The wife of former Justice Department #4 official Bruce Ohr conducted extensive opposition research on Trump family members and campaign aides while working for Fusion GPS – the firm paid by the Clinton campaign to produce a ‘salacious and unverified’ Russian-sourced dossier which would later be used against Trump and his campaign.
According to a newly released transcript of Nellie Ohr’s closed-door Congressional testimony, Ohr – who speaks fluent Russian, explored relationships between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russian organized crime, according to Fox News.
“I was asked to research Trump’s family broadly in connection with any—any Russian connections,” Ohr stated, adding that she “did some research on all of them, but not in much depth.”
Ohr explained that she researched Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, specifically their “travels.”
She added that she was looking “to see whether they were involved in dealings and transactions with people who had suspicious pasts, or suspicious types of dealings.” –Fox News
Also interesting from the transcripts is that Nellie passed Bruce research she had done for Fusion GPS on a memory stick.
Nellie Ohr was also tasked with researching former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former campaign aide Carter Page, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn – who had relationships in both Russia and Turkey. Earlier this year the Daily Caller revealed portions of Ohr’s committee interview, but the transcript was only made available Thursday.
Ohr worked with Fusion GPS between October 2015 and September 2016. She also admitted during testimony that she favored Hillary Clinton as a candidate, and would have been less comfortable researching her Russia ties (P. 105).
In 2010, she represented the CIA’s “Open Source Works” group in a 2010 “expert working group report on international organized crime” along with Bruce Ohr and Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson.
Nellie Ohr, the wife of demoted DOJ official, Bruce Ohr, not only worked for Fusion GPS, but has also represented the CIA’s “Open Source Works” group. https://t.co/u5HPgJwvWd pic.twitter.com/ZPhAIzR6wv
— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) December 12, 2017
Ohr confirmed her work for the CIA during testimony.
Meanwhile, some have wondered if Nellie’s late-life attraction to Ham radios was in fact a method of covertly communicating with others about the Trump-Russia investigation, in a way which wouldn’t be surveilled by the NSA or other agencies.
was Nellie Ohr’s late-in-life foray into ham radio an effort to evade the Rogers-led NSA detecting her participation in compiling the Russian-sourced Steele dossier? Just as her husband’s omissions on his DOJ ethics forms raise an inference of improper motive, any competent prosecutor could use the circumstantial evidence of her taking up ham radio while digging for dirt on Trump to prove her consciousness of guilt and intention to conceal illegal activities. –The Federalist
Bruce Ohr was demoted twice after the DOJ’s Inspector General discovered that he lied about his involvement with Simpson – who employed dossier author and former British spy, Christopher Steele.
Last August, emails turned over to Congressional investigators revealed that Steele was much closer to the Obama administration than previously disclosed, and his DOJ contact Bruce Ohr reported directly to Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates – who approved at least one of the FISA warrants to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Steele and the Ohrs would have breakfast together on July 30, 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel in downtown Washington D.C., while Steele turned in installments of his infamous “dossier” on July 19 and 26. The breakfast also occurred one day before the FBI formally launched operation “Crossfire Hurricane,” the agency’s counterintelligence operation into the Trump campaign.
Bruce Ohr was a key contact inside the Justice Department for ex-British spy Christopher Steele, who authored the anti-Trump dossier, which was commissioned by Fusion GPS and funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through law firm Perkins Coie.
The FBI relied on much of Steele’s work to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against the Trump campaign—specifically Carter Page, redacted versions of the FISA warrants released last year revealed. –Fox News
On Monday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) announced that his panel would do a “deep dive” into the “other side” of the Trump-Russia investigation. He also called for the appointment of a new special counsel to look into abuse between the DOJ and Obama administration while investigating Donald Trump and his campaign.
On Wednesday, Trump vowed to release the full and unredacted FISA warrants and other documents that the FBI used to surveil his campaign and Page.
“I have plans to declassify and release. I have plans to absolutely release,” Trump said during a Tuesday night interview on Fox‘s “Hannity.”
“I have some very talented people working for me, lawyers, and they really didn’t want me to do it early on. … A lot of people wanted me to do it a long time ago. I’m glad I didn’t do it. We got a great result without having to do it, but we will. One of the reasons that my lawyers didn’t want me to do it, is they said, if I do it, they’ll call it a form of obstruction.”
“At the right time, we will be absolutely releasing.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Yvwqps Tyler Durden