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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Fri Feb 9, 2018, 12:13 PM Feb 2018

Former Obama official confirms Steele dossier was given to State

BY JONATHAN EASLEY - 02/09/18 11:01 AM EST

An official at former President Obama’s State Department has confirmed a claim made by Republicans that British spy Michael Steele and allies of Hillary Clinton gave him intelligence reports claiming that President Trump was compromised by the Russians.

In an op-ed for the Washington Post titled “Devin Nunes is investigating me: Here’s the Truth,” former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of State Jonathan Winer writes about how Steele and Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal approached him with separate dossiers claiming malfeasance between Trump and the Russians.

Winer’s op-ed confirms the chain of events Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) detailed in a criminal referral for Steele, in which he asks the Justice Department to investigate the British spy for allegedly lying to the FBI about his contacts with the media.

-snip-

In the op-ed, Winer states that Steele first approached him in September of 2016 with the infamous “dossier” about Trump. Winer distilled the dossier into a two-page summary that he shared with former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who notified then-secretary of State John Kerry.

Later that month, Winer said he met with Blumenthal, who he described as “an old friend.” They discussed the Steele report and Blumenthal showed Winer “notes” put together by another longtime Clinton operative, Cody Shearer, that “echoed” the claims made in the Steele dossier.

“What struck me was how some of the material echoed Steele’s but appeared to involve different sources,” Winer writes.

more
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/373131-former-obama-official-confirms-steele-dossier-was-given-to-state


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Former Obama official confirms Steele dossier was given to State (Original Post) DonViejo Feb 2018 OP
At the end - because the OP can't post the whole article underpants Feb 2018 #1
Talk about trying to muddy the waters..at the bottom of the Wash post op-ed asiliveandbreathe Feb 2018 #2
It's kind of the American thing to do. NCTraveler Feb 2018 #3

underpants

(182,868 posts)
1. At the end - because the OP can't post the whole article
Fri Feb 9, 2018, 12:22 PM
Feb 2018

Winer insists there was nothing improper about his meetings with Steele, who was separately providing State with reports on geopolitical developments about Russia and Ukraine while he was also working for the FBI and Fusion GPS, who contracted him to dig into Trump’s background on behalf of Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

“I am in no position to judge the accuracy of the information generated by Steele or Shearer,” Winer says. “But I was alarmed at Russia’s role in the 2016 election, and so were U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials. I believe all Americans should be alarmed — and united in the search for the truth about Russian interference in our democracy, and whether Trump and his campaign had any part in it.”

asiliveandbreathe

(8,203 posts)
2. Talk about trying to muddy the waters..at the bottom of the Wash post op-ed
Fri Feb 9, 2018, 12:39 PM
Feb 2018

is a report "trump allies seek to tie Kerry's state dept to the dossier".. cornered rats..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2018/01/23/trump-allies-seek-to-tie-kerrys-state-department-to-the-steele-dossier/?utm_term=.4fd704bd88ff

...snip....

Kerry’s State Department officials have already recounted this information to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Kerry himself talked to Senate investigators in the middle of last year.



Investigators will likely find that Kerry and his State Department are not connected to the dossier in any way that’s relevant to the Trump-Russia investigation.

But in the process, they are likely to succeed in sowing more confusion into the effort to get to the bottom of what Russia did in 2016.

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