Monday, April 20, 2020
The FBI's New York Field Office Interviewed Steele During June - August 2016
I have removed this article.
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Horowitz's Footnote 350 -- A Correction
This article corrects my earlier blog article Horowitz's Footnote 350.
In my previous article, I speculated that the footnote's redacted dates were a few days after the publication -- on January 6, 2017 -- of the Intelligence Community's joint assessment of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election. I speculated that President Obama requested an explanation for the NSA dissent from the CIA's and FBI's "high confidence" in the joint assessment that Russia had meddled. The NSA had expressed only "moderate conference".
I indicated that the dates on the footnote were redacted because the dates were so close following the joint assessment's publication. The dates thus provided a context for the public's understanding somewhat more about the NSA's dissent.
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Now, however, I think that the footnote's dates were redacted because they followed closely the inauguration of President Trump on January 20, 2017. I speculate that Trump had been advised by NSA Director Michael Rogers to read NSA's dissent to the joint assessment.
I speculate further that Trump read that dissent on Monday, January 23. When Trump did read it, he saw that his own lawyer Michael Cohen was accused of being an intermediary between his election campaign and the Kremlin. Therefore, Trump requested an elaboration about Cohen, and Trump subsequently read the NSA elaboration five days later, on Friday, January 27.
With those dates in mind, I revise my speculation about the footnote's total text as follows:
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When Horowitz's team was researching the FISA's history, the team obtained the documents dated January 23 and 27, 2017. The first such document, dated January 23, explained to President Trump that one reason for the NSA's dissent was that Christopher Steele apparently had fabricated the story about Cohen's visit to Prague. This fabrication discredited Steele severely in the NSA's assessment.
When Trump read that first document, he focused on the document's mention of Cohen, Trump's lawyer. Trump asked for more information about Cohen's involvement in this history. Five days later, the NSA provided the additional information that Cohen had denied visiting Prague and that the NSA had been able to confirm Cohen's denial.
Horowitz obtained these documents dated January 23 and 27, 2017, and used them as a basis for Footnote 350.
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I no longer think that the REDACTED expressions in sentences 5 and 6 necessarily refer to NSA assessments. Those expressions might refer to FBI or CIA reports.
In my previous article, I speculated that the footnote's redacted dates were a few days after the publication -- on January 6, 2017 -- of the Intelligence Community's joint assessment of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election. I speculated that President Obama requested an explanation for the NSA dissent from the CIA's and FBI's "high confidence" in the joint assessment that Russia had meddled. The NSA had expressed only "moderate conference".
I indicated that the dates on the footnote were redacted because the dates were so close following the joint assessment's publication. The dates thus provided a context for the public's understanding somewhat more about the NSA's dissent.
======
Now, however, I think that the footnote's dates were redacted because they followed closely the inauguration of President Trump on January 20, 2017. I speculate that Trump had been advised by NSA Director Michael Rogers to read NSA's dissent to the joint assessment.
I speculate further that Trump read that dissent on Monday, January 23. When Trump did read it, he saw that his own lawyer Michael Cohen was accused of being an intermediary between his election campaign and the Kremlin. Therefore, Trump requested an elaboration about Cohen, and Trump subsequently read the NSA elaboration five days later, on Friday, January 27.
With those dates in mind, I revise my speculation about the footnote's total text as follows:
Sentence 1Of course, the dates January 23 and 27 are merely notional. My fundamental idea here is that the dates were shortly after Trump's inauguration.
350 [S/NOFORN] In addition to the information in Steele's Delta file documenting Steele's frequent contacts with representatives for multiple Russian oligarchs, we identified reporting the Crossfire Hurricane team received from NSA's assessment indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele's election reporting.
Sentence 2
A January 23, 2017, report relayed information from NSA's assessment outlining an inaccuracy in a limited subset of Steele's reporting about the activities of Michael Cohen.
Sentence 3
The NSA assessment stated that it did not have high confidence in the subset of Steele's reporting and assessed that the referenced subset was part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.
Sentence 4
A second report from the same NSA assessment five days later [on January 27, 2017] stated that a person [i.e. Michael Cohen] named in the limited subset of Steele's reporting had denied representations in the reporting and the NSA Assessment assessed that the person's denials were truthful.
Sentence 5
A REDACTED report dated REDACTED 2017, contained information about an individual [Sergei Millian] with reported connections to Trump and Russia who claimed that the public reporting about the details of Trump's prostitute activities in Moscow during a trip in 2013 were false, and they were the product of RIS [Russian Intelligence Service] "infiltrat[ing] a source into the network" of a double-agent who compiled a dossier of information on Trump's activities.
Sentence 6
The REDACTED noted that it had no information indicating that the individual [Millian] had special access to RIS activities or information.
======
When Horowitz's team was researching the FISA's history, the team obtained the documents dated January 23 and 27, 2017. The first such document, dated January 23, explained to President Trump that one reason for the NSA's dissent was that Christopher Steele apparently had fabricated the story about Cohen's visit to Prague. This fabrication discredited Steele severely in the NSA's assessment.
When Trump read that first document, he focused on the document's mention of Cohen, Trump's lawyer. Trump asked for more information about Cohen's involvement in this history. Five days later, the NSA provided the additional information that Cohen had denied visiting Prague and that the NSA had been able to confirm Cohen's denial.
Horowitz obtained these documents dated January 23 and 27, 2017, and used them as a basis for Footnote 350.
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I no longer think that the REDACTED expressions in sentences 5 and 6 necessarily refer to NSA assessments. Those expressions might refer to FBI or CIA reports.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Horowitz's Footnote 350
When the Hororitz report was published, Footnote 350 (on page 195) was mostly classified.
A couple days ago, Footnote 350 was mostly declassified.
This footnote elaborates the Horowitz report's discussion of whether the Russian Intelligence Service (RIS) fed disinformation to Christopher Steele.
Below I have broken up the footnote's now declassified version into its sentences.
In my previous blog article titled The CIA's Concerns About Steele's Dossier, I summarized the Dossier's story about Cohen as follows.
I argued in that previous blog article that the CIA must have recognized quickly that this Cohen story in Steele's Dossier was false. The CIA employed a secret informant -- Oleg Smolenkov -- who worked on the PA's periphery and who purported to know much about the PA's secret activities to help Donald Trump win the USA's 2016 Presidential election. Despite Smolenkov's position and purported knowledge, Smolenkov did not know anything about this Cohen's meeting in Prague.
Steele thought that Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen had visited Prague, because the National Security Agency's databases contained details that another Michael Cohen (not Trump's lawyer) had visited Prague. Somehow, someone who could access the NSA's databases fed some such details to Steele, who then wrote some such details into his Dossier.
This story about Trump's lawyer Cohen visiting Prague was a significant mistake committed by Steele and by the people who fed Steele information from the NSA databases. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's gang of Trump-hating lawyers was compelled to report to the public that Trump's lawyer Cohen had not visited Prague. Of course, Mueller's gang did not explain to the public that Steele's information the other Michael Cohen's Prague trip had originated in the NSA's databases.
Certainly, the NSA figured out this mistake. The NSA found in its own database that another Michael Cohen (not Trump's lawyer) had visited Prague at the same time as the meeting reported mistakenly by Steele.
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The NSA's understanding of this mistake was a major reason why the NSA's assessment of alleged Russian meddling in the USA's 2016 election differed significantly from the CIA's and FBI's assessments. The Intelligence Community's joint report titled Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections, published on January 6, 2017, stated the assessments as follows (Page 1; emphasis added):
Now let's review the footnote's third sentence (emphasis added):
In general, the NSA is concealed by the footnote's REDACTED expressions that apparently refer to an agency or a report.
Furthermore, I think that the REDACTED expressions that apparently refer to a 2017 date are date a few days after January 6, 2017, the date when the Intelligence Community's joint report was published. The redacted date was something like January 9, 2017 -- when the NSA explained to the US President its objections to the CIA's and FBI's "high confidence".
Horowitz based much of his Footnote 350 on the NSA's dissent against that "high confidence".
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Based on the above reasoning, I speculate that the completely declassified Footnote reads something like this:
In another previous blog article titled Simpson and Steele wanted the FBI to investigate Millian I speculated that Millian was called a double-agent:
Now we know, however, from the recent partial declassification of Footnote 302 that Millian is called variously a KGB/SVR officer or a Russian Intelligence Service officer.
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A couple days ago, Footnote 350 was mostly declassified.
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This footnote elaborates the Horowitz report's discussion of whether the Russian Intelligence Service (RIS) fed disinformation to Christopher Steele.
Below I have broken up the footnote's now declassified version into its sentences.
Sentence 1My analysis begins with Sentence 2. The "limited subset of Steele's reporting about the activities of Michael Cohen" is within the Dossier's following reports, which mention or refer to Cohen.
350 REDACTED In addition to the information in Steele's Delta file documenting Steele's frequent contacts with representatives for multiple Russian oligarchs, we identified reporting the Crossfire Hurricane team received from REDACTED indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele's election reporting.
Sentence 2
A REDACTED 2017, report relayed information from REDACTED outlining an inaccuracy in a limited subset of Steele's reporting about the activities of Michael Cohen.
Sentence 3
The REDACTED stated that it did not have high confidence in the subset of Steele's reporting and assessed that the referenced subset was part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.
Sentence 4
A second report from the same REDACTED five days later stated that a person named in the limited subset of Steele's reporting had denied representations in the reporting and the REDACTED assessed that the person's denials were truthful.
Sentence 5
A REDACTED report dated REDACTED 2017, contained information about an individual with reported connections to Trump and Russia who claimed that the public reporting about the details of Trump's REDACTED activities in Moscow during a trip in 2013 were false, and they were the product of RIS [Russian Intelligence Service] "infiltrat[ing] a source into the network" of a REDACTED who compiled a dossier of information on Trump's activities.
Sentence 6
The REDACTED noted that it had no information indicating that the individual had special access to RIS activities or information.
Report 134, dated October 18, 2016=======
Report 135, dated October 19, 2016
Report 136, dated October 20, 2016
Report 166, dated December 13, 2016
In my previous blog article titled The CIA's Concerns About Steele's Dossier, I summarized the Dossier's story about Cohen as follows.
After Paul Manafort was deposed as Trump's campaign manager on August 19, 2016, Trump's lawyer Cohen replaced Manafort as the "secret liaison" between the campaign staff and "the Russian leadership". In the last week of August or the first week of September, Cohen (accompanied by three colleagues) traveled to Prague, where he met with several lawyers employed in the Legal Department of the Kremlin's Presidential Administration (PA). One of the PA lawyers was Oleg Solodukhin. The issues that Cohen and the PA lawyers discussed included the following:======
Steps would be taken to prevent revelations about the previous liaison activities of Page and Paul Manafort.
The people who had hacked Democrats' computers or had done other jobs would be paid secretly.
The computer hackers would go into hiding for a while.
Cohen's future contacts would not be with the PA officials, but rather with "trusted agents of influence working in pro-government policy institutes like that of Law and Comparative Jurisprudence".
I argued in that previous blog article that the CIA must have recognized quickly that this Cohen story in Steele's Dossier was false. The CIA employed a secret informant -- Oleg Smolenkov -- who worked on the PA's periphery and who purported to know much about the PA's secret activities to help Donald Trump win the USA's 2016 Presidential election. Despite Smolenkov's position and purported knowledge, Smolenkov did not know anything about this Cohen's meeting in Prague.
Steele thought that Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen had visited Prague, because the National Security Agency's databases contained details that another Michael Cohen (not Trump's lawyer) had visited Prague. Somehow, someone who could access the NSA's databases fed some such details to Steele, who then wrote some such details into his Dossier.
This story about Trump's lawyer Cohen visiting Prague was a significant mistake committed by Steele and by the people who fed Steele information from the NSA databases. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's gang of Trump-hating lawyers was compelled to report to the public that Trump's lawyer Cohen had not visited Prague. Of course, Mueller's gang did not explain to the public that Steele's information the other Michael Cohen's Prague trip had originated in the NSA's databases.
Certainly, the NSA figured out this mistake. The NSA found in its own database that another Michael Cohen (not Trump's lawyer) had visited Prague at the same time as the meeting reported mistakenly by Steele.
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The NSA's understanding of this mistake was a major reason why the NSA's assessment of alleged Russian meddling in the USA's 2016 election differed significantly from the CIA's and FBI's assessments. The Intelligence Community's joint report titled Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections, published on January 6, 2017, stated the assessments as follows (Page 1; emphasis added):
We [CIA, FBI and NSA] also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.======
Now let's review the footnote's third sentence (emphasis added):
The REDACTED stated that it did not have high confidence in the subset of Steele's reporting and assessed that the referenced subset was part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.I think that the REDACTED expression at the beginning of this third sentence refers to the NSA. Perhaps the redacted expression is something like NSA Assessment or NSA Dissent. The footnote summarizes some NSA assessment that explained to the CIA and FBI why the NSA did not share those two agencies' high confidence.
In general, the NSA is concealed by the footnote's REDACTED expressions that apparently refer to an agency or a report.
Furthermore, I think that the REDACTED expressions that apparently refer to a 2017 date are date a few days after January 6, 2017, the date when the Intelligence Community's joint report was published. The redacted date was something like January 9, 2017 -- when the NSA explained to the US President its objections to the CIA's and FBI's "high confidence".
Horowitz based much of his Footnote 350 on the NSA's dissent against that "high confidence".
======
Based on the above reasoning, I speculate that the completely declassified Footnote reads something like this:
Sentence 1=======
350 [S/NOFORN] In addition to the information in Steele's Delta file documenting Steele's frequent contacts with representatives for multiple Russian oligarchs, we identified reporting the Crossfire Hurricane team received from NSA's assessment indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele's election reporting.
Sentence 2
A January 9, 2017, report relayed information from NSA's assessment outlining an inaccuracy in a limited subset of Steele's reporting about the activities of Michael Cohen.
Sentence 3
The NSA assessment stated that it did not have high confidence in the subset of Steele's reporting and assessed that the referenced subset was part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.
Sentence 4
A second report from the same NSA assessment five days later [on January 14, 2017] stated that a person [i.e. Michael Cohen] named in the limited subset of Steele's reporting had denied representations in the reporting and the NSA Assessment assessed that the person's denials were truthful.
Sentence 5
A NSA assessment report dated January 9, 2017, contained information about an individual with reported connections to Trump and Russia who claimed that the public reporting about the details of Trump's prostitute activities in Moscow during a trip in 2013 were false, and they were the product of RIS [Russian Intelligence Service] "infiltrat[ing] a source into the network" of a double-agent who compiled a dossier of information on Trump's activities.
Sentence 6
The NSA assessment noted that it had no information indicating that the individual had special access to RIS activities or information.
In another previous blog article titled Simpson and Steele wanted the FBI to investigate Millian I speculated that Millian was called a double-agent:
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Saturday, February 22, 2020
Events Leading to the Tipping Point
The Horowitz report says (page 53) that a report about a conversation between Alexander Downer and George Papadopoulos was a "tipping point" for the FBI to open the counterintelligence the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. FBI Headquarters received the report on Thursday, July 28, 2016, and opened the investigation on Sunday, July 31.
The report had been written more than two months previously, in May 2016 (the Horowitz report does not specify the date). Downer, the Australian Government's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, had invited Papadopoulos, a foreign-policy advisor on Donald Trump's campaign staff, to a conversation in a London bar. Downer secretly recorded the conversation. After Downer and Papadopoulos parted, Downer (I think) gave the recording device to a subordinate, who wrote a summary of the conversation. The conversation was not transcribed, because it did not seem sufficiently important.
However, on Friday, July 22, Wikileaks released to the public many hacked e-mails from the computer server of the Democratic National Committee. This release caused a panic among Hillary Clinton's supporters, including Downer. The Democratic Party's convention was about to take place during July 25-28, and many of the released e-mails indicated that the DNC had treated Clinton preferentially over her main rival, Bernie Sanders. The e-mails surely would cause trouble for Clinton during the convention. Future e-mails might cause Clinton more trouble also during the general election race.
Clinton's supporters strove to portray Wikileaks as a tool of Russian Intelligence, which allegedly had hacked the DNC server and was trying to cause political trouble for Clinton.
In these circumstances, on about Monday, July 25, Downer brought the written summary of the May conversation to the CIA's Chief of Station, Gina Haspel, in her London office. Downer told Haspel that the summary might be useful to Clinton's supporters in the US Intelligence Community.
From one perspective, Downer was acting on behalf of the Australian Government, because he was, after all, Australia's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. He did not, however, take this summary report to Haspel with the approval or even knowledge of the Australian Government. A more correct perspective on Downer' action was that he was acting as an informant to the CIA's official Haspel. Perhaps Haspel was even the CIA case officer for Haspel.
=======
The summary of the Downer-Papadopoulos conversation that Haspel received in her office on that day was vague. The public has received only a brief passage, quoted in the Horowitz report, and that passage is vague.
The public does not know who wrote the summary of the conversation, and the public does not know whether Downer edited, annotated or rewrote the summary before he gave it to Haspel.
The entire passage in the Horowitz report says:
* Or were those words an interpretive commentary that Downer himself added during the weekend before he brought the summary to Haspel?
I think the second possibility is more likely.
In either case the above passage was part of the summary that Downer gave to Haspel in her London office a few days after Wikileaks released the DNC e-mails.
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Exactly how was the summary supposed to be useful to Haspel or to her further fellows?
We can assume that the passage in the Horowitz report is the most incriminating part of the summary. However, this passage mentions merely some "suggestions" and "unclear references" that "could have little bearing".
The most apparent usefulness of the summary might have been to cause another interview of Papadopoulos in order to clarify his actual knowledge.
Another apparent usefulness might have been to justify a belated transcript of the recording of the actual conversation. Surely the recording still existed.
However, the subsequent events indicate that no urgent effort was made to re-interview Papadopoulos or to transcribe the recording.
The only practical usefulness of the summary was that it might justify an energetic US Government investigation of the "Trump team" in relation to Russia and the hacked e-mails.
=======
I have been basing my understanding of the events on the account in the Horowitz report, pages 51 - 52. Some words are redacted, and I have guessed [in brackets] the senses of the redacted words .
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An objective reader of the summary would perceive that Papadopoulos was talking hypothetically in a meandering, intoxicated conversation in which Downer was asking lots of provocative and leading questions. The passage in the Horowitz report surely is the most incriminating passage, and it says merely:
Because the Downer-Papadopoulos conversation was so obviously unimportant and useless in May 2016, the recording was merely summarized and then filed in May 2016.
The conversation suddenly became important and useful after July 22, because Clinton's supporters urgently needed to justify an enormous investigation of the Trump campaign's possible knowledge of future Wikileaks releases of hacked e-mails that might cause political trouble for Clinton.
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The now official story is that the US Government -- in particular, Haspel -- did not know about the May Downer-Papadopoulos conversation until Downer provided the summary to Haspel on about July 25, 2016.
However, that story might be misleading. If Downer indeed was an informant to CIA officer Haspel -- if she was even his case officer -- then Downer might have informed Haspel about his conversation with Papadopoulos soon after the conversation happened in May. Furthermore, Haspel might even have tasked Downer to interview Papadopoulos.
If Haspel did know about the Downer-Haspel conversation already in May, then she herself might have recognized belatedly its possible usefulness to the US Intelligence Community as a justification for an investigation. In other words, Haspel's meeting with Downer on about July 25 might have happened not at the initiative of Downer, but rather at the initiative of Haspel.
Perhaps Haspel contacted Downer and asked him to bring to her office any summary of that May conversation. Furthermore, Haspel might have asked Downer to annotate the summary belatedly for her own purposes.
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Although Downer, Haspel and much of the US Intelligence Community's elite were in a hysterical panic about the Wikileaks releases of hacked e-mails, many ordinary people approved of Wikileaks' actions. Many people felt that the public should be informed about the DNC's preferential treatment of Clinton over Sanders. Many people felt that Wikileaks had released the e-mails for the common good of the USA's electorate.
The US Intelligence Community's elite was terrified that Clinton might lose the election. For all those hysterics, the summary of the Downer-Papadopoulos conversation was a huge, crucial matter -- because the election of Clinton was a huge, crucial matter.
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Of course, Haspel surely sent a copy of Downer's summary to CIA Headquarters -- more specifically, to CIA Director John Brennan.
However, Downer's summary involved some potential problems for the CIA.
* Did Downer act on behalf of the Australian Government when he interviewed Papadopoulos and subsequently provided a summary of that conversation to the CIA's London Chief of Station?
* Was the CIA allowed to collect such information about Papadopoulos, a US citizen?
Because of such potential problems, the summary had to be given to the FBI legal attache (Legat) in London. Haspel would invite the Legat into her London office, tell him that she had obtained the summary incidentally, tell him that the summary seemed to be a matter for the FBI, and give the Legat the impression that the CIA would take no further action with the summary.
On Tuesday, July 26, the Legat came to Haspel's office in London, talked with her about the situation, received the summary from Haspel, and went back to his own London office.
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Haspel foresaw that the Legat would go back to his office and write a cover letter to accompany the Downer summary that would be sent to FBI Headquarters. Haspel (I think) worried that the Legat's cover letter might screw this crucial situation up. Perhaps the Legat's cover letter might say something that was mistaken, too insightful or otherwise troublesome.
Therefore, Haspel had invited a second FBI official to attend the meeting in her London office on July 26. Haspel had invited the FBI's London-based Assistant Legal Attache (ALAT) for Counterintelligence. This ALAT participated in the conversation between Haspel and the Legat.
Then the Legat and the ALAT left Haspel's office and talked between themselves. Evidently, the ALAT told the Legat that this matter might be extremely important, and so the Legat should be extra careful to not make any mistakes. For example, the Legat should not assign a mistaken case number to the matter and should send the summary to the correct section at FBI Headquarters.
Further, the ALAT recommended to the Legat that the Legat consult with the ALAT's London predecessor, who now was stationed at the Philadelphia Field Office as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC). Following the insistent urging of his London ALAT colleague, the Legat immediately called the ASAC in Philadelphia and consulted with him. Subsequently, after the Legat wrote his cover letter, he sent his cover letter and the Downer summary to the Philadelphia ASAC, who then forwarded them to the FBI Headquarters in Washington DC.
When the Legat's cover letter reached FBI Headquarters, the cover letter no longer could be changed. The cover letter's detour through the Philadelphia ASAC enabled any problems in the cover letter to be caught and fixed before the cover letter reached FBI Headquarters.
The report had been written more than two months previously, in May 2016 (the Horowitz report does not specify the date). Downer, the Australian Government's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, had invited Papadopoulos, a foreign-policy advisor on Donald Trump's campaign staff, to a conversation in a London bar. Downer secretly recorded the conversation. After Downer and Papadopoulos parted, Downer (I think) gave the recording device to a subordinate, who wrote a summary of the conversation. The conversation was not transcribed, because it did not seem sufficiently important.
However, on Friday, July 22, Wikileaks released to the public many hacked e-mails from the computer server of the Democratic National Committee. This release caused a panic among Hillary Clinton's supporters, including Downer. The Democratic Party's convention was about to take place during July 25-28, and many of the released e-mails indicated that the DNC had treated Clinton preferentially over her main rival, Bernie Sanders. The e-mails surely would cause trouble for Clinton during the convention. Future e-mails might cause Clinton more trouble also during the general election race.
Clinton's supporters strove to portray Wikileaks as a tool of Russian Intelligence, which allegedly had hacked the DNC server and was trying to cause political trouble for Clinton.
In these circumstances, on about Monday, July 25, Downer brought the written summary of the May conversation to the CIA's Chief of Station, Gina Haspel, in her London office. Downer told Haspel that the summary might be useful to Clinton's supporters in the US Intelligence Community.
From one perspective, Downer was acting on behalf of the Australian Government, because he was, after all, Australia's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. He did not, however, take this summary report to Haspel with the approval or even knowledge of the Australian Government. A more correct perspective on Downer' action was that he was acting as an informant to the CIA's official Haspel. Perhaps Haspel was even the CIA case officer for Haspel.
=======
The summary of the Downer-Papadopoulos conversation that Haspel received in her office on that day was vague. The public has received only a brief passage, quoted in the Horowitz report, and that passage is vague.
The public does not know who wrote the summary of the conversation, and the public does not know whether Downer edited, annotated or rewrote the summary before he gave it to Haspel.
The entire passage in the Horowitz report says:
[Papadopoulos] suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton (and President Obama).* Were those words written by Downer's subordinate who summarized the recording for Downer in May?
It was unclear whether he [Papadopoulos] or the Russians were referring to material acquired publicly or through other means. It was also unclear how Mr. Trump's team reacted to the offer. We note the Trump team's reaction could, in the end, have little bearing of what Russia decides to do, with or without Mr. Trump's cooperation.
* Or were those words an interpretive commentary that Downer himself added during the weekend before he brought the summary to Haspel?
I think the second possibility is more likely.
In either case the above passage was part of the summary that Downer gave to Haspel in her London office a few days after Wikileaks released the DNC e-mails.
=======
Exactly how was the summary supposed to be useful to Haspel or to her further fellows?
We can assume that the passage in the Horowitz report is the most incriminating part of the summary. However, this passage mentions merely some "suggestions" and "unclear references" that "could have little bearing".
The most apparent usefulness of the summary might have been to cause another interview of Papadopoulos in order to clarify his actual knowledge.
Another apparent usefulness might have been to justify a belated transcript of the recording of the actual conversation. Surely the recording still existed.
However, the subsequent events indicate that no urgent effort was made to re-interview Papadopoulos or to transcribe the recording.
The only practical usefulness of the summary was that it might justify an energetic US Government investigation of the "Trump team" in relation to Russia and the hacked e-mails.
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I have been basing my understanding of the events on the account in the Horowitz report, pages 51 - 52. Some words are redacted, and I have guessed [in brackets] the senses of the redacted words .
[Paul] Manafort joined the Trump campaign in March 2016 as the campaign convention manager.Pay attention here to my understanding that Downer had surreptitiously recorded his conversation with Papadopoulos, but then only a summary -- not a transcript -- of the recorded conversation had been done, by some subordinate of Downer. The summary had been annotated -- already in May or perhaps much lster in July -- with a few interpretive remarks (e.g. "It was unclear whether he or the Russians were referring ... ").
In the weeks that followed, [George] Papadopoulos met with officials of an FFG [Friendly Foreign Government -- Australia] in a European city [London] that had arranged several meetings in May 2016 to engage with members of the Trump campaign. During one of these meetings, Papadopoulos reportedly "suggested" to an FFG official [Alexander Downer, an Australian] that the Trump campaign "received some kind of a suggestion from Russia" that it could assist the campaign by anonymously releasing derogatory information about presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. However, the FFG [the Australian Government] did not provide information about Papadopoulos's statements to the U.S. government at that time [in May 2016].
On July 26, 2016, four days after Wikileaks publicly released hacked emails from the DNC, the FFG official [Downer] spoke with a U.S. government (USG) official [CIA Station Chief Gina Haspel] in the European city [London] about an "urgent matter" that required an in-person meeting. At the meeting, the FFG official [Downer] informed the USG official [Haspel] of the [May 2016] meeting with Papadopoulos.
The FFG official [Downer] also provided REDACTED [surreptitiously recorded] information from REDACTED [cooperating] FFG officials REDACTED [summarized] following the May 2016 meeting (hereinafter referred to as the FFG information). REDACTED [The summary of the recording] stated, in part, that Papadopoulos
suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton (and President Obama).On [Wednesday] July 27, 2016, the USG official [Haspel] called the FBI's Legal Attache (Legat) and REDACTED [Assistant Legal Attache for Counterintelligence] in the European city [London] to HER [Haspel's] office and provided them with the FFG information.
It was unclear whether he [Papadopoulos] or the Russians were referring to material acquired publicly or through other means. It was also unclear how Mr. Trump's team reacted to the offer. We note the Trump team's reaction could, in the end, have little bearing of what Russia decides to do, with or without Mr. Trump's cooperation.
The Legat told us he was not provided any other information about the meetings between the FFG and Papadopoulos. The Legat also told us that he did not know under what FBI case number the FFG information should be documented and transmitted.
At the recommendation of the European city [London] Assistant Legal Attache (ALAT) for Counterintelligence, the [London] Legat contacted a former ALAT who at the time was an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) in the FBI's Philadelphia Field Office. The [Philadelphia] ASAC told the [London] Legat that he believed the FFG [Australian] information was related to the hack of DNC emails and identified a case number for that investigation for the Legat to use to transmit the information.
The following day, on [Thursday] July 28, 2016, the Legat sent an EC [electronic communication] documenting the FFG information to the Philadelphia Field Office ASAC.
The same day [Thursday, July 28], the information in the EC was emailed to the Section Chief of the Cyber Counterintelligence Coordination Section at FBI Headquarters.
From [Thursday] July 28 to [Sunday] July 31, officials at FBI Headquarters discussed the FFG information and whether it warranted opening a counterintelligence investigation.
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An objective reader of the summary would perceive that Papadopoulos was talking hypothetically in a meandering, intoxicated conversation in which Downer was asking lots of provocative and leading questions. The passage in the Horowitz report surely is the most incriminating passage, and it says merely:
{Papadopouls] suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton (and President Obama).In the first line above, what does the word suggested really mean? The word does not necessarily mean that Papadopoulos actually uttered some certainty that the Trump team actually had received "some kind of suggestion".
It was unclear whether he [Papadopoulos] or the Russians were referring to material acquired publicly or through other means. It was also unclear how Mr. Trump's team reacted to the offer. We note the Trump team's reaction could, in the end, have little bearing of what Russia decides to do, with or without Mr. Trump's cooperation.
Because the Downer-Papadopoulos conversation was so obviously unimportant and useless in May 2016, the recording was merely summarized and then filed in May 2016.
The conversation suddenly became important and useful after July 22, because Clinton's supporters urgently needed to justify an enormous investigation of the Trump campaign's possible knowledge of future Wikileaks releases of hacked e-mails that might cause political trouble for Clinton.
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The now official story is that the US Government -- in particular, Haspel -- did not know about the May Downer-Papadopoulos conversation until Downer provided the summary to Haspel on about July 25, 2016.
However, that story might be misleading. If Downer indeed was an informant to CIA officer Haspel -- if she was even his case officer -- then Downer might have informed Haspel about his conversation with Papadopoulos soon after the conversation happened in May. Furthermore, Haspel might even have tasked Downer to interview Papadopoulos.
If Haspel did know about the Downer-Haspel conversation already in May, then she herself might have recognized belatedly its possible usefulness to the US Intelligence Community as a justification for an investigation. In other words, Haspel's meeting with Downer on about July 25 might have happened not at the initiative of Downer, but rather at the initiative of Haspel.
Perhaps Haspel contacted Downer and asked him to bring to her office any summary of that May conversation. Furthermore, Haspel might have asked Downer to annotate the summary belatedly for her own purposes.
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Although Downer, Haspel and much of the US Intelligence Community's elite were in a hysterical panic about the Wikileaks releases of hacked e-mails, many ordinary people approved of Wikileaks' actions. Many people felt that the public should be informed about the DNC's preferential treatment of Clinton over Sanders. Many people felt that Wikileaks had released the e-mails for the common good of the USA's electorate.
The US Intelligence Community's elite was terrified that Clinton might lose the election. For all those hysterics, the summary of the Downer-Papadopoulos conversation was a huge, crucial matter -- because the election of Clinton was a huge, crucial matter.
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Of course, Haspel surely sent a copy of Downer's summary to CIA Headquarters -- more specifically, to CIA Director John Brennan.
However, Downer's summary involved some potential problems for the CIA.
* Did Downer act on behalf of the Australian Government when he interviewed Papadopoulos and subsequently provided a summary of that conversation to the CIA's London Chief of Station?
* Was the CIA allowed to collect such information about Papadopoulos, a US citizen?
Because of such potential problems, the summary had to be given to the FBI legal attache (Legat) in London. Haspel would invite the Legat into her London office, tell him that she had obtained the summary incidentally, tell him that the summary seemed to be a matter for the FBI, and give the Legat the impression that the CIA would take no further action with the summary.
On Tuesday, July 26, the Legat came to Haspel's office in London, talked with her about the situation, received the summary from Haspel, and went back to his own London office.
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Haspel foresaw that the Legat would go back to his office and write a cover letter to accompany the Downer summary that would be sent to FBI Headquarters. Haspel (I think) worried that the Legat's cover letter might screw this crucial situation up. Perhaps the Legat's cover letter might say something that was mistaken, too insightful or otherwise troublesome.
Therefore, Haspel had invited a second FBI official to attend the meeting in her London office on July 26. Haspel had invited the FBI's London-based Assistant Legal Attache (ALAT) for Counterintelligence. This ALAT participated in the conversation between Haspel and the Legat.
Then the Legat and the ALAT left Haspel's office and talked between themselves. Evidently, the ALAT told the Legat that this matter might be extremely important, and so the Legat should be extra careful to not make any mistakes. For example, the Legat should not assign a mistaken case number to the matter and should send the summary to the correct section at FBI Headquarters.
Further, the ALAT recommended to the Legat that the Legat consult with the ALAT's London predecessor, who now was stationed at the Philadelphia Field Office as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC). Following the insistent urging of his London ALAT colleague, the Legat immediately called the ASAC in Philadelphia and consulted with him. Subsequently, after the Legat wrote his cover letter, he sent his cover letter and the Downer summary to the Philadelphia ASAC, who then forwarded them to the FBI Headquarters in Washington DC.
When the Legat's cover letter reached FBI Headquarters, the cover letter no longer could be changed. The cover letter's detour through the Philadelphia ASAC enabled any problems in the cover letter to be caught and fixed before the cover letter reached FBI Headquarters.
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Simpson and Steele wanted the FBI to investigate Millian
Glenn Simpson, the owner of the Fusion GPS company, hired Christopher Steele to write a dossier about Donald Trump's nefarious interactions with Russians. Steele supposedly employed a network of informants to collect relevant information.
Steele employed a particular person who is called "Primary Sub-Source" in the Horowitz report. In my article here, I will call this person "PPS". This person is known to and has been interviewed by the FBI, but his identity is not known to the public.
PPS employed a network of informants, one of whom is called "Person 1" in the Horowitz report. Steele has not named this person to the FBI, but he provided hints that enabled the FBI to identify him as Sergei Millian. An example of such a hint is that Steele mentioned that this person controlled a Russian-American organization in the USA, while Millian had founded The Russian American Chamber of Commerce in the USA. Although the Horowitz report does not name Millian as Person 1, Millian has been identified as Person 1 in the press. In my article here, I will treat Millian as being Person 1.
It seems from the Horowitz report that Millian began to provide information to PPS in mid-June 2016. PPS forwarded Millian's information to Steele, who then used Millian's information to write three Dossier reports:
On August 22, Simpson sent an e-mail to Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr to arrange a meeting later that day. At their subsequent meeting, Simpson told Ohr that Millian was "a potential intermediary between Russia and Donald Trump's campaign staff" (Horowitz page 274). Simpson did not mention to Ohr that Millian was a source of information for three of Steele's Dossier reports.
I speculate that a redacted passage in the Horowitz report mentioned that Simpson called Millian "a double agent" (page 164, Footnote 302) . This footnote refers to the Horowitz report's discussion of an FBI counterintelligence investigation of Millian.
Steele did not write any Dossier reports based on Millian's information after the report dated August 10, 2016. I assume the reason was Steele's growing distrust of Millian.
In early October 2016, the FBI interviewed Steele in Rome in order to identify people in Steele's supposed network of informants. During that interview, Steele generally refused to identify his network's members but did provide the hints that enabled the FBI to identify Person 1 -- the source of information for those three particular Dossier reports -- as Millian.
Also at this Rome meeting, Steele characterized Millian to the FBI as being "a boaster and egotist and may engage in some embellishment". In other words, Steele essentially disavowed the reliability of the three Dossier reports that were based on Millian's information.
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To recapitulate, it seems that Simpson and Steele decided to disassociate themselves from Millian sometime between August 10 (the date of the third Dossier report based on Millian's information) and August 22 (the date when Simpson advised Ohr that Millian was a potential intermediary between Russia and the Trump campaign staff). Subsequently, Simpson and Steele suggested to the FBI that Millian's relationship to Russian Intelligence should be investigated.
I speculate that this disassociation from Millian was related to Millian's developing relationship with George Papadopoulos. On July 22, 2016, Millian contacted Papadopoulos via LinkedIn. During the following months, Millian and Papadopoulos exchanged e-mails and met in person. During these communications, Millian lured Papadopoulos with promises of lucrative consulting contracts. The Washington Post described those communications as follows:
Who was going to pay the $30,000 a month to Papadopoulos? Keep in mind that Steele's Dossier does not provide any information about Papadopoulos.
Why would any Russians pay $30,000 to Papadopoulos in this situation? Perhaps some Russians intended to control or to discredit Papadopoulos because of his activities in petroleum issues of the eastern Mediterranean region.
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The Washington Post has reported:
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The FBI did establish a counterintelligence investigation of Millian, but the Horowitz report (page 164) obfuscates the chronology:
On that date, several top FBI officials -- including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page -- met to discuss concerns about the prudence of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation that had been raised by Stuart Evans, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General (Horowitz pages 139-144). During that meeting, those top officials should have taken into effective account -- but did not do so -- that Steele's key informant Millian was officially suspected of working for Russian Intelligence.
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Simpson and Steele decided to disassociate themselves from Millian between August 10 and August 22, 2016. One factor in this decision might be that Steele obtained another informant, who supposedly described actions within the Kremlin's Presidential Administration related to Trump's election campaign. The Dossier reports that explicitly named the Presidential Administration were the following:
Steele employed a particular person who is called "Primary Sub-Source" in the Horowitz report. In my article here, I will call this person "PPS". This person is known to and has been interviewed by the FBI, but his identity is not known to the public.
PPS employed a network of informants, one of whom is called "Person 1" in the Horowitz report. Steele has not named this person to the FBI, but he provided hints that enabled the FBI to identify him as Sergei Millian. An example of such a hint is that Steele mentioned that this person controlled a Russian-American organization in the USA, while Millian had founded The Russian American Chamber of Commerce in the USA. Although the Horowitz report does not name Millian as Person 1, Millian has been identified as Person 1 in the press. In my article here, I will treat Millian as being Person 1.
It seems from the Horowitz report that Millian began to provide information to PPS in mid-June 2016. PPS forwarded Millian's information to Steele, who then used Millian's information to write three Dossier reports:
* Report 80, dated June 20, 2016Shortly after Steele wrote the August report (dated August 10, 2016), he and Simpson apparently came to an opinion that Millian was a double-agent, working in part for Russian Intelligence. Subsequently, both Simpson and Steele suggested that the FBI should investigate whether Millian's worked for Russian Intelligence.
* Report 95, which is undated but apparently was written in late July 2016.
* Report 102, dated August 10, 2016
On August 22, Simpson sent an e-mail to Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr to arrange a meeting later that day. At their subsequent meeting, Simpson told Ohr that Millian was "a potential intermediary between Russia and Donald Trump's campaign staff" (Horowitz page 274). Simpson did not mention to Ohr that Millian was a source of information for three of Steele's Dossier reports.
I speculate that a redacted passage in the Horowitz report mentioned that Simpson called Millian "a double agent" (page 164, Footnote 302) . This footnote refers to the Horowitz report's discussion of an FBI counterintelligence investigation of Millian.
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| I speculate that Simpson called Millian "a double agent". (Click on the image to enlarge it.) |
In early October 2016, the FBI interviewed Steele in Rome in order to identify people in Steele's supposed network of informants. During that interview, Steele generally refused to identify his network's members but did provide the hints that enabled the FBI to identify Person 1 -- the source of information for those three particular Dossier reports -- as Millian.
Also at this Rome meeting, Steele characterized Millian to the FBI as being "a boaster and egotist and may engage in some embellishment". In other words, Steele essentially disavowed the reliability of the three Dossier reports that were based on Millian's information.
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To recapitulate, it seems that Simpson and Steele decided to disassociate themselves from Millian sometime between August 10 (the date of the third Dossier report based on Millian's information) and August 22 (the date when Simpson advised Ohr that Millian was a potential intermediary between Russia and the Trump campaign staff). Subsequently, Simpson and Steele suggested to the FBI that Millian's relationship to Russian Intelligence should be investigated.
I speculate that this disassociation from Millian was related to Millian's developing relationship with George Papadopoulos. On July 22, 2016, Millian contacted Papadopoulos via LinkedIn. During the following months, Millian and Papadopoulos exchanged e-mails and met in person. During these communications, Millian lured Papadopoulos with promises of lucrative consulting contracts. The Washington Post described those communications as follows:
The two [Millian and Papadopoulos] struck up an online correspondence and met several times, Papadopoulos said. Millian claimed to be a business associate of the candidate [Trump] and told Papadopoulos that he had connections at Bashneft, a Russian energy company that he said was looking for American investors.Simpson and Steele were not involved in these communications between Millian and Papadopoulos. Millian did not inform PPS about these communications, and therefore Steele's Dossier does not provide any information about Papadopoulos. However, I speculate that Simpson and Steele learned something about the Millian-Papadopoulos communications and came to the opinion that Millian was conducting those communications at the behest of Russian Intelligence.
By October [2016], Papadopoulos said Millian approached him with an idea: He said he could get Papadopoulos a public-relations contract with a New York firm connected to an unidentified Russian national. The job would pay $30,000 a month, Millian told him.
“It was an enticing offer,” Papadopoulos said. He said he was clear with Millian from the start that he would not work for any Russian under U.S. sanctions. In the fall of 2016, Millian flew to Chicago, where Papadopoulos was living at the time, to discuss the proposal. The two met at the bar of the Trump International Hotel. Papadopoulos said that Millian seemed nervous during the meeting. He was pacing, sweating and wearing a scarf around his neck, even though they were indoors.
Then, Millian explained that the job would require Papadopoulos to continue to work for Trump after the election. “He said, ‘You know, George, in Russia it’s very common for people to work both in the private and public sector at the same time,’ ” Papadopoulos recalled Millian telling him. Papadopoulos said he knew the offer was unethical — and possibly illegal.
“I told him, ‘Absolutely not,’ ” Papadopoulos recalled. Later, Papadopoulos said he concluded that the meeting may have been a setup ...
Who was going to pay the $30,000 a month to Papadopoulos? Keep in mind that Steele's Dossier does not provide any information about Papadopoulos.
Why would any Russians pay $30,000 to Papadopoulos in this situation? Perhaps some Russians intended to control or to discredit Papadopoulos because of his activities in petroleum issues of the eastern Mediterranean region.
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The Washington Post has reported:
In 2011, he [Millian] was invited to take part in a Russian government-backed effort to bring American entrepreneurs on visits to Moscow. The Post has previously reported that the FBI later investigated the trips as possible influence operations linked to Russian intelligence, although Millian was never implicated.The Post's previously reported article explains (emphasis added):
The FBI is investigating [in October 2013] whether the U.S. based director of a Russian government-run cultural exchange program was clandestinely recruiting Americans as possible intelligence assets, according to [US] law enforcement officials.In October 2016 -- around the time when Millian offered Papadopoulos a job paying $30, 000 a month -- Steele researched the organization Rossotrudnichestvo. Dossier Report 136, dated October 20, 2016, includes the following passage [emphasis added]:
FBI agents have been interviewing Americans who participated in Rossotrudnichestvo exchange program run by Yury Zaytsev, who also heads the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Washington. For the past 12 years, the program has paid for about 130 Americans to visit Russia. ...
Law enforcement officials said the FBI is investigating wither Zaytsev and Rossotrudnichestvo have used trips to Russia to recruit Americans. Rossotrudnichestvo paid for all their expenses, including meals, travel, visa fees and lodging. Most of the trips involved about 25 participants, who sometimes stayed in luxury hotels and met with Russian government officials.
Zaytsev .... created files on some of the participants, allegedly to cultivate them as future intelligence assets. Law enforcement officials would not comment on whether the FBI has any evidence that Zaytsev was successful in recruiting any assets.
... the Kremlin insider highlighted the importance of the Russian parastatal organisation, Rossotrudnichestvo, in this contact between TRUMP campaign representative/s and Kremlin officials. Rossotrudnichestvo was being used as cover for this relationship and its office in Prague ....I assume that Steele decided in October 2016 to search the Internet and public records for information about Millian and found that Millian was involved in this Rossotrudnichestvo program that was investigated by the FBI. I assume further that Steele inserted Rossotrudnichestvo into his Dossier in order to prompt the FBI to investigate Millian's collaboration with Rossotrudnichestvo.
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The FBI did establish a counterintelligence investigation of Millian, but the Horowitz report (page 164) obfuscates the chronology:
... Person 1 [Millian] was at the time [of the FISA application in October 2016] the subject of an open FBI counterintelligence investigation. We also were concerned that the FISA application did not disclose to the court the FBI's belief that this sub-source [Person 1, Millian] was, at the time of the application, the subject of such an investigation. .....The NYFO opened the investigation of Millian before October 12, 2016, but the public does not know how long before that date.
NYFO [the FBI's New York Field Office] opened the case after consulting with and notifying Case Agent 1 and SSA 1 prior to October 12, 2016, nine days before the FISA application was filed.
On that date, several top FBI officials -- including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page -- met to discuss concerns about the prudence of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation that had been raised by Stuart Evans, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General (Horowitz pages 139-144). During that meeting, those top officials should have taken into effective account -- but did not do so -- that Steele's key informant Millian was officially suspected of working for Russian Intelligence.
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Simpson and Steele decided to disassociate themselves from Millian between August 10 and August 22, 2016. One factor in this decision might be that Steele obtained another informant, who supposedly described actions within the Kremlin's Presidential Administration related to Trump's election campaign. The Dossier reports that explicitly named the Presidential Administration were the following:
Report 94, dated July 19, 2016Perhaps Simpson and Steele decided after the third such report -- dated August 10 -- that they no longer needed Millian, who might turn out to be a problem for the Dossier if he indeed was working for Russian Intelligence. (See my previous article, The CIA's Concerns About Steele's Dossier.)
Report 100, dated August 5, 2016
Report 101, dated August 10, 2016
Report 111, dated September 14, 2016
Report 112, dated September 14, 2016
Report 130, dated October 12, 2016
Report 135, dated October 19, 2016
Report 136, dated October 20, 2016
Friday, February 14, 2020
The CIA's Concerns About Steele's Dossier
Christopher Steele's Dossier includes eight reports that tell about a Russian Government organization that the Dossier calls the Presidential Administration (PA). The Russian-language name is Administratsiya Prezidenta, which translates as "The President's Administration". The Kremlin's website translate's the name as "The Presidential Executive Office".
That Kremlin website says the office is managed by the President's Chief of Staff and does the following:
Steele's Dossier tells about the PA in these eight reports:
However, I am summarizing here the story that the Dossier tells about an alleged "Trump Support Operation" that was controlled -- after being controlled by the MFA and then by the FSB -- by the PA during the USA's 2016 election race.
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Understanding the Dossier's treatment of PA is important because the CIA had an informant who reported about the PA -- about the Russian President's Executive Office. The CIA's informant was Oleg Smolenkov, who was the assistant of Yuri Ushakov, who is one of the PA's 26 officials listed in the Wikipedia article about the PA. The separate Wikipedia article about Ushakov says (emphasis added):
From whom did Steele learn that the PA was meddling in the election?
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Steele began his Dossier with Report 80 on June 20, 2016, but did not mention the PA until Report 94, dated July 19, 2016. Therefore, Steele began learning in mid-July 2016 about the PA's meddling. Until then, Steele knew only about the FSB's involvement -- for example, about the FSB's recording of Trump with prostitutes.
Suddenly, beginning on July 19, Steele began writing a series of eight reports that told about the PA's various communications, controversies, decisions, actions and personnel changes related to the PA's Trump Support Operation. Steele wrote:
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Surely CIA officials who knew about Smolenkov wondered how Steele learned about the PA's meddling in the US election. Only a few CIA officials knew about Smolenkov, and CIA Director John Brennan informed only a few White House officials.
For example, Steele's Report 111 says that Ushakov (Smolenkov's boss) "urged caution" because the Trump Support Operation might have "a potential negative on Russia". Was that information in Smolenkov's reports to the CIA?
As another example, Steele's Report 94 says that Igor Divyekin, a senior official in the PA's Internal Political Department, met secretly with Carter Page in early July 2016. Was that information in Smolenkov's reports to the CIA?
Steele's eight reports state many such details that the CIA could compare with Smolenkov's reports to the CIA. If there are many matches, then the CIA might figure that Steele was obtaining Smolenkov's information somehow.
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Report 136, dated October 20, 2016, was not, however, based on Smolenkov's reports to the CIA. That report said that Trump's attorney Michael Cohen had met with "Kremlin representatives" in Prague in August. In fact, Cohen did not visit Prague, and this false information seems to have come to Steele from a NSA database, which had details about another Michael Cohen who was not Trump's lawyer. Smolenkov never told the CIA about Trump's lawyer Cohen meeting Kremlin representatives in Prague.
Perhaps Report 136 was the first blatant mismatch that the CIA found between Steele's and Smolenkov's reports. Or perhaps there had been other such mismatches in Steele's previous reports, written before October 20. If, however, the Steele and Smolenkov reports had matched fairly well, then Report 136 presented the first blatant mismatch.
The Dossier discusses Trump's lawyer Cohen in four reports.
After Paul Manafort was deposed as Trump's campaign manager on August 19, 2016, Trump's lawyer Cohen replaced Manafort as the "secret liaison" between the campaign staff and "the Russian leadership". In the last week of August or the first week of September, Cohen (accompanied by three colleagues) traveled to Prague, where he met with several lawyers employed in the PA's Legal Department. One of the PA lawyers was Oleg Solodukhin. The issues that Cohen and the PA lawyers discussed included the following:
It's likely that soon after the CIA received and studied Dossier Reports 134, 135 and 136 -- probably by the end of October 2016 -- the CIA decided that the Steele was generally unreliable Even if Steele somehow had received some of Smolenkov's information, Steele now was using that information as a basis for other, false reporting about the PA's meddling in the US election.
The CIA did not have to rely on Steele's Dossier for insights about such meddling. The CIA was receiving information directly from Smolenkov.
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The CIA apparently did not inform the FBI about Smolenkov and about the mismatches between Steele's and Smolenkov's information. CIA Director Brennan informed only a few White House officials about Smolenkov.
In December 2016, when the CIA and FBI were cooperating to prepare the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the FBI and CIA disagreed about including the Dossier in the ICA. The Horowitz report summarized the disagreement as follows:
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If Steele's and Smolenkov's information indeed did match to a great extent, then Steele somehow was obtaining some of Smolenkov's information. If so, then it's likely that some CIA official was leaking Smolenkov's extremely secret information directly or indirectly to Steele.
Because of such a consideration, the CIA might have decided not to share this concern -- or any information about Smolenkov -- with the FBI. The CIA might have preferred to find its leaker without the FBI's help or even knowledge.
That Kremlin website says the office is managed by the President's Chief of Staff and does the following:
* prepares draft laws, decrees, orders, instructions, Presidential speeches, etc.According to the Wikipedia article, the office's staff numbers about 26 officials, employs about 50 "Presidential Envoys" and manages about 30 "Subdivisions".
* monitors the enforcement of federal laws, decrees, orders, etc.
* coordinates with political parties, non-governmental organizations, unions, foreign governments, international organizations, etc.
* analyzes socioeconomic, political and legal trends
Steele's Dossier tells about the PA in these eight reports:
Report 94, dated July 19, 2016Report 130 says that the "Trump Support Operation" was controlled by a sequence of three agencies:
Report 100, dated August 5, 2016
Report 101, dated August 10, 2016
Report 111, dated September 14, 2016
Report 112, dated September 14, 2016
Report 130, dated October 12, 2016
Report 135, dated October 19, 2016
Report 136, dated October 20, 2016
1) The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA)The Dossier does not specify when this control was shifted from agency to agency, but from various clues (which I will not detail in this article) I define the three phases as follows:
2) The Federal Security Service (FSB)
3) The Presidential Administration (PA).
The MFA phase began in mid-2011 and ended in late-2013. A major effort in this phase was to arrange for Donald Trump to bring his 2013 Miss Universe pageant to Moscow.I myself do not believe that any of this actually happened. I do not believe that there was any "Trump Support Operation" or any of these three phases. There was no recording of prostitutes in a Moscow hotel or anything else.
The FSB phase began in late-2013 and ended in mid-2016. Major efforts in this phase were to record Trump with prostitutes and to hack into computers involved in the USA's 2016 election.
The PA phase began in mid-2016, between the Indiana primary election on May 3, 2016 and the appointment of Paul Manafort to head Trump's campaign staff on June 20, 2016. The PA phase ended in mid-October 2016. The major effort in the PA phase was to collude with Trump to win the Presidential election.
However, I am summarizing here the story that the Dossier tells about an alleged "Trump Support Operation" that was controlled -- after being controlled by the MFA and then by the FSB -- by the PA during the USA's 2016 election race.
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Understanding the Dossier's treatment of PA is important because the CIA had an informant who reported about the PA -- about the Russian President's Executive Office. The CIA's informant was Oleg Smolenkov, who was the assistant of Yuri Ushakov, who is one of the PA's 26 officials listed in the Wikipedia article about the PA. The separate Wikipedia article about Ushakov says (emphasis added):
Ushakov is a graduate of Moscow State Institute of International Relations and was the Russian Ambassador to The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) from 1996 to 1998.According to newspaper reports, Ushakov's assistant Smolenkov informed the CIA that Putin's PA was meddling in the USA's 2016 election. About eight months after that election, the CIA helped Smolenkov to defect from Russia to the USA in June 2017. So, the CIA learned from Smolenkov that the PA was meddling in the US election.
He was appointed Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the United States in January 1999, and he was released from his posting by the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, on 2 June 2008. From June 2008 to May 2012 Ushakov was Deputy Chief of the Government Staff of the Russian Federation. Since May 2012 he has been Aide to the President of the Russian Federation responsible for international affairs in the Presidential Administration.
From whom did Steele learn that the PA was meddling in the election?
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Steele began his Dossier with Report 80 on June 20, 2016, but did not mention the PA until Report 94, dated July 19, 2016. Therefore, Steele began learning in mid-July 2016 about the PA's meddling. Until then, Steele knew only about the FSB's involvement -- for example, about the FSB's recording of Trump with prostitutes.
Suddenly, beginning on July 19, Steele began writing a series of eight reports that told about the PA's various communications, controversies, decisions, actions and personnel changes related to the PA's Trump Support Operation. Steele wrote:
President PUTIN had issued direct orders that Kremlin and government insiders should not discuss it in public or even in private.Despite Putin's order, Steele learned the PA's secrets about the Trump Support Operation.
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Surely CIA officials who knew about Smolenkov wondered how Steele learned about the PA's meddling in the US election. Only a few CIA officials knew about Smolenkov, and CIA Director John Brennan informed only a few White House officials.
* Was Smolenkov informing Steele?The CIA was able to compare Steele's information with Smolenkov's information.
* Was someone in the in the CIA informing Steele?
* Was someone in the in the White House informing Steele?
* Was someone else inside the PA informing Steele?
For example, Steele's Report 111 says that Ushakov (Smolenkov's boss) "urged caution" because the Trump Support Operation might have "a potential negative on Russia". Was that information in Smolenkov's reports to the CIA?
As another example, Steele's Report 94 says that Igor Divyekin, a senior official in the PA's Internal Political Department, met secretly with Carter Page in early July 2016. Was that information in Smolenkov's reports to the CIA?
Steele's eight reports state many such details that the CIA could compare with Smolenkov's reports to the CIA. If there are many matches, then the CIA might figure that Steele was obtaining Smolenkov's information somehow.
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Report 136, dated October 20, 2016, was not, however, based on Smolenkov's reports to the CIA. That report said that Trump's attorney Michael Cohen had met with "Kremlin representatives" in Prague in August. In fact, Cohen did not visit Prague, and this false information seems to have come to Steele from a NSA database, which had details about another Michael Cohen who was not Trump's lawyer. Smolenkov never told the CIA about Trump's lawyer Cohen meeting Kremlin representatives in Prague.
Perhaps Report 136 was the first blatant mismatch that the CIA found between Steele's and Smolenkov's reports. Or perhaps there had been other such mismatches in Steele's previous reports, written before October 20. If, however, the Steele and Smolenkov reports had matched fairly well, then Report 136 presented the first blatant mismatch.
The Dossier discusses Trump's lawyer Cohen in four reports.
Report 134, dated October 18, 2016I summarize the Dossier's story about Cohen as follows.
Report 135, dated October 19, 2016
Report 136, dated October 20, 2016
Report 166, dated December 13, 2016
After Paul Manafort was deposed as Trump's campaign manager on August 19, 2016, Trump's lawyer Cohen replaced Manafort as the "secret liaison" between the campaign staff and "the Russian leadership". In the last week of August or the first week of September, Cohen (accompanied by three colleagues) traveled to Prague, where he met with several lawyers employed in the PA's Legal Department. One of the PA lawyers was Oleg Solodukhin. The issues that Cohen and the PA lawyers discussed included the following:
Steps would be taken to prevent revelations about the previous liaison activities of Page and Manafort.The city of Prague was specified only in the Dossier's Report 136 and Report 166, but all Dossier four reports that discussed this alleged meeting between Cohen and the PA lawyers were NOT from Smolenkov's reports to the CIA. Smolenkov did not tell the CIA about any such Cohen-PA meeting.
The people who had hacked computers or had done other jobs would be paid secretly.
The computer hackers would go into hiding for a while.
Cohen's future contacts would not be with the PA officials, but rather with "trusted agents of influence working in pro-government policy institutes like that of Law and Comparative Jurisprudence".
It's likely that soon after the CIA received and studied Dossier Reports 134, 135 and 136 -- probably by the end of October 2016 -- the CIA decided that the Steele was generally unreliable Even if Steele somehow had received some of Smolenkov's information, Steele now was using that information as a basis for other, false reporting about the PA's meddling in the US election.
The CIA did not have to rely on Steele's Dossier for insights about such meddling. The CIA was receiving information directly from Smolenkov.
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The CIA apparently did not inform the FBI about Smolenkov and about the mismatches between Steele's and Smolenkov's information. CIA Director Brennan informed only a few White House officials about Smolenkov.
In December 2016, when the CIA and FBI were cooperating to prepare the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the FBI and CIA disagreed about including the Dossier in the ICA. The Horowitz report summarized the disagreement as follows:
According to FBI staff, as the interagency editing process for the ICA progressed, the CIA expressed concern about the lack of vetting for the Steele election reporting and asserted it did not merit inclusion in the body of the report. An FBI Intel Section Chief told us the CIA viewed it as "internet rumor." In contrast ... the FBI, including Comey and McCabe, sought to include the reporting in the ICA. Limited information from the Steele reporting ultimately was presented in an appendix to the ICA.The CIA had compared the Dossier to the Smolenkov reports and so knew, for example, that the Dossier reports about the Prague meetings were false. The FBI still thought the Prague meetings were plausible. The CIA might have found many more such mismatches that were unknown to the FBI.
=======
If Steele's and Smolenkov's information indeed did match to a great extent, then Steele somehow was obtaining some of Smolenkov's information. If so, then it's likely that some CIA official was leaking Smolenkov's extremely secret information directly or indirectly to Steele.
Because of such a consideration, the CIA might have decided not to share this concern -- or any information about Smolenkov -- with the FBI. The CIA might have preferred to find its leaker without the FBI's help or even knowledge.
Friday, May 4, 2018
Key Considerations About the Events on Fourth Street in Charlottesville
I have studied various conspiracy theories about the incident in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017, when James Fields drove his car into a crowd of so-called "counter-protesters" at the intersection of Fourth Street and Water Street. The questions that interested me included the following:.
If you study the streets' layout and traffic, and if you study the protesters' and counter-protesters' movements, you too might wonder how the car and the crowd both came to be on Fourth Street at the same time. You too might wonder further whether the encounter was arranged by a conspiracy.
I have found that the following considerations satisfied many of my own suspicions.
A riot broke out in Emancipation Park (aka Lee Park) in downtown Charlottesville in the late morning of August 12. The police broke up the worst of the fighting at around noon.
During or after that riot, Fields walked from the area of Emancipation Park to McIntire Park, where he had parked his car. During that walk, Fields acquainted himself with three men who likewise were walking from Emancipation to McIntire.
Afterwards, those three men were questioned by police interrogators, and their statements were summarized during the preliminary hearing that took place on December 14, 2017. (Footnote 1)
If there were some conspiracy to place Fields on Fourth Street, then the conspirators surely would have arranged for him to park his car in the town center.
Fields drove southward on Fourth Street into the crowd at 1:40 p.m.
Twenty minutes earlier, at 1:20, about 100 counter-protesters walked from Justice Park southward through the relevant blocks of Fourth Street. Specifically, they walked southward from Jefferson to Market to Main to Water Street and beyond. (Footnote 2)
This large movement of counter-protesters might have attracted Fields to Fourth Street. I think he positioned his car to watch them walking southward.
The counter-protesters erected some "medic tents" in Justice Park. (Footnote 3)
I suspect that the maroon van and the black truck were make-shift ambulances for these "medic tents" and that these two vehicles parked at the intersection of Fourth and Water to be ready for any fights that might happen in that area.
The reason why the counter-protesters turned northward on Fourth Street was that they were returning to their base in Justice Park. (Footnote 4)
The 100 counter-protesters had walked southward on Fourth Street at 1:20 p.m. because they had been told that a racial confrontation was developing two blocks south of Water Street.
This situation was unpredictable. Various protesters and counter-protesters where fighting and wandering around in a rather large area of several blocks. The particular place and particular time of the supposed racial confrontation were rather random. (Footnote 5)
Therefore it's unlikely that there was any advance plan to send the 100 counter-protesters walking southward on Fourth Street at 1:20 p.m.
Based on the above considerations, I summarize the situation as follows. Around noon, Fields walked a half-hour to get his car at McIntire Park and then drove into the town center, where he drove around for a while. At around 1:20 p.m. he saw a group of about 100 counter-protesters walking southward from Justice Park on Fourth Street, and so he idled his car at the intersection of Fourth and Market and watched them walking southward.
At around 1:40, the counter-protesters, having found that the reported racial confrontation was not happening, began walking northward on Fourth Street in order to return to Justice Park.
That is why Fields was on Fourth Street and why the counter-protesters were walking northward on Fourth Street.
The maroon van and black truck had been sent to the Fourth-Water intersection as a precaution by the people running the medic tents in Justice Park. That is why those two vehicles stood at that intersection for several minutes.
Now I will summarize the evidence about the car's movements on Fourth Street before he drove into the crowd. Some evidence indicates that he moved forward and backward and idled for a rather long time -- perhaps two or more minutes. Perhaps he was interacting with some conspirators who were standing along the street and advising or signaling him.
People who wonder along those lines should recognize that before the car began driving into the crowd, only two moments were recorded on video (as far as the public knows). The surveillance camera of a restaurant at the intersection of Fourth Street and Main Street filmed the car drive through the intersection
During that interval, Fields drove forward, southward into the crowd and then drove backward, northward away from the crowd. That forward and backward movement took about 45 seconds, according to a video made by Brennan Gilmore.
Therefore, only 25 seconds of those 70 seconds were not filmed. Perhaps Fields interacted with some conspirators along Fourth Street during those 25 seconds.
The only other evidence about the movements of Fields' car on Fourth Street before the crash is eyewitness statements that are not available to the public. Some such statements were mentioned by Detective Steven Young during the preliminary hearing on December 14, 2017. Young apparently gave also some off-the-record statements to journalists, who therefore were able to add some details to their newspaper articles about the hearing.
However, this information about the car's pre-crash movements is so sketchy, disjointed, confused, second-hand and third-hand that it's practically worthless. Before the car was filmed by the restaurant camera driving south through the Fourth-Main intersection, we do not know any specific details about the car's movements -- when, where, how long, how far?
The publicly available evidence from the restaurant camera indicates only that Fields was south of the Fourth-Main intersection for 70 seconds, during which he drove into the crowd.
He was north of that intersection for a considerable time -- a minute or more? -- before he drove southward through the intersection. During that considerable time, he idled and drive forward and backward, according to eyewitnesses who said so to police investigators. That is essentially all the evidence about those car movements that is available to the public. We don't know any times, locations or distances.
Any speculation that Fields interacted with conspirators on Fourth Street is pure speculation, based on no facts at all.
For more details and discussion, read this blog's articles that precede this article.
Footnote 1
Preliminary Hearing of James Fields, pages 32-43
Footnote 2
Independent Review of the 2017 Protest Events in Charlottesville, Virginia, pages 140-142
Footnote 3
Independent Review, page 123
Footnote 4
Independent Review, page 143
Footnote 5
Independent Review, pages 140-142
* Was Fields guided by conspirators to Fourth Street?In that area, only Fourth Street allows vehicle traffic. First, Second, Third and Fifth Streets allow only pedestrian traffic. Fields was able to drive into the crowd only because:
* Why did the counter-protesters turn northward onto Fourth Street?
* Why did Fields idle and drive his car forwards and backwards on Fourth Street for two or more minutes before he drove into the crowd?
* Why had a maroon van and a black truck parked at the intersection of Fourth Street and Water Street?
1) he positioned his car on Fourth Street and
2) the walking crowd turned from Water Street onto Fourth Street.
 |
| Click on the map to enlarge it. |
If you study the streets' layout and traffic, and if you study the protesters' and counter-protesters' movements, you too might wonder how the car and the crowd both came to be on Fourth Street at the same time. You too might wonder further whether the encounter was arranged by a conspiracy.
I have found that the following considerations satisfied many of my own suspicions.
======
Fields had to walk a half-hour to get his car.
During or after that riot, Fields walked from the area of Emancipation Park to McIntire Park, where he had parked his car. During that walk, Fields acquainted himself with three men who likewise were walking from Emancipation to McIntire.
 |
| Click on the map to enlarge it. |
Afterwards, those three men were questioned by police interrogators, and their statements were summarized during the preliminary hearing that took place on December 14, 2017. (Footnote 1)
If there were some conspiracy to place Fields on Fourth Street, then the conspirators surely would have arranged for him to park his car in the town center.
======
A large group of counter-protesters
had walked southward from Justice Park.
had walked southward from Justice Park.
Fields drove southward on Fourth Street into the crowd at 1:40 p.m.
Twenty minutes earlier, at 1:20, about 100 counter-protesters walked from Justice Park southward through the relevant blocks of Fourth Street. Specifically, they walked southward from Jefferson to Market to Main to Water Street and beyond. (Footnote 2)
 |
| Click on the map to enlarge it. |
This large movement of counter-protesters might have attracted Fields to Fourth Street. I think he positioned his car to watch them walking southward.
======
The counter-protesters had obtained a permit
to establish a base in Justice Park.
to establish a base in Justice Park.
I suspect that the maroon van and the black truck were make-shift ambulances for these "medic tents" and that these two vehicles parked at the intersection of Fourth and Water to be ready for any fights that might happen in that area.
The reason why the counter-protesters turned northward on Fourth Street was that they were returning to their base in Justice Park. (Footnote 4)
======
The counter-protesters had walked southward on Fourth Street
because of an unpredictable reason.
because of an unpredictable reason.
The 100 counter-protesters had walked southward on Fourth Street at 1:20 p.m. because they had been told that a racial confrontation was developing two blocks south of Water Street.
This situation was unpredictable. Various protesters and counter-protesters where fighting and wandering around in a rather large area of several blocks. The particular place and particular time of the supposed racial confrontation were rather random. (Footnote 5)
Therefore it's unlikely that there was any advance plan to send the 100 counter-protesters walking southward on Fourth Street at 1:20 p.m.
======
Based on the above considerations, I summarize the situation as follows. Around noon, Fields walked a half-hour to get his car at McIntire Park and then drove into the town center, where he drove around for a while. At around 1:20 p.m. he saw a group of about 100 counter-protesters walking southward from Justice Park on Fourth Street, and so he idled his car at the intersection of Fourth and Market and watched them walking southward.
At around 1:40, the counter-protesters, having found that the reported racial confrontation was not happening, began walking northward on Fourth Street in order to return to Justice Park.
That is why Fields was on Fourth Street and why the counter-protesters were walking northward on Fourth Street.
The maroon van and black truck had been sent to the Fourth-Water intersection as a precaution by the people running the medic tents in Justice Park. That is why those two vehicles stood at that intersection for several minutes.
======
Now I will summarize the evidence about the car's movements on Fourth Street before he drove into the crowd. Some evidence indicates that he moved forward and backward and idled for a rather long time -- perhaps two or more minutes. Perhaps he was interacting with some conspirators who were standing along the street and advising or signaling him.
People who wonder along those lines should recognize that before the car began driving into the crowd, only two moments were recorded on video (as far as the public knows). The surveillance camera of a restaurant at the intersection of Fourth Street and Main Street filmed the car drive through the intersection
1) forward and southward at about 1:40The precise difference between those two moments was 70 seconds.
2) backward and northward at about 1:41
During that interval, Fields drove forward, southward into the crowd and then drove backward, northward away from the crowd. That forward and backward movement took about 45 seconds, according to a video made by Brennan Gilmore.
Therefore, only 25 seconds of those 70 seconds were not filmed. Perhaps Fields interacted with some conspirators along Fourth Street during those 25 seconds.
======
The only other evidence about the movements of Fields' car on Fourth Street before the crash is eyewitness statements that are not available to the public. Some such statements were mentioned by Detective Steven Young during the preliminary hearing on December 14, 2017. Young apparently gave also some off-the-record statements to journalists, who therefore were able to add some details to their newspaper articles about the hearing.
However, this information about the car's pre-crash movements is so sketchy, disjointed, confused, second-hand and third-hand that it's practically worthless. Before the car was filmed by the restaurant camera driving south through the Fourth-Main intersection, we do not know any specific details about the car's movements -- when, where, how long, how far?
The publicly available evidence from the restaurant camera indicates only that Fields was south of the Fourth-Main intersection for 70 seconds, during which he drove into the crowd.
He was north of that intersection for a considerable time -- a minute or more? -- before he drove southward through the intersection. During that considerable time, he idled and drive forward and backward, according to eyewitnesses who said so to police investigators. That is essentially all the evidence about those car movements that is available to the public. We don't know any times, locations or distances.
Any speculation that Fields interacted with conspirators on Fourth Street is pure speculation, based on no facts at all.
For more details and discussion, read this blog's articles that precede this article.
======
Preliminary Hearing of James Fields, pages 32-43
Footnote 2
Independent Review of the 2017 Protest Events in Charlottesville, Virginia, pages 140-142
Footnote 3
Independent Review, page 123
Footnote 4
Independent Review, page 143
Footnote 5
Independent Review, pages 140-142
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