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Christopher Steele's Dossier begins with these three sentences:
Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least five years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance.This idea -- that for several years, the Russian regime cultivated Trump in an effort to split the Western alliance -- was not new to Steele in June 2016. Steele had perceived Ukraine's 2010 election to be a political battle that Russia had won against the Western alliance. Russia had supported Viktor Yanukovych, who won that election for the position of Prime Minister, while the Western alliance had favored Yulia Tymoshenko, who was voted out of the office.
So far TRUMP has declined various real estate business deals offered him in Russia in order to further Russia's cultivation with him.
In 2011, the year after that election, Tymoshenko had filed a lawsuit in New York against Dmytro Firtash, a rich Ukrainian businessman who had supported Yanukovych. Steele had studied and summarized the documents that the lawsuit had made available. Those documents had convinced Steele that Firtash was stealing money from the Ukrainian natural-gas industry and was using the money to buy real estate in New York. Firtash intended to employ a New York real-estate company that was co-owned by Paul Manafort and Brad Zackson and that seemed to be associated with Fred Trump, the father of Donald Trump.
As Steele had studied Tymoshenko's lawsuit documents in 2011, he wondered why the pro-Russia Firtash was enabling the Trump family to profit from that international political battle in Ukraine. Steele figured that the pro-Russia alliance must be recruiting the Trump family as a new ally. Steele began to develop that idea in 2011.
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Steele was introduced to FBI official Michael Gaeta by Justice Department official Bruce Ohr in London in April 2010 (pages 10-11). Gaeta says that at that first meeting, Steele told him about (page 12) ...
... high-level criminal activities about these 'actors' .... very wealthy businessmen, organized crime members, politicians -- a real tight mix between all three of these groups.
During the following couple years (2010-2012?) , Steele and Gaeta met a couple more times in London and once in Washington DC (page 13).
In a later year, Gaeta made Steele a paid FBI source in relation to (page 15) ....
... a very large case for us -- the Bureau and Department of Justice -- a very successful matter in our eyes. At that stage in [year redacted], we had three or four cooperating witnesses that we had developed in [redacted] who had already agreed (everything under seal) to cooperate and plead guilty and forfeit significant amounts of money.
So, at that time, the [FBI] thinking was, it's probably right to open him [Steele] as a [paid] source, because we [DOJ/FBI] are to really start to develop this information that he [Steele] has provided.
I suppose that this "very large case" was the 2015 FIFA corruption case and that Gaeta made Steele a paid FBI source in the fall of 2015 (page 14, first full line). In that regard, I point out the following considerations:
In other words, the FBI made Steele a paid source in order to start a new investigation based on the FIFA investigation, which already was being concluded. I speculate that the new investigation focused on the consideration that the three or four cooperating witnesses in the FIFA case had operated in Trump Tower.Gaeta hired Steele as a paid source after the FBI already had "three or four cooperating witnesses" in its FIFA case.The FBI never charged any Russians or other former-Soviet-bloc culprits in its FIFA case.The FBI made Steele a paid source in order to really start to develop this information.
Chuck Blazer looked out the window of his $18,000-a-month Trump Tower apartment, with its view of New York's Central Park. Most tourists on Fifth Avenue below could only dream of his kind of high-rise life. But after years of lavish excess, he was no longer fixated on the trappings of his success. On this day, standing only in an adult diaper as a small team of FBI agents prepared to wire him with a recording device, Blazer just wanted to stay out of prison.
The native New Yorker hardly resembled his image as a statesman of soccer -- an infamous bon vivant who made so much money for the game's international governing body, FIFA, that he was hailed as its virtuoso deal maker. He dined often with sheikhs and heirs at the trendiest restaurants and attended society events with a rotating cast of striking companions. His personal travel blog pictured him with the likes of Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin and Miss Universe. At 400 pounds, with an unruly white beard and mane, he looked like Santa Claus, talked like a bricklayer and lived like a 1-percenter.
Blazer's big secret, as he looked down on the Manhattan streets, seems so obvious now: He had embezzled his fortune through kickbacks and bribes. And the people who would uncover the scam were with him today, in his apartment, about to dispatch him to take down FIFA.
Gaeta made Steele a paid source in order to investigate the possibility that Donald Trump was involved with Russian organized crime and Russian Intelligence. Perhaps the FIFA investigation served as a cover to justify the beginning of payments to Steele, already in the fall of 2015, for his actual, anti-Trump investigation.
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James Comey was particularly interested in a person named Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov (aka Tutakhanov). In the year 2002, Comey had indicted Tokhtakhounov for rigging the figure-skating contest, to benefit Russians, at the Olympic games in Salt Lake City.
In 2013, the year when Comey had become the FBI Director, Tokhtakhounov was indicted again -- this time for operating an international-gambling ring based in Trump Tower in New York City. That FBI investigation was managed by Michael Gaeta, then an official in the FBI's New York Field Office (NYFO).
Perhaps there is a relationship between
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At some point after 2013, Gaeta was transferred from the NYFO to the US Embassy in Rome, Italy. There, Gaeta supposedly worked for the FBI Legal Attaché (Legat), but Gaeta was quite insubordinate to the Legat. In 2016, Gaeta deceived the Legat about what he was doing with Dossier reports. The Legat thought that Gaeta was sending the reports to the FBI Counterintelligence Division.
Gaeta indeed was sending the reports to the Division Chief, but not through official channels. Rather, Gaeta was sending the reports to the Division Chief secretly. Through official channels, Gaeta was sending the reports to the NYFO, where they were kept by the Chief Division Counsel, who did nothing with them.
This bizarre arrangement concealed the fact that Gaeta was sending the Dossier reports directly to Bill Priestap, the Chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. There were no records that Gaeta sent any of Steele's Dossier reports to Priestap -- or that Priestap received them. Instead, there were records that Gaeta sent the reports to the NYFO, where they were received and kept by the Chief Division Counsel (who did nothing with them).
From this arrangement, I speculate that Gaeta's position working for the Legat was a cover for his real position -- working as Priestap's secret agent in Europe. This secret arrangement was known to FBI Director Comey. One of Gaeta's main assignments was to control Steele in Comey's effort to collect information about Trump's activities in Europe and, especially, in East Europe, Russia, and other former Communist countries.
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Continued in Part 8
In 2013, the year when Comey had become the FBI Director, Tokhtakhounov was indicted again -- this time for operating an international-gambling ring based in Trump Tower in New York City. That FBI investigation was managed by Michael Gaeta, then an official in the FBI's New York Field Office (NYFO).
Perhaps there is a relationship between
1) the appointment of Comey to be the FBI Director, andPerhaps that appointment caused the investigation. Or, perhaps the investigation caused the appointment. In the year 2012, Trump had claimed he had information that Barack Obama's birth certificate was a fraud. That trouble-making claim perhaps motivated the Obama Administration to cause some trouble for Trump.
2) the investigation of the international-gambling ring in Trump Tower
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At some point after 2013, Gaeta was transferred from the NYFO to the US Embassy in Rome, Italy. There, Gaeta supposedly worked for the FBI Legal Attaché (Legat), but Gaeta was quite insubordinate to the Legat. In 2016, Gaeta deceived the Legat about what he was doing with Dossier reports. The Legat thought that Gaeta was sending the reports to the FBI Counterintelligence Division.
Gaeta indeed was sending the reports to the Division Chief, but not through official channels. Rather, Gaeta was sending the reports to the Division Chief secretly. Through official channels, Gaeta was sending the reports to the NYFO, where they were kept by the Chief Division Counsel, who did nothing with them.
This bizarre arrangement concealed the fact that Gaeta was sending the Dossier reports directly to Bill Priestap, the Chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. There were no records that Gaeta sent any of Steele's Dossier reports to Priestap -- or that Priestap received them. Instead, there were records that Gaeta sent the reports to the NYFO, where they were received and kept by the Chief Division Counsel (who did nothing with them).
From this arrangement, I speculate that Gaeta's position working for the Legat was a cover for his real position -- working as Priestap's secret agent in Europe. This secret arrangement was known to FBI Director Comey. One of Gaeta's main assignments was to control Steele in Comey's effort to collect information about Trump's activities in Europe and, especially, in East Europe, Russia, and other former Communist countries.
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Continued in Part 8
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