolling for Trump" and, after meeting with Ohr et al on Nov 21, 2016, called Watts in for a meeting on December 7, 2016. warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolli…
Kavalec was so impressed with Watts that she sent a copy of "Trolling for Trump" to Victoria Nuland and other high-level State Department officials including Daniel Fried, John Heffern, Athena Katsoulos, Naz Durakoglu, Jonathan Cohen, Bridget Brink, Eric Green, Christopher Robinson, Conrad Tribble. Earlier in 2016, Brink and Nuland had been involved in the Biden/State Department putsch to remove Shokin as Ukrainian Prosecutor General.

Clint Watts' "Trolling for Trump" article warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolli…, which had so enthralled senior State Department official Kavalec and her associates, said that their interest in "trolls" had arisen as follows: "When experts published content criticizing the Russian-supported Bashar al Assad regime, organized hordes of trolls would appear to attack the authors on Twitter and Facebook."

So who were the "experts" whose feelings had been hurt by online criticism? It turned out to be January 2014 article foreignaffairs.com/articles/syria… co-authored by Watts himself entitled "The Good and Bad of Ahrar al-Sham: An al Qaeda–Linked Group Worth Befriending."

At the time of Watts' article, ISIS was still very new. It was written in the same month as Obama had called ISIS the "jayvee". At the time, U.S. (through separate CIA and DoD operations) and Gulf States allies were funneling cash and weapons to jihadis of every persuasion as the Obama administration attempted to implement its regime change coup in Syria.

But despite Beltway support for arming Al Qaeda and its allies (including Ahrar al-Sham as advocated by Clint Watts), the larger public has never entirely understood the higher purpose supposedly served by arming Al Qaeda and its allies to carry out regime change in Syria. Mostly, they find it hard to believe that U.S. would carry out such an iniquitous policy. So Watts ought to have expected some blowback to his advocacy of arming AlQaeda allies, but instead, Watts blamed "Russia" for online criticism, ultimately falsely accusing simple opponents of US allying with AlQaeda allies as Russian agents or dupes.

Read 5 tweets

Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

Oct 2

actually, the lesson from Helene is the opposite from that being promoted.

In 1933, the Tennessee Valley Authority was given the mandate for flood control in the valley of the Tennessee River and its tributaries. Over the next 40 years, they built 49 dams, which, for the most part, accomplished their goal. Whereas floods in the Tennessee were once catastrophic, younger people are mostly unaware of them.

The French Broad River (Asheville) is an upstream tributary where flood control dams weren't constructed due to local opposition.

Rather than the devastation of Hurricane Helene on Asheville illustrating the effect of climate change, the success of the flood control dams in other sectors of the Tennessee Valley illustrates the success of the TVA flood control program where it is implemented.

Hurricane Helene did not show the effect of climate change, but what happens to settlements in Tennessee Valley tributaries under "natural" flooding (i.e. where flood control dams have been rejected.)

I should add that, in its first 40 years, the TVA built 49 flood control dams, of which 29 were power-generating. In the subsequent 50 years, TVA built 0 flood control dams,
However, in the 1980s, they established the Carbon Dioxide Information Centre (CDIAC) under their nuclear division, which sponsored much influential climate research, including the CRU temperature data (Phil Jones) and Michael Mann's fellowship from which Mann et al 1998 derived.
In 1990, the parents of Crowdstrike's Dmitri Alperovich moved from Russia to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where his father was a TVA nuclear engineer. Dmitri moved to Tennessee a few years later.
One can't help but wonder whether TVA's original mandate for flood control got lost in the executive offices, attracted by more glamorous issues, such as climate change research.
If so, one could reasonably say that a factor in the seeming abandonment of TVA efforts to complete its original flood control mandate (e.g. to French Broad River which inundated Asheville) was partly attributable to diversion of TVA interest to climate change research, as opposed to its mandate of flood control.

another thought. As soon as the point is made, it is obvious that flood control dams have reduced flooding. Not just in Appalachia. I've looked at long data for water levels in Great Lakes and the amount of fluctuation (flooding) after dams installed is much reduced.
And yet my recollection of public reporting of climate is that weather extremes, including flooding, is getting worse. But in areas with flood control dams, it obviously //isn't// getting worse than before. It's better. Note to self: check IPCC reports for their specific findings on flooding.

Read 5 tweets

Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

Aug 7

as readers are aware, @walkafyre has a long-term project of decoding the Mueller investigation through the laborious project of identifying the interviewees underneath the redactions. Some of the identifications are so ingenious that it's fun. Yesterday was an interesting example, which I'll narrate since it's interesting. (There are many other equally interesting examples.) It is the identification of the interviewee of Bates number B2997, interviewed on Aug 15, 2018 (302 filed on Dec 17, 2018). The 302 was published in volume 11 (page 92) - online at walkafyre's website here:

The 302 has 6 pages. The last 4 pages are totally redacted of information. All identifying information has been redacted from the first two pages except for the presence of Mueller attorney Aaron Zelinsky. Take a look.

And yet from this meagre information, walkafyre has made a firm identification of the interviewee.

It doesn't seem possible, does it. But I've reviewed the backup and it works. I'll explain.themyefiles.knack.com/mueller-files#…

first step. The 302s are in non-proportional font (Courier) and characters can be counted. Last name has 8 characters and praenomen has 9-10 characters.

second step. B2995 previously identified as Ali, Hesham and B3005 previously identified as Bartholomew, Vanessa. 302s are //locally// in alpha order, thus pinning surname to alpha range Ali to Bar.

third step. the interviewee (LN8) interacts with a LN9 frequently.

fourth. the interview was in summer 2018 with Zelinsky in attendance. This indicates that interview was connected to Roger Stone.

fifth, LN9 has given money to "the ___". Probably "the PAC". Public data on Roger Stone's PAC shows that the largest contributor (by far) was John Powers Middleton (9-character last name.)

So the interviewee is a LN8 in alpha range Ali-Bar with some sort of regular connection to Middleton. Walkafyre had this figured out a long time ago, but was stuck.fec.gov/data/receipts/…

a few days ago, @walkafyre took a look at documents related to a sordid lawsuit between Middleton and Roy Lee, an estranged associate. Case number shown below. One of the motions demanded deposition of "Alex Anderson", a Middleton employee. Alexander Anderson had previously made a deposition in support of Middleton.
As a coup de grace, one of the production requests in the pleadings was for "all communications related to Middleton's relationship with Roger Stone".
The redacted interviewee the August 15, 2018 grand jury notice was convincingly Middleton's employee Alexander Anderson.

Read 15 tweets

Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

Jun 8

in 2019 and 2020, there was a huge amount of interest in the Strzok-Page texts, but almost no attention was paid to the fact that the texts had been heavily "curated" before reaching the public and that some key topics were missing.

One of the key topics that was missing from the Strzok-Page texts (as curated) was any mention of the interview of Steele's Primary Sub-Source in late January 2017. Given that the FBI had insisted on inclusion of Steele dossier allegations in the Intelligence Community Assessment dated January 6, 2017, this was a central FBI issue at the time and the lack of any reference in the Strzok-Page texts as originally presented is noteworthy.

Readers may recall that the very first tranche of Strzok-Page texts, released in Feb 2018, contained a long gap from mid-December 2017 to mid-May 2018 - from the ICA to appointment of Mueller. This is the very period in which the Crossfire investigation metastasized into the lawfare that undermined the incoming administration. The fact that this period was separately missing from both Strzok and Lisa Page has never been adequately explained. As an aside, it seems odd that the FBI can retrieve emails and texts from targets, but not from their own employees.

Subsequently, a tranche of texts from the missing period was released, but these were also heavily curated and contained no texts that relate to the Primary Subsource.

However, from an an exhibit in the Flynn case , we //KNOW// that, in the late evening of January 13, 2017, Strzok and Page texted about the Primary Subsource, less than two weeks prior to the interview (which began on January 24, 2017). The message wasn't interpretable in real time, but we (Hans Mahncke) were subsequently able to connect it to the Danchenko interview via the reference to the "Womble" law firm, with which Danchenko's lawyer, Mark Schamel, was then associated. We also learned that Schamel was friends with and namedropped Lisa Monaco.

But other than this single excerpt from the Flynn exhibits, I haven't located anything in any of the other Strzok texts than can be plausibly connected to the critical interviews of the Primary Subsource.

I think that there are some Strzok emails from Jan 19 and Jan 22, 2017 that may refer to the pending Primary Subsource interview, that I'll discuss next.

One useful thing that the Weaponization Committee could do would be to publish a complete and unexpurgated set of Strzok-Page texts. Given the interest created by the highly expurgated version, one wonders what an expurgated and unbowdlerized version might yield.courtlistener.com/docket/6234142…

In the volume of Strzok emails released on October 31, 2019, there was an almost entirely redacted thread dated January 19 and January 22, 2017, a couple of days before the Primary Subsource interview on January 24, 2017, which look to me like they have a good chance of relating to the PSS interview.

The thread began with an email from FBI Office of General Council (OGC) - Sally Anne Moyer or Kevin Clinesmith - to Strzok and a CD subordinate, with a very short subject line.

We know that the PSS interview was lawyered up and carried out under a sweetheart queen-for-a-day deal that was usually only available to highly placed Democrats (Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills etc.) So involvement of OGC in negotiation of the PSS interview is expected.

at 6:47 pm on Thursday, Jan 19, 2017, Strzok's CD subordinate wrote back that "here's what we have to decide ASAP". The issue is totally redacted, naturally. (This is one day before inauguration.)

Read 12 tweets

Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

May 12

https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1485801171336019968

in April 2022, Mark Steyn, on his GB News show
,
commented on recently released UK COVID data, claiming "the third booster shots so zealously promoted by the British state, and its groupthink media has failed, and in fact exposed you to significantly greater risk of infection, hospitalization and death."
Steyn showed images of five tables from official statistical publications to support his claims.
In April 2023, Ofcom, which, in addition to its ordinary regulatory role, had taken a special interest in vaccine advocacy, ruled that Steyn's "presentation of UK Health Security Agency data
and their use to draw conclusions materially misled the audience. In breach of Rule 2.2 of the Broadcasting Code" - a very damaging finding that Steyn has appealed.

I haven't followed this case. However, as it happens, I had taken an interest in UK COVID data about 3 months earlier, as it was one of the few jurisdictions that published case and hospitalization rates by vaccination status.

Also, to refresh readers on the contemporary context, early 2022 was the period in which COVID lockdowns and overall alarm began to decline.

At the time, I observed that the UK data showed that the case rate for triple vax was //higher// than among unvax. Three months later, Steyn (as discussed below) made a similar claim, for which he was censured.

Although the UK authorities conspicuously refrained from including this result in their summary or conclusions, they were obviously aware of the conundrum, since their publication included a curious disclaimer by UK authorities that actual case data "should not be used" to estimate vaccine effectiveness. I pointed this odd disclaimer out in this earlier thread, also noting that health authorities in Ontario and elsewhere had previously used such data to promote vaccine uptake and that the reasoning behind this disclaimer needed to be closely examined and parsed.

All of these issues turned up later in the Ofcom decision re Steyn.

Ofcom ruled that Steyn's presentation was "materially misleading" because
(1) he failed to take account of "fundamental biases" in age structure of vax and unvax groups i.e. unvax group was skewed younger, vax group skewed older; and
(2) he failed to include the disclaimer that "This raw data should not be used to estimate vaccine effectiveness as the data does not take into account inherent biases present such as differences in risk, behaviour and testing in the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations”.steynonline.com/mark-steyn-sho…
ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/…

https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1485801171336019968

in this thread, I'll re-examine Steyn's analysis. I've transcribed all the numbers in the tables and done further calculations to check his claims.

First, case rates. Steyn first showed an important table showing the population by 5-year age group and vax status, observing that the total population of triply vax (boosted) was approximately equal to the population of unboosted, observing that this facilitated comparison. Steyn: "Let's take a look at this, as you can see from a pool of 63 million down at the bottom there, 63 million, there are 32 million who are triple vaccinated. That leaves just under 31 million, who are either double single or unvaccinated. So we have two groups of similar size, 31, 32 million. So it's relatively easy to weigh the merits of the third shot upon Group A versus group B."

He then showed a table of cases by age group and vax status, pointing out that the total number of boosted cases was approximately double the number of unboosted cases: "So the triple vaccinated in March were responsible for just over a million COVID cases and everybody else 475,000 COVID cases. So the triple vaccinated are contracting COVID at approximately twice the rate of the double, single and unvaccinated. Got that? If you get the booster shot, you've got twice as high a chance of getting the COVID. In the United Kingdom, there's twice as many people with the third booster shot who got the COVID, as the people who never had the booster shot."

Ofcom purported to rebut Steyn's analysis as shown in excerpt below. They observed that proportion of unvax in younger age groups was much higher than in older age groups and that the "simple comparison between the two groups made by Mark Steyn failed to take into account these inherent biases".

However, Ofcom failed to show that there would be a different outcome in the more complex analysis in which age groups were allowed for.

As it turns out, in regard to case rates, Steyn's conclusions, if anything, under-stated the phenomenon, as shown next.

Read 11 tweets

Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

Apr 19

https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1705979759484653694

here is a thread from 2023 in which Eric Ciaramella's "yikes" is placed in a more detailed context.

In this thread, I suggested that the linkage was connected to Jan 21, 2016 meeting of Ukrainian prosecutors with State Dept officials, noting that Jamie Gusack (reporting to Bridget Brink) had distributing the first demand for Shokin's head (Nov 22 TPs)

https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1705979759484653694

as pointed out in that thread, Gusack (State Dept) had been coordinating with Ciaramella (NSC) prior to arrival of Ukr prosecutors in Jan 2016, referring to Shokin replacement.

State Dept cited "diamond prosecutors case" as big deal. But what happened to it next? A long story.

Bridget Brink, Jamie Gusack's boss, reported to Victoria Nuland. Brink was appointed Ambassador to Ukraine in April 2022. Unanimous approval by Senate in early days of war at the exact time that US and UK were sabotaging the peace deal negotiated in Istanbul

Read 4 tweets

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