Russia Gate files

These were released a few weeks ago. Here is a long but good write up on them.

Sean Davis (@seanmdav) on X

File 1: https://t.co/hmmLlyQU9D File 2: https://t.co/uSYSsJBtT1 File 3: https://t.co/UusEEnN9vQ File 4: https://t.co/bJQEjaKcVT File 5:…

t.co

Part One

Part One of Many: Who's Who and What's the Big Deal about Steele?

First pass over the newly released Crossfire Hurricane documents. I'm going to do this in pieces because I am getting a lot of PMs and requests to put something out and, frankly, it's way too big a job to do all by myself with any kind of speed. I'm going to put out segments as I finish them, each with my assessments in isolation. When I'm done getting through all 700+ pages, I'll try to do a full write-up, likely in the form of a D'Anconia Journal post. Anyway, let's start by getting acquainted with the players.

Christopher Steele (British former intelligence officer), handled by Michael Gaeta (FBI Legat Rome)

Steele provided intelligence reports based on a network of Russian subsources, some of whom had been used to collect intelligence on bribery and corruption scandals related to FIFA in the past (through his company, Orbis Business Intelligence), but most of whom were never named or identified, even to his handlers. The FBI expressed doubts about Steele's subsources, particularly after learning that some were connected to Sergey Millian—a known braggart and self-promoter who had been classified by the FBI as a “fabricator.”

Steele was directed not to share his intelligence outside of FBI channels but acknowledged passing information to a State Department contact. This is a concern, obviously. Who ran the State Department at the time of all this stuff going down? That’s right. You’ll see this material again. FBI warned Steele to maintain exclusivity and hinted at significant compensation (potentially up to $1 million) if his intelligence led to actionable results. This is normal for a source who is motivated by money, but it does cast serious doubts on the credibility of the source because now you’ve introduced a significant money motive to someone who’s using dubious sub-sources and told him you’ll pay for a specific kind of dirt. That’s not good tradecraft, to say the least.

Concerns over Steele’s disclosure of information to the media ultimately led to FBIHQ ordering closure of his CHS status. Put more simply, not only was Steele working with his “State Department contact” (cough… Hillary Clinton…. cough cough), but he was also pushing his so-called sensitive relationship and information into the press while being paid as a Confidential Human Source. That is a Prime Directive level no-no, and as a former intelligence officer, I guarantee he knew it. This should have rightly thrown absolutely everything he provided into question, and no piece of information that came through his channels should have been used without significant vetting and third-party or alternative-source confirmation. That’s just the way intelligence operations work.


Stefan Halper (code name “MITCH”)

Halper was paid approximately $526,906.60 in aggregate by the FBI as a CHS since his reactivation in 2011. He’d been on the books for a number of years, and as an academic at Cambridge working ion foreign policy, his position allowed him to credibly approach foreign policy advisors to political campaigns under the guise of scholarly interest. This is what is known in the business as “cover for action.”

His interactions with Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and Sam Clovis were all targeting efforts, which is honestly pretty unconventional if you’re talking about suspicions of a major political figure. The FBI has distinct rules about spying on Americans and about investigating highly visible political figures, and they were definitely not followed here. Halper received specific payments totaling $70,000 between August 2016 and February 2017 for services during the Crossfire Hurricane timeframe, so like Steele, he was being paid for serving a specific agenda. Again, not uncommon, but it’s not exactly smart to tell your sources exactly what you want them to tell you in order to get a paycheck. Intelligence requirements are usually passed to sources in such a way that you don’t provide them with a motive to fabricate.

It appears the FBI used Halper rather than using more typical overt surveillance to collect intelligence in a way that didn’t require immediate FISA authorization. Again, when it comes to tradecraft, it’s considered bad to enlist sources to work toward providing support for a pre-established narrative. Investigations are intended to reveal facts, not to support preconceived narratives. But it gets even more damning.

Halper met with three members of the Trump team – Carter Page, Sam Clovis, and George Papadopoulos. In the meetings, Halper reported to the FBI that Carter Page denied meeting with Russian officials Igor Sechin or Igor Diveykin, key figures alleged in the Steele dossier to have met with him. He repeatedly referenced legal advice and denied wrongdoing. Halper probed Page about his views on U.S.-Russia relations, Russian involvement in Syria, and potential post-election policies under Trump. Page appeared cautious, measured, and non-incriminating. Papadopoulos similarly expressed no acknowledgment of direct Russian collusion and conveyed skepticism about the allegations. Halper even offered to introduce Russian figures to Page at Cambridge, testing Page’s willingness, which Page declined.

This is absolutely WILD to consider, because it not only isn’t incriminating in any way, it’s largely exculpatory! It directly contradicts Steele, and exonerates the Trump team as they even refused a brokered introduction when it was offered. If Steele’s behavior wasn’t enough to get his information thrown out, then Halper’s reporting should have. Instead, here’s what happened.


The Steele dossier, although unverified and discredited by Halper’s reporting, was used substantially to support the FISA application. FBI filings later acknowledged that Halper’s recordings of Page did not corroborate the allegations in the Steele dossier, yet the FISA warrant was approved and renewed multiple times. The FBI was found to have made 17 significant errors and omissions in its four FISA applications targeting Carter Page. These included misrepresentations, failures to disclose exculpatory evidence, and alteration of documents. You guys get why this is such a big deal, right? If not, dwell on it for a while.

It means they were so deadest on targeting Trump that they knew they had no case, proved their source not to be credible, and deceived the courts anyway just to get permission to spy on Trump’s people – American citizens who’d done nothing wrong. There’s also a lot to be learned from what the FBI altered. (NOTE: MY highlight, not the author's)
The FBI Attorney who filed the FISA applications, Kevin Clinesmith, now on probation after pleading guilty to what I'm about to describe, made some major changes to the facts in order to justify their illegal spying. The original CIA email said Carter Page had been a "operational contact" for the CIA and had provided information about his contacts with Russian intelligence. Read that again. Carter Page had been a cooperative source for the CIA. Clinesmith altered the email to falsely say Page was "not a source", misleading the FISA court. This was a critical lie, as Page’s prior cooperation with U.S. intelligence would have undermined claims he was a foreign agent and dogpiled even more reasons to doubt the Steele dossier.

The FBI withheld information from the court that contradicted the Steele dossier, including Halper’s own exculpatory CHS reports. This is egregious in the extreme, and goes way beyond the characterization of “omissions and errors.” It’s what’s known in the Intelligence Community Jargon as a “Big Fucking Deal.” You just don’t do it.

Further, the credibility of Steele and his sources was not fully disclosed to the court. Again, not fucking cool. If there exists information which undermines an assessment, even the most junior analyst knows you have to include it and cite it specifically so that the consumer of that intelligence can judge credibility. They specifically hid it here. The FBI failed to inform the FISA court that Steele’s main sub-source had contradicted many of the claims in the dossier, casting doubt on its accuracy. Not Halper, mind you, but Steele’s own sub-source. Since Steele claimed he got his information from his network of “hermetically sealed sub-sources,” this contradiction alone should have given everybody pause and at the very least made them wonder if Steele was tailoring his information to score that sick payday the FBI offered him. Despite this, the FBI doubled down on the lie and renewed the FISA warrant three more times, all predicated on falsified information.

Part Two

Part Two of Many: Foundations for Russiagate

As you might expect from my choice to begin by acquainting you with Steele, Halper, and the Steele Dossier in part one, the Steele Dossier is absolutely critical to understand if you want to know why what the government did is such an immense violation of both the Constitution and Executive power. In this section, I’m going to discuss Binder #5 of the released docs, so if you’re following along at home, bust that one out and let’s get into it.

Probably the most damning thing anyone should take away from the Binder #5 docs is that Steele’s reports were first shared with journalists, not the FBI. The file explicitly notes this fact as significant and problematic, so even the FBI at the time knew and acknowledged that fishy shit was going down. Some reports were later passed to the FBI by British authorities (noted in the docs as "Crown"), and the FBI received them secondhand. This undercut the FBI’s ability to validate source integrity and also complicated legal considerations under the FISA rules – to the point that Clinesmith knew he’d have to outright lie and falsify evidence in order to secure FISA warrants in the first place.

Referring back to Steele, the FBI learned that the juicier parts of the dossier – Trump having calls with the Russian intelligence service, the Russians offering to provide him with recordings of Hillary, the golden showers, and all that came from a single sub-source—later confirmed to be Igor Danchenko, whom the FBI had significant doubts about because he was a known fabricator (See part one). It’s crucial to refer to the FBI’s own words here. FBI summaries note a lack of confirmation that Trump ever stayed in the alleged "Presidential Suite" at the Ritz-Carlton Moscow, and that “no direct evidence of kompromat (blackmail material) existed” beyond Danchenko’s hearsay from second- or third-hand sources. The FBI notes also mention embellishment and circular reporting, both acknowledgements of Danchenko’s (and Steele’s) lack of credibility. In short, the dossier was bogus, it was compromised, it was sent to the press and third-parties before it was sent to the FBI (indicating it was most likely a political hit piece rather than real intelligence), and the FBI’s own analysts assessed it to be baseless and very likely embellished.

You’ll recall in Part One, I talked about the tradecraft requirements when you see that a source’s information might be compromised or inaccurate – you have to go out and validate each claim separately by other means. The binder includes FBI analyst notes indicating which portions of Steele’s reporting had been corroborated. These comments frequently say things like: “No confirmation of [allegation] from any independent source.” “Information appears speculative or secondhand.” And “Unable to verify source D’s presence at alleged event.”

You have to fully grasp that stuff to understand the gravity of what happened next.

Several documents in Binder #5 are marked with FISA restrictions, indicating that intelligence derived from FISA-collected information must be handled under strict legal protocols, especially in judicial or administrative proceedings. What does that tell you? It emphasizes the concern that the use of dossier-derived materials in FISA warrant applications were manipulated and falsified by the FBI in order to obtain warrants based on what they knew to be lies and politically motivated fiction.

Part Three

Part Three of Many: Following the Money

We're going to look at binder #3 for this one, because now that you know who's who and what they provided and how it was misused, I want to walk you through who got paid to do it, who paid them, and why that represents a real Constitutional Crisis.

Binder #3 is a litany of payments made to the various entities you met in Part One. Specifically, payments made to Halper were north of half a million dollars, $70,000 of which was specifically for the meetings Halper conducted with Trump associates including Carter Page. The payments were handled by someone you haven't met in these reports yet. Payment logs in Binder #3 reflect classified forms processed by FBI agent Stephen Somma. He is an important name to know because he is also a central figure in obtaining the FISA warrant on Carter Page. In case this is getting confusing, the guy who paid Halper was also one of the folks involved in the FISA warrant sham.

Remember from the last installment, during their meeting Halper (CHS) pressed Page on contacts with Russian figures, including Igor Sechin and Igor Diveykin. Page denied meeting either person, reiterated legal advice not to accept gifts or favors, and expressed frustration at the public accusations. The FBI had recordings of these meetings, so it's more than just someone reporting back what they remember - they have Carter Page himself refuting the foundational accusations of the Steele Dossier.

When Halper got into things like media coverage, Page had a lot to say. Page stated that media coverage attacking him (he specifically cited Yahoo! News reports) was coordinated by the Clinton campaign’s Brooklyn office, citing conversations with journalists. He told Halper that Clinton-hired investigators were targeting him, including in London, and looking into connections involving both political and personal matters. Despite the scrutiny, and knowing full well that the Clinton campaign machine was actively trying to discredit him and anyone else associated with Trump, Page was continuing to act as a foreign policy surrogate for the Trump campaign at the time, with interviews scheduled to discuss Syria, Putin, and U.S.-Russia relations. Given all of this, and given the direct contradictions with the Steele Dossier, Halper's interactions show no evidence of collusion, no admission of illegal contact, and frequent denials or legal disclaimers from Page. Page’s continual insistence on legality, his guarded tone, and refusal to engage in questionable contacts weigh heavily against the narrative of foreign compromise.

So here's the part where the Obama Administration took the unconstitutional step of weaponizing the FBI and the Department of Justice. Despite these cautious, non-incriminating conversations, FISA warrants against Page were pursued and renewed under false pretenses and using falsified evidence. Halper’s revelations, while not clearly exonerating all on their own, do not provide the kind of incriminating evidence needed for surveillance and were arguably buried in broader dossier-based justifications. The Obama Administration knew they didn't have enough to justify what they wanted to do, so they simply altered reports and evidence and made up the rest to deceive the courts.

They did it brazenly, too. As Binder #3 shows us, they kept a detailed and transparent log of the payments made to these Confidential Human Sources. That means it wasn't a wholly owned operation of Clinton Crime, Inc. It was a US Government approved and endorsed, taxpayer-funded weaponization of the United States' highest law enforcement organization, specifically to target a political opponent.

Keep all this straight when you hear people try to tell you that it's nuanced or that the context matters. By God, it sure does! And the context is right there in front of you. Hillary Clinton engaged with Christopher Steele to provide dirt - true or false, it really didn't matter - in exchange for lucrative payments. Those reports were handed over to the press to create political hit pieces against Donald Trump. AFTER they were given to the press, they were given to the FBI, and the Bureau decided to pursue an investigation based on what amounted to propaganda pieces. They recruited a spy to go out and meet with Trump associates after they saw the holes in the Steele Dossier, and that spy came back and told them, in a nutshell "Dudes, everything you said to look for? He's clean. No corroboration on any of it. I even dangled the prospect of Russian financing for a pet project and he turned me down." So what did they do next? They handed him his money and went to the courts using the bullshit Dossier they knew was phony from the start.

And just in case the courts didn't play ball, the FBI doctored the evidence and lied to the judges to secure their warrant because they knew good and damned well they couldn't justify it with anything they had. And bear in mind WHO they targeted with those FISA warrants. That's right, boys and girls - they went after Carter Page - the guy whose meetings with their CHS had refuted every point in the Steele Dossier, and against whom they had absolutely no probably cause or incriminating evidence.

I don't really understand how anyone can defend those actions. The FBI violated the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments with the actions we've looked at so far, and we still have 4 binders to go.

1st: The FBI surveilled individuals like Carter Page, a U.S. citizen and political campaign associate, while he was lawfully engaging in political advocacy and foreign policy speech. Given the ties to the Clinton Campaign, Yahoo, and other News outlets, there's another First Amendment concern. If the FBI acted in concert with political operatives or the media to shape public perception, this could implicate government suppression or manipulation of speech via unofficial channels.

4th: The FISA warrant was obtained using unverified or false information, including the Steele dossier, and FBI omissions regarding exculpatory evidence from Halper and Steele’s sub-sources. FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith altered an email to make it appear Carter Page was not a CIA source — when he was — a critical fact that affected the probable cause standard. The 4th Amendment requires probable cause, and that warrants be based on truthful affidavits. Violations of either prong should invalidate the warrant and any surveillance stemming from it.

5th: I'd like to get an opinion from Marc Denny "Crafty Dog" here, but Page (among others) were never charged with a crime, yet were subjected to covert surveillance and reputational harm. The use of false information or deliberate omission of exculpatory evidence may constitute a violation of procedural due process, especially if the government’s actions deprived Page of employment, reputation, or future opportunities (as I read it, a stigma-plus deprivation under Paul v. Davis). If the government knowingly acted on fabricated or politically motivated intelligence, it may constitute a deprivation without fair procedure.

6th: Since this was intended to be a criminal investigation, if FISA-based evidence were ever used in parallel criminal proceedings, and the defendant was not allowed to challenge the origin, credibility, or validity of the surveillance, that should raise serious 6th Amendment concerns.

And, Marc Denny "Crafty Dog", while you're at it, let me know if the 14th Amendment got thrown under the Crossfire Express as well.

Bottom line, this whole investigation should have been a much louder wake-up call to Americans, and especially to those on the political Left. This is grand scale corruption and it is a direct frontal assault on the Constitution, done for reasons so petty as to keep a grip on power and punish someone who dared to challenge establishment Democrats.

More to come tomorrow...

Part Four

Part Four of Many: The Wrap-Up Smear

Nancy Pelosi famously described, right in front of cameras and microphones even, a political tactic known in Washington as the Wrap-Up Smear. In case you're not familiar with it, here's how it works. The orchestrator of the smear starts a rumor, the saucier the better, and then leaks that rumor to the press. To make it more credible, the leak will usually come from someone who is highly placed and has knowledge of the subject, but who "needs to remain anonymous." The press runs the story, other outlets pick it up and report it, and then lo and behold, the original architect of the smear goes public and cites the press reports as the source of the rumor. Here's Nancy's explanation:

Part Five

Part Five of Many: What's the Deal with the Big Bad Wolfe, and Why Didn't Anybody Listen to State?

Here we go, gang. Binder #7. Let's get acquainted with James Wolfe. James Wolfe served as the Director of Security for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) for nearly three decades. In that role, he was responsible for managing classified information provided by the executive branch to the committee. He had access to some of the most sensitive information regarding national security, intelligence operations, and classified investigations—including Crossfire Hurricane. He makes a prominent appearance in Binder #7. While it's hard for me to assess with any confidence at all that he was part of the corrupt attempt to frame Donald Trump or the unconstitutional fraud aimed at tearing down the entire Trump campaign, he's worthy of a sidebar.

Wolfe, in essence, was a useful idiot. In 2017–2018, Wolfe became the subject of a federal investigation for leaking classified information to reporters. He was eventually convicted of lying to the FBI about his communications with several journalists, including Ali Watkins, with whom he had a romantic relationship. This matters, because one of the bombshell leaks he gave his girlfriend was the Carter Page FISA warrant. FISA warrants by their very nature are considered classified, so this not only means Wolfe is a criminal, it also means he fed the narrative and reinforced the smear in the press that Trump was in communication with the Russians. Remember, the FISA warrant was based on manufactured "evidence" that the FBI knew was false form the start, and when it wasn't "false enough," they falsified it further. So Wolfe's leaks - voluntarily or involuntarily - furthered the smear.

In Binder 7, there's a record of Wolfe telling an FBI Special Agent that he was "still with DJT Jr."—i.e., Donald Trump Jr.—on the evening of December 13, 2017, just before the agent requested to meet him about "ongoing matters." This is important, because at that same time, Wolfe was under investigation for leaking classified information to the press. With me? So he's: Under federal investigation for improperly handling classified intelligence. AND In contact with Trump campaign associates, including the president’s son. So this dude, who was under active investigation by the FBI for leaking Carter Page's FISA warrant did not have his access pulled, and he continued to be handled by an FBI Special Agent. Or at least it appears so. In the text messages documented in Binder #7, James Wolfe was communicating with this FBI Special Agent, identified only as "SA" in the redacted material, so it's hard to tell if this was a handler/source relationship or something else. What's clear is that Wolfe’s access to classified information continued, and his coordination with Trump Jr. suggests he may have had a line of communication with someone under investigation—or at least close to it.

So to recap on Wolfe: The Special Agent contacted Wolfe on December 13 asking for a 5-minute call. Wolfe responded that he was “still with DJT Jr.” at the time. They continued to coordinate, eventually setting a meeting at the FBI’s Washington Field Office for 10:00 AM on December 15, 2017. The tone of the messages is polite and procedural, though it takes place amid an ongoing leak investigation involving Wolfe. Given his position and the nature of his leak, he definitively had access to the Crossfire hurricane investigation. Weird, right?

Moving on, surprise surprise, back to the Steele Dossier. Binder #7 also gives us a scary look at just how reticent and concerned the rank and file FBI Special Agents were with regard to using the Dossier.

Several entries show the Steele reports were unverified at the time of internal sharing. The presence of repeated “CROWN” notations and report numbers without added FBI annotations or corroborating intelligence indicates the raw reporting was passed around but not vetted before being shared across agencies. That's something press reports about this stuff might miss because it's kind of "Inside Baseball" stuff in the intelligence world, but trust me - that matters. Another tradecraft sin was obvious circular reporting. Some reports included duplicated material—meaning multiple reports contained overlapping, circular information presented in slightly different language. This led to the illusion of corroboration when in fact it was the same underlying unverified claim, repeated through Steele’s sourcing chain. Intelligence analysts and investigators are specifically taught to look for this and deconflict it before including any such information in a finished product or investigation. Sourcing must be accounted for in all analysis or it has to be considered an unreliable source.

Binder #7 also reinforces the FBI's concerns about the pathway information took in getting to them. The FBI knew that Steele’s primary sub-source was Igor Danchenko, who relied heavily on personal and professional acquaintances with little to no direct knowledge of Trump or Russian intelligence operations, and who was a known fabricator and braggart. There are multiple cases in Binder 7 where the source origin is marked as “provided to journalists, not FBI”, which undermines the chain of custody and intelligence integrity entirely. I had a short discussion with a former Intelligence management type who's worked in a few of the same places I did. I asked him to put on his Branch Chief hat and then pitched him on the use of a source like this one. His response? I'll quote verbatim for posterity: "LOL. GTFO."

He was more polite than any Branch Chief I ever worked for would have been.

Binder #7 also includes something that might have saved the whole country a lot of pain. Someone who apparently knew the rules of the road and at least wanted to be on record pointing them out to all concerned. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathy Kavalec goes on record suggesting Steele had already contacted and shared information with political figures and media, before or while the FBI was still reviewing the data. This meant the information may have been politically contaminated or seeded for media manipulation, not intelligence collection, she asserted correctly. Kavalec was, at the time, Assistant Secretary for European Affairs. She met in person with Steele 10 days before the FISA warrant was signed out on Carter Page. Interviewing Steele, she reflected in her notes that there were significant reasons to doubt Steele's information, and she passed those notes on to the FBI - which promptly round-filed them and went ahead with using the bullshit dossier and falsified evidence to dupe the FISA judges into signing out their warrant.

Are you seeing a pattern? Because I am.

The FBI - specifically those leading this investigation - ignored every bit of tradecraft that analysts, intelligence collectors, and investigators are taught to do. They then went on to do all the things analysts, intelligence collectors, and investigators are taught NOT to do. Then, they materially falsified evidence. They lied to judges. They manipulated the warrant process not once, not twice, not three times, but four times in order to violate the rights protected by no fewer than four Amendments to the US Constitution. They engaged with known fabricators, sourced news stories their own bogus evidence had planted in the first place, and they were running suspected criminals under investigation for leaking details of the case as sources for information. Then they threw that guy (Wolfe) in jail, but that's beside the point.

There is a lot of evidence that many people in the chain of command knew what was happening was just plain wrong. Even people outside the chain of command, like Kavalec, pointed out that something was shitty about the whole deal. So if the rank and file, as well as outsiders, kept pointing this stuff out, what gives? Why did the FBI keep on pushing such an obvious fraud? Is this looking like "procedural flaws" to you?

Part Six

Part Six of Many: How bad does it have to get for you to go "Maybe this isn't such a good idea?"

Buckle up, Gang. You've heard all about it, you know why it was important, and you know what they did with it, but let's dig a little deeper into the Steele Dossier. For those following along at home, we're going to be working out of Binder #1 for this one.

Binder #1 is the foundational volume showing the flawed origins and propagation of the Steele dossier and documents how the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was influenced by questionable sources, media leaks, lies, falsified evidence and corrupt political operatives. We're going to be retreading some familiar turf here, but that's by design. This is a convoluted web, and as analysts often find in their work, roads tend to cross multiple times and in multiple places when bad actors do bad things. Besides, the repetition will help you keep it all straight. Without further ado...

Here are a few excerpts you'll need in order to grasp the level of corruption we're talking about here. These show the FBI acknowledged the serious nature of the press leaks, information mishandling, and dubious reporting by terminating the FBI relationship with Steele as a source.

“On November 1, 2016, the handling agent directly asked the CHS if the CHS spoke to the reporter in question [David Corn of Mother Jones]. The CHS responded ‘yes I did.’”

— FBI-HJC119-CH-000059

“CHS confirmed to an outside third party that CHS has a confidential relationship with the FBI.”

— FBI-HJC119-CH-000096

This is a clear red line. This violated FBI CHS protocols, which explicitly prohibit confidential sources from disclosing their relationship with the Bureau. Steele was a career intelligence officer, and all sources are briefed very, very clearly on this. Despite this termination, the FBI continued to rely on Steele's reporting in sworn FISA applications—most notably in the Carter Page warrant. They dumped him as a source for providing his information to the press before he gave them to the FBI - a clear sign that the information was created for the press to propagate a narrative (see: Wrap Up Smear), rather than as an intelligence report. Then they used that same information as the foundation for Crossfire Hurricane. This means they pressed ahead knowing: His known political motivation (he was hired by Fusion GPS, funded by the DNC/Clinton campaign); The leak to Mother Jones, which seeded public narratives later cited as media corroboration. That's not a "procedural issue." That's blatant corruption.

Another issue that Binder #1 sheds light on is the litany of claims that Steele makes which proved out to be untrue. Michael Cohen’s alleged meeting with Russian officials in Prague turned out to be totally unsubstantiated. A Rosneft stock-for-sanctions deal involving Carter Page was likewise proven out to be bullshit, as were claims derived from hearsay by Russian emigres and unvetted sub-sources. And yet the FBI still classified these as foreign intelligence reports and entered them into formal systems like Sentinel (the FBI's classified case management system and intelligence repository).

So let's look at these couple of points so far. The Dossier is found to be garbage. Steele is found to be a press informant and political shill. He is terminated as a source (hold this point in your mind for a second). His bogus report is used as the foundation for the investigation and multiple FISA court warrant applications anyway. So playing along at home, what do you think the next move was for Steele? Slink off into the bushes and try to regain some level of dignity? If he were acting alone on his own agenda, maybe. But he was hired to do a job by the Clinton campaign. Soooo.... even after his termination, Steele continued passing information through DOJ official Bruce Ohr, who was married to a Fusion GPS contractor. This circumvented the CHS system entirely and introduced even more tainted information into FBI channels post-termination. Can't feed your bogus information to the Bureau through the regular channels? Get your buddy to sneak it in the back with new packaging and a bow right on top. Why is it important to point out that Bruce Ohr's wife worked for Fusion GPS?

Because that's the firm that hired Christopher Steele on behalf of the Clinton Campaign in the first place.

What this means is that the Hillary Clinton Campaign was actively running Steele as a source and feeding manufactured "intelligence reports" into the FBI through a back channel without disclosing the relationship. Read that again. It means the foundational intelligence being used to open a deeply corrupt investigation on Donald Trump was being fed to the FBI by the Clinton Campaign through a barely-concealed channel even after they terminated her source. It means that an Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States (Bruce Ohr) was feeding malign, fabricated information under the guise of "intelligence" to the FBI to fuel a politically motivated investigation at the behest of Hillary Clinton.

Ohr met with Steele more than 12 times between summer 2016 and late 2017 and then relayed those meetings to FBI investigators, including Peter Strzok and others in the Counterintelligence Division. Not only did this circumvent nearly every investigative and intelligence collection protocol, it also created a conflicted, undocumented, and informal channel into a major FBI investigation. Add to that the fact Ohr did not disclose that his wife, Nellie Ohr, was a contractor at Fusion GPS and the conflicts of interest were monumentally problematic. Or, they would have been if the investigation were legitimate. Incidentally, since you may have seen them in the news of late, Fusion GPS was being paid by Perkins Coie, a law firm working for the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

More, even some of Ohr's reporting contradicted key claims made by Steele linking Trump to Russia. In FBI-HJC119-CH-000050, an email from Joe Pientka (FBI) states:

“I got this from Bruce Ohr on Monday following his breakfast on Saturday with Simpson [Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS]...” The message includes claims that Mikhail Fridman lied about Alfa Bank communications, and that media reports were inaccurate.

In other words, Ohr was receiving information not just from Steele, but directly from Fusion GPS, and passing it to the FBI well after Steele was cut off as a source - and they were using it like it was real intel! I want you to think about the implications of that amidst what is already a sea of corrupt actions and misrepresentations. What this effectively means is that the Clinton Campaign's cut-outs were feeding disinformation to the FBI, which was then modifying it, editing it, and altering it as needed to secure warrants from the FISA courts to spy on Clinton's political opponents.

Here are the key takeaways from Binder #1:

Steele was terminated as a CHS on November 1, 2016 for unauthorized media contact (Mother Jones article). Per FBI rules, a terminated source’s reporting is supposed to be treated as high-risk and unreliable. Yet Binder #1 reveals that the FBI continued to rely on Steele’s memos, circulating them internally and referencing them in intelligence operations, including FISA warrant renewals.

Steele’s reports were passed from Fusion GPS, the firm hired by the DNC and Clinton campaign, to the FBI through Bruce Ohr. This was known internally. SSA Joe Pientka confirms in emails that Steele's memos were labeled as “CROWN” and were stored under a folder titled “Rome Reporting – Simpson 121216.”

The FBI failed to inform the FISA court of the political origins and bias of the Steele dossier when using it as evidence in the Carter Page warrant. This omission has been highlighted as a major integrity failure by the DOJ Inspector General. I'd call it something far worse.

But hey - at least they paid him with your tax dollars....