(THREAD-21 TWEETS) The Simpson-Fritsch op-ed in the NYT yesterday has carried the Trump-Russia collusion story to an entirely new, explosive level. tinyurl.com/y9dqsxxr
1/ .@NatashaBertrand has spoken to someone, apparently--possibly even Simpson and/or Fritsch?--who want(s) us to believe that the REFERENT of the crucial paragraph in their op-ed was Papadopoulos! tinyurl.com/y8xo3v32
2/ Whoever it is--even Simpson/Fritsch themselves--I make bold to say that they can say that this is what they MEANT or INTENDED TO SAY, but he / she / they cannot claim that this is what they SAID, b/c it ISN’T what they said.
Here’s the text:
Here’s the text:
3/ (The link is to the Dec 30 NYT article alleging that the Papadopoulos hacked-email story--the essentials of which have been known since the Papadopoulos indictment on Oct 5--was a trigger (not the only one) for the FBI investigations, not the dossier.)
4/ Here is the only way that the paragraph can plausibly be read:
5/ “We don’t believe our dossier was the trigger for the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling. [Duh! Everybody who was paying attention knew that anyway; Clapper has been saying it since forever.]
6/ When the FBI did start its investigations, however, our dossier WAS taken very seriously because it corroborated reports it had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp.”
7/ The link is to an article published on Dec 30 (so it couldn’t have been referred to in Simpson’s testimony in August b/f Sen Judiciary), which mentions the Papadopoulos hacked-email story
8/ (which didn’t emerge into public view until the indictment against Papadopoulos on Oct 5) as only ONE trigger--though an important one--for the FBI’s investigations.
9/ So the link is there simply to tell the readers of their NYT op-ed: Hey, if you’ve read the Dec 30 story (if nothing else) you will already know that the dossier couldn’t have been the only trigger: that’s common knowledge NOW.
10/ But that link has led to some barking up the wrong tree.
11/ The important, explosive revelation in the paragraph is that the FBI started its investigations b/c it had corroborating reports for claims made in the dossier FROM OTHER SOURCES, INCLUDING A SOURCE WITHIN THE TRUMP CAMP.
12/ That source could not have been Papadopoulos, b/c Papadopoulos didn’t become a source/informant until a year later (July 2017), after he had been arrested. So the “source within the Trump camp” must have been someone else.
13/ Note also that the phrase that Simpson and Fritsch use is “Trump camp,” not “Trump campaign.” I like that b/c I have argued at length that Source E of the dossier is Felix Sater, who was certainly in the Trump camp, but never in the campaign.
14/ In any case, the bombshell revelation in the op-ed is the crystal clear, undeniable statement that the FBI had a source within the Trump campaign.
15/ This is so extraordinary that we really need to ask the question: Why did they divulge this NOW?
16/ Obviously, they have known this for months, but have sat on it. And it is a revelation that will raise a lot of questions for and about the FBI (to put it mildly).
17/ We know from Luke Harding’s *Collusion* that both Steele and Simpson have FBI sources (something that common sense, given their past and present work in the intelligence field, would tell us anyway).
18/ Those sources have clearly been willing to leak to them in order to help break and push the Trump collusion story forward.
19/ Would Simpson and Fritsch have leaked the info that the FBI had a source (not necessarily a mole!) for important info/intel within the Trump camp w/out having gotten the green light from their FBI sources? Very, very doubtful.
20/ If so, then it is a strong indication that the FBI (or at least some important faction in it) wants to become VERY aggressive now on the RussiaGate front.
21/ This could get really interesting really fast. END
