Thread by @ClimateAudit

the key period in 2017 lawfare insurrection was from illegal leak on Jan 10 that Steele dossier was used in Intel Community Assessment to Mueller appointment on May 17, punctuated by Comey's Mar 20 announcement at House Intel Cmte, sabotaging Trump admin washingtonpost.com/news/post-poli…

There is every indication that Durham is focussing entirely on 2016 campaign dirty tricks by partisans, while shutting his eyes to the more sinister FBI and agency weaponization of these false, sometimes ludicrous, claims.

while former Attorney General Barr praised Durham for at least bringing important documents to public attention through the Sussmann trial, Durham produced absolutely nothing that touched on the 2017 weaponization that was the more disturbing (but seemingly protected) phase.

the most interesting documents were nearly all produced by the defense, who showed that FBI "Seventh Floor" had lied to and concealed material facts from line agents such that Sussmann's original lie became irrelevant.

the DC jury was probably going to acquit anyway, but, as someone steeped in Russiagate details, I think that the FBI lies ended up giving a hall pass to Sussmann: it was Seventh Floor concealment and partisanship, not Sussmann lie, that were material.

this is a longwinded introduction to the topic of today's thread: the March 8, 2017 Talking Points, included as an attachment to Defense Exhibit DX-513. See here climateaudit.info/russiagate/alf…

the March 8 Talking Points memorandum was completely withheld up until now. It sheds dramatic new light on the period leading up to Comey's sensational announcement on Mar 20. It shows what Comey and FBI told congress to set stage for the lawfare insurrection.

most of all, it shows (1) that Steele dossier was more or less the entire and only extant Russiagate predicate when Comey upped the ante by going public; (2) the FBI's description of Steele network was (not to put too fine a point on it) fraudulent

before going into the evidence for these claims, let me review the chronology context for the March 8 Talking Points Memo.

on March 1, 2017, the Washington Post trio (Entous, Nakashima, Miller) reported that AG Sessions had had two (innocuous) encounters with ambassador Kislyak. Neither involved the campaign, let alone collusion washingtonpost.com/world/national…

the Washington Post attributed its information to "Justice Department officials". It also quoted a comment from Sessions' spokesperson, Sarah Flores (by name), but the story seems to originate from anonymous officials undermining Sessions.

the story also quotes a "senior Senate Armed Services Committee staffer". We now know that Daniel Jones' "work" on Alfa Bank hoax was tasked by McCain's Senate Armed Services Committee, with whom Joffe was very tight.

the next day (March 2), Sessions recused himself from Russiagate investigations washingtonpost.com/powerpost/top-…. At the time, Sessions had been kept in the dark about Danchenko interview and its total undermining of Russiagate predicate.

Trump was (rightfully) enraged at Sessions' recusal decision, since (as will be discussed in chronology below) it immediately unleashed Comey and FBI to perpetrate even more serious mischief. Had Sessions been properly informed by FBI about Crossfire, he might not have recused

indeed, one of the "Redlines re Crossfire Cases" in the Talking Points was "discussion related to the FBI's input into the AG's recusal decision".
Indeed.
What exactly was the FBI's input? Why was this input a "redline"?
To this day, the "FBI's input" remains hidden.

my point here is not whether Sessions was "weak" (which he probably was) but on whether he was properly informed. That's an entirely different issue. Five years later, no one knows what FBI told Sessions. That's because Trump failed to get foot-and-half of documents released.

more tomorrow

on March 3, THE DAY AFTER Sessions' recusal, Comey, McCabe, Rybicki, Baker, Priestap and (prob) Ghattas met to plan, now that Sessions was out of the way.
See notes here (Nov 2021 release) on p 43: justice.gov/oip/foia-libra….

now that Sessions was out of way, Comey et al plotted on how to "confirm [Russiagate] investigation". They complained about "getting hammered" and didn't like it. (However, Comey was sanctimonious when Trump made more justified complaint.) They decided to leak through Congress.

in other words, one day after Sessions' recusal, Comey et al were already plotting Comey's March 20 announcement, preceded by briefing to gang of eight leadership. (Draft transcription at left; note excerpt on right).

none of the FBI leadership were worried in slightest about the fact that Danchenko had been interviewed and had more or less torched credibility of the "network" that FBI had recently vouched for, even admitting that he had never even met "Millian" to whom key claims attributed

also on March 3, Strzok was separately briefing Tash Gauhar at DOJ. This is mentioned in March 6 meeting notes, but no notes have thus far been released. (Only a small fraction of documents have.)

one question. In the answer to question "Do we want to confirm investigation of coordination?", the FBI "planners" say "We should & [Dana?] should do it?" I read that as Dana [Boente], a permanent DOJ official who was acting DAG and thus in charge of Russiagate after recusal.

next business day (Mon. March 6), Comey's plan pushed one step forward with briefing of Dana Boente and senior DOJ officials by McCabe, Strzok etc. Notes from that meeting surfaced in mid-May during Sussmann and were discussed by Hans and me at Federalist thefederalist.com/2022/05/19/han…

in article, we observed that Mar 6 meeting notes revealed "pattern of repeated lies and omissions" by FBI to DOJ that "concealed the dramatic deterioration of [both] predicate for Crossfire Hurricane investigation" and "for Comey’s public reveal of Crossfire Hurricane"

the Mar 6 meeting was at 9 am. Later that day, Lisa Page distributed first draft of eventual March 8 Talking Points. Over next 2 days, a flurry of emails exchanging comments: Gauhar, McCord, McCabe, Toscas, Evans, Ghattas, Priestap, Strzok, REDACTED, Rybicki, Schools, REDACTED

these covering emails ( a couple of headers shown below) have been observable in DOJ productions for a while, but NOT the actual Talking Points memo used for briefings or any of the drafts.

we KNOW that these Talking Points were promptly used to brief congressional leadership. Notes for one such meeting (FBI briefing of Senate Judiciary leadership on March 14, 2017) turned up in a Sep 2021 DOJ drop (see page 77): justice.gov/oip/foia-libra…

now, patient readers, we will get to some really interesting material. I apologize for long preamble but I promise it will be worth it. I'll be back after coffee.

Mar 8 FBI-DOJ Talking Points memo is full of one misrepresentation or deception after another. It also shows that Crossfire predication (such as it was) as of March 8 was dominantly dossier. I'll begin with this paragraph purporting to describe Steele's network. Count the lies

I'm beginning with this description of Steele's supposed network and FBI-DOJ claims/warranties about the network because this description cannot be blamed on someone else. A securities commission investigator would notice this paragraph instantly.

First, the FBI-DOJ asserted that Steele's Primary Sub-Source ("collector") was "Russian-based".
As of early January 2017 (and prob earlier), this was known by BOTH FBI and DOJ to be untrue. They both knew that Danchenko, Steele's PSS, lived in northern Virginia, yet lied in TPs

This was not an incidental lie, but essential to FBI maintaining the dossier as fraudulent predicate for Crossfire. By March 2017, Fiona Hill was in the NSC. What would she have said if asked to vouch how Danchenko had knowledge of intimate Kremlin secrets?

Readers may also remember the connection of this particular phrase to the detective work of this corner of twitter that ultimately identified Danchenko publicly.

recall that the Horowitz report reported in Dec 2019 for the first time that the Steele PSS had been interviewed three times and seemingly in the US near the WFO. So, even before Danchenko was identified, we surmised that the PSS probably lived in northern Virginia.

at the same time, Walkafyre noticed the phrase "Russian-based sub-source" in the Horowitz report as a quotation from a Carter Page FISA application and deduced that "Russian-based" had been systematically redacted in prior releases (and in a key Horowitz footnote)

so we surmised that the FBI had repeatedly lied about the Primary Sub-Source being "Russian-based". Not just to FISA court, but to everyone including policy-makers. The March 8 Talking Points are a serious example.

although many people hyper-ventilate about misleading the FISA court as a key Russiagate event, I view the deception of policy-makers, congress and executive as far more serious, as those ramifications of Russiagate hoax more serious.

the March 8 Talking Points also pile onto the lie in a more enthusiastic way than we've seen in other uses (which remain heavily redacted.) It said FBI had "no control" over the PSS or any of the sub-sources. BS.

FBI had real and potential control over Danchenko. It would have been trivial to pull his visa and send him back to Russia. Despite gaslighting by Lindsay Graham about "Russian disinformation", Danchenko was desperate to stay in US. Or arrest him like Roger Stone.

the untruthfulness of this assertion was known to both FBI and DOJ. It was, after all, DOJ's David Laufman who gave Danchenko a sweetheart queen-for-a-day deal worthy of Cheryl Mills and DOJ lawyers sat in on Jan interview.

nor was it true that FBI had "no control" over "any of the sub-sources". One of the supposed sub-sources (falsely claimed by dossier) was "Millian" who was US citizen, resident in NYC and used US social media. Not a Russian citizen on Yandex. FBI had even opened file on him.

the truth was that Danchenko had already confessed to the FBI that he had never met Millian (and thus Steele dossier attribution of various claims to "Millian" was fraudulent) and that

that proximate sub-sources were not officials close to luminaries like Sechin, Peskov etc, but his long-time BFF from Perm (Olga Galkina) who had then been working for a website provided in Cyprus and the colorful Ivan Vorontsov.

in a strange twist not disclosed by FBI or DOJ, Vorontsove stated last year that FBI had interviewed him in June 2016 about Danchenko BEFORE Steele dossier had even begun. A fact concealed by FBI to this date. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

also, Vorontsov stated (plausibly) that he had never talked to Danchenko about topics in dossier nor would he do so. Given fabrication of "Millian" as a source, it appears that other supposed sources were equally questionable when FBI vouched for credibility of Steele network

a reader drew my attention to excellent article by Paul Sperry on same DX-513 Talking Points issue. Covers some of the same ground - readers will be interested in it realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/…

to be clear, there are some errors in detail in Sperry's article, so I'm not endorsing every single word. It's still a good article.

also looks like Sperry liberally "borrowed" from Hans and my article in Federalist for about half of his article. No wonder it made sense.

Without citation, needless to say.

more tomorrow. There's plenty more deception in the FBI-DOJ Talking Points.

Horowitz (p 188) has important quote from a Feb 15 Strzok email (email itself not disclosed in FOIAs), observing Steele "may not be in a position to judge the reliability of his sub-source network". Strongly indicates that Strzok knew details of Danchenko interview. As expected.

to the (very) limited extent that FBI leaders have been questioned on their knowledge of Danchenko's walkback of Steele dossier, they've acted as dumb and ignorant as any crooked business leader under investigation.

while FBI-DOJ lies about Steele's network (IMO) were most egregious, there were many other lies and deceptions. The TPs contained the following two short paragraphs on Steele, which contain interesting deceptions.

some deceptions will be obvious to readers, some are more subtle. FBI said that it did not "pay [Steele] for [dossier]" other than travel.

This intentionally omitted a very material fact: on Oct 3 or 4, FBI agreed to pay Steele for dossier information, received reports in Oct under this agreement, but FBI (Gaeta) fired Steele on Nov 1 for talking to press. This was concealed from policy-makers by FBI-DOJ.

Gaeta (House Transcript) said arrangement to pay Steele for dossier information began at Oct 3 meeting in Rome and was initiated and arranged by Crossfire agents without Gaeta input. Gaeta surmised offer was authorized at very high FBI levels. FBI deal required exclusivity.

in late October, when Steele notoriously went public, Gaeta (Steele's handling agent) immediately fired him and cancelled payment for Steele's work under the FBI contract in October.

now something no one's discussed.
Look at matrix (Grassley, 2021-12-03, DOJ Combined) at provenance of reports highlighted. On Oct 19, Steele delivered 5 reports to FBI, then three more from Oct 21 to 28. ONLY 3 of the 8 were delivered to Simpson. 5 reports were FBI "exclusive"

So when FBI-DOJ told policy-makers that Steele gave information to FBI only after "production of information to his clients", that was untrue after the FBI entered into their Oct 3 agreement with Steele. These reports came directly to FBI.

4 of the "FBI exclusive" reports are NOT in the Buzzfeed version that was obtained from David Kramer, a McCain associate and host in fall 2016 of Ukrainian Sergei Leshchenko, who played role in (seemingly fraudulent) Black Ledger scam against Manafort; now a Zelensky adviser

the four "FBI exclusive" reports (132, 137, 139, "Winer") are not published; some excerpts are quoted in the Steele Spreadsheet, giving some visibility.

it's interesting to re-examine excerpts from Spreadsheet as "FBI exclusive" reports. "Millian", previously having appeared in four reports as an anonymous source, was (fraudulently) re-purposed by name in #139 as a supposed Kremlin agent "shaping Trump's protectionist policy".

returning to Mar 8 TPs, FBI-DOJ stated FBI offered "possible payment" to Steele for evidence substantiating allegations. Gaeta testimony was that there was firm commitment to pay. Gaeta said - in heavily redacted excerpt that appear to pertain (but may not)- that "no conditions"

in yet another deception (that is fairly easy for readers to spot), FBI-DOJ misdirected (watch the pea) policy-makers into thinking that Steele had first been retained by Republican. This, of course, was untrue but falsehood widely spread by FBI and media.

FBI-DOJ told policy-makers that some of Steele's reporting had been "corroborated". However, Horowitz noted that information from key reports 80, 94, 95, 102 - which was relied on TPs as well as FISA - was "uncorroborated". This wasn't disclosed,

Horowitz (pdf, 227) also reported that Danchenko said that he told FBI in Jan 2017 that, after 2016 election, Steele tasked Danchenko "to find corroboration for election reporting" and he "could find none". FBI-DOJ concealed this from policy-makers.

much more later.

now for next phase of analysis of FBI-DOJ March 8 Talking Points - a document reviewed and approved by all multiple DOJ officials at the highest level: the status of Crossfire predication as FBI and DOJ were escalating their lawfare insurrection.

the actual briefing discussion of the predicate was a skimpy two pages, with subheading for the original Downer tip; and the four Crossfire cases opened in early August 2016: Papadopoulos, Page, Manafort and Flynn. Excerpted in full below for your convenience.

nothing in the Flynn subsection is germane to Crossfire predication, but there is an interesting Easter egg relevant to the Flynn charges in the Flynn subsection that I'll return to. (Interested readers can see if they recognize the Easter egg.)

I'll discuss the FBI status report on Papadopoulos after reviewing the Page and Manafort subsections. In each case, the substantive allegations consist ENTIRELY of Steele dossier allegations. The opposite of being the minor component as claimed by US media.

despite the short length (and commensurately little content) in the Talking Point summary of allegations, the same allegation occurs in both Page and Manafort subsections: that Manafort "managed" relationship between Russian govt and Trump campaign, using Page as "intermediary"

This allegation is taken directly from Steele Report 95 - a report that also plays central role in ICA Appendix on Steele Dossier, Page FISA applications and in Horowitz Report. Report is undated, but was received by Simpson on July 28, based on Danchenko briefing on ~July 26|27

in Danchenko's Jan 2017 interview, he identified Source E in Report 95 (Source 6 in the EC) as Sergei Millian. Millian's name is redacted in EC, but easy to infill. Walkafyre identified Bogdanovskiy of RIA Novosti in this paragraph even before Danchenko was identified.

Danchenko confessed to the FBI that he had NEVER MET Source E and that his contact with Source E was a single anonymous telephone call from someone that he believed to be "Millian", someone he had never spoken to (and was in Asia at the time).

Millian was provably in Asia until July 27, arriving back in the evening. Danchenko's social media shows that he was sightseeing in New York City with his daughter on July 26-27. On Jul 28, Steele traveled to Washington and had summit with Perkins Coie and Fusion on July 29

so one thing that we know for sure about Report 95 is that its attribution of various lurid stories to Source E ("Millian") was fraudulent. We don't know whether the stories were fabricated by Danchenko or Steele or some combination, but we know something more important for TPs

we've thus shown that the key Talking Points claim, used to drum up lawfare, that Manafort "managed" supposed relationship betw Trump campaign and Russian govt officials was based on Report 95, the attribution of which (Source E) was fraudulent and KNOWN by FBI to be fraudulent

to re-iterate, we don't know what proportion of fraudulent Report 95 was due to Danchenko and what proportion was due to Steele. But we do know that the claimed attribution of Report 95 was fraudulent. That fact was concealed from policy-makers in the March 8 Talking Points.

there was one other Talking Point allegation derived from dossier: that Page had "secret meetings" in Jul 2016 with a Presidential Administration official and discussed release of damaging information on Clinton in exchange for alterations to GOP platform on Ukraine

on the surface, this looks like a Steele dossier allegation, but curiously (aside from claim being untrue), contrary to the FBI, this claim does not actually appear in "reports prepared by CROWN".

the Talking Points assertion obviously links to Report #94, which stated that Page had had a secret meeting with Igor Diveykin of the Presidential Administration, who had supposedly told Page about kompromat on Clinton (and Trump). But watch the pea.

there's nothing in Steele report #94 linking release of such kompromat to "alterations to the GOP platform" on Ukraine. So where did this idea come from?

returning to this thread: the story about link betw Carter Page's "secret meetings" and the change in Republican platform does NOT appear in dossier, but DOES appear in Kavalec's notes on her Oct 11, 2016 meeting with Steele (and Winer).

Kavalec's memorandum on her meeting with Steele adds an interesting detail: "Steele says U.S. congressional contacts confirmed Paige was involved in the effort to have Republican platform changed with respect to Ukraine/lethal weapons."

So the FBI's Talking Point allegation that Page was involved in "alteration to GOP platform on US policy towards Ukraine" did NOT originate in dossier, but with Steele's "congressional contacts" whoever they are. Did FBI find out who?

to be precise, I regard Kavalec's notes on her Oct 11 meeting with Steele as a proxy for what Steele told FBI on Oct 4 (EVERY record on which remains concealed by FBI); I do not regard Kavalec's notes as being in the direct chain of passing the gossip.

while I regard the ongoing FBI fraud about Crossfire predicate as FAR more important than Carter Page FISA (which in itself contributed little to Russiagate narrative), the Page FISA does shed light on the ongoing Crossfire predicate. Horowitz has section on Page and Rep platform

Horowitz specifically reported that Danchnko had given FBI information "inconsistent" with Steele dossier #95 reported from Source E, "including the reporting that Page was involved in Rep platform changes on Ukraine". FBI Mar 8 TPs concealed this from policy-makers.

Let me re-iterate: more or less every criticism made by Horowitz about Page FISA carries forward to March 8 FBI-DOJ Talking Points (and more). But the impact of the FBI-DOJ on policy-makers was far more profound than the Page FISA.

Comey, McCabe etc, with support of senior DOJ officials, gave fraudulent information to A/DAG Dana Boente and congressional leadership about status of Crossfire investigation predicate, thereby getting authorization for Comey's Mar 20 announcement of lawfare insurrection.

as a side comment on Diveykin claim in #94: Danchenko said that he got this information on a cell phone call with Olga Galkina on July [16] while at [Volta Park] swimming pool in Georgetown with [his daughter]. Tight operational security /sarc