Sen. Dianne Feinstein Releases Fusion GPS Transcript

originally posted by: Grambler
So just to clear this up.

When Nunes released info people on trumps team may have been monitored by Obamas admin, he was a partisan hack that had no business still being involved in the investigation to anti trumpers, and he should have worked with the committee to released it.

But Feinstein releasing this testimony on her own is great and she is awesome to those same people.

I say release all of the private testimony.

Cant wait to see the FBI testimony as to what exactly they put in the fisa warrant, and what they used the dossier for.

I am sure feinstein will welcome that being public too.

We can also be sure if it doesn't prove the fbi did anything wrong it won't be released by nunes. Similar to how grassy waffled here.

Almost halfway through this. Up until the lunchtime recess, it's mostly questions about Fusion GPS's work for Prevezon (via Baker Hostetler who they've apparently worked for a number of times since 2009).

They start getting into the details of the dossier after that point (page 138).

originally posted by: luthier

originally posted by: Grambler
So just to clear this up.

When Nunes released info people on trumps team may have been monitored by Obamas admin, he was a partisan hack that had no business still being involved in the investigation to anti trumpers, and he should have worked with the committee to released it.

But Feinstein releasing this testimony on her own is great and she is awesome to those same people.

I say release all of the private testimony.

Cant wait to see the FBI testimony as to what exactly they put in the fisa warrant, and what they used the dossier for.

I am sure feinstein will welcome that being public too.

We can also be sure if it doesn't prove the fbi did anything wrong it won't be released by nunes. Similar to how grassy waffled here.

So the fact that this testimony isn't a big deal somehow proves grassly didnt want to release it?

Can you show me any private testimonies in any of the committees that has been released by anyone then?

I mean, its your assertion that Grassly waffled here, so that must mean its the norm to release the private hearings.

So I am sure you will find no problem giving examples.

a reply to: Perfectenemy

if the GoP is involved get rid of them as well.

But the dossier and golden showers DID NOT EXIST when the Washington Free Beacon was involved.

Right up until that point is was just a typical election move.

When Team left got involved.

Then it became all about destroying the man, and staging a coup d'etat.

Flashback to 2017. Fusion GPS officials take the Fifth in Trump dossier interview on Capitol Hill How many people pled the fifth from Trump's team? None you say oh that is certainly odd. I rest my case.

What bout the undisclosed meetings ?

What bout them?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

originally posted by: neo96
What bout the undisclosed meetings ?

What bout them?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Strange that the thread has only one page. Truth and actual sources are like holy water to some people.

a reply to: Grambler

Not really sure what you mean? Was there classified info in it? What prevented there release?

Also I can't remember such a massively polarized drama queen Broadway show as there is today.

Feinstein's version of the transcript has redacted the names of Fusion's partners.

Because nothing shows a commitment to transparency like blatantly covering for your political cronies.

a reply to: theantediluvian

page 151/152

14 The only other thing I'd add to all that is,
15 again, in the mid 2000s one of the stories I
16 wrote -- actually, I wrote a couple different
17 stories about a Russian oligarch having a meeting
18 with Senator John McCain shortly before the 2008
19 presidential election and another story or set of
20 stories about Paul Manafort and his involvement
21 with some Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs who were
22 considered to be suspicious or corrupt.
23 So I also knew -- or I formed an opinion or
24 impression that the Russians were interested in
25 making friends with the Republicans and that Paul

1 Manafort, you know, there was this previous episode
2 in
volving Paul Manafort, John McCain. So all of
3 that was in my head when this came in which, as I
4 say, tended to support the credibility -- the
5 possibility that this information was credible.
6 Q. You mentioned a Russian oligarch who had
7 met with Senator McCain. Who specifically was
8 that?
9 A. Oleg Deripaska, O-L-E-G,
10 D-E-R-I-P-A-S-K-A. He's not able to travel to the
11 United States because he's banned for suspicion of
12 ties to organized crime. He's extremely close to
13 the Kremlin, or at least he was, and is -- I broke
14 the story of him being banned from the United

I think that would be this article:

WSJ, How Lobbyist Help Ex-Soviets Woo Washington, 2007, Glenn R. Simpson and Marry Jacoby

Interesting article about McCain's own Kremlin ties:

The Nation, McCain’s Kremlin Ties, 2008, Mark Ames and Ari Berman

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

I assume that is one of the redaction that Fusion GPS's lawyers asked for and was approved by the committee.

“The Democrat-linked firm Fusion GPS actually took money from the Russian government while it created the phony dossierthat’s been the basis for all of the Russia scandal fake news,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said earlier this month.

Get those financial records!

originally posted by: neo96

“The Democrat-linked firm Fusion GPS actually took money from the Russian government while it created the phony dossierthat’s been the basis for all of the Russia scandal fake news,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said earlier this month.

Get those financial records!

Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Enough said.

originally posted by: neo96

“The Democrat-linked firm Fusion GPS actually took money from the Russian government while it created the phony dossierthat’s been the basis for all of the Russia scandal fake news,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said earlier this month.

Get those financial records!

Lol,

The president says so it must be true.

a reply to: theantediluvian

They are throwing McCain to the wolves. Holy sh!t the bank records are a treasure trove.

originally posted by: neo96

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Grassley and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein made arrangements in July 2017 for Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson to testify before their committee. It was agreed that Simpson would not testify in public but would be interviewed privately.[37][38]

en.wikipedia.org...

If Feinstein was interested in the public knowing the truth.

The committee hearing would have been public.

No.

What the eff do we get instead.

A work of fiction that no one can even verify.

Kind of like God, you can disprove alot of it, but ultimately you cant disprove it in this climate, so you have the faithful and fanatical.

page 161:

1 Q. So after Mr. Steele had found out the
2 information that he put in the very first of these
3 memos, the one dated June 20, 2016, he approached
4 you about taking this information to specifically
5 the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
6 A. That's my recollection.
7 Q. So to the best of your recollection, that
8 request or idea came directly from Mr. Steele, not
9 anyone else?
10 A. That's right.
11 Q. And who was involved in discussions about
12 whether it was appropriate to take either the memo
13 or the information in the memo to the FBI?
14 A. It was Chris and me. I mean, that's the
15 only ones I remember, the two of us. The only ones
16 I know of.

page 164:

4 Q. And do you recall when you -- when you and
5 Mr. Steele decided kind of that he could or should
6 take this to the FBI, approximately the time frame
7 of that?
8 A. I believe it was sometime around the turn
9 of the month. It would have been in late June or
10 at latest early July. That's my recollection.
11 Q. And Mr. Steele was the one who was then
12 responsible for doing the initial outreach to them
13 and making that contact?
14 A. Yes. Well, I mean, let's be clear, this
15 was not considered by me to be part of the work
16 that we were doing. This was -- to me this was
17 like, you know, you're driving to work and you see
18 something happen and you call 911, right. It
19 wasn't part of the -- it wasn't like we were trying
20 to figure out who should do it. He said he was
21 professionally obligated to do it. Like if you're
22 a lawyer and, you know, you find out about a crime,
23 in a lot of countries you must report that. So it
24 was like that. So I just said if that's your
25 obligation, then you should fulfill your

page 165:

1 obligation.
2
Q. And were you a part of those conversations
3 with -- that Mr. Steele had with whoever his
4 contact was at the FBI?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Do you have any knowledge of when that
7 first conversation actually then took place?
8 A. Over the last several months that this has
9 become a public controversy I've learned the
10 general date and I believe it was if first week of
11 July, but I don't believe he told me -- if he told
12 me the time, I don't remember when he told me.

There's some more before this but the thrust is that it was Steele who said the US government needed to be notified according to Simpson and it was Steele who communicated with the FBI through a contact of his.

a reply to: Kryties

Observers and experts have had varying reactions to the dossier. Generally, "former intelligence officers and other national-security experts" urged "skepticism and caution" but still took "the fact that the nation's top intelligence officials chose to present a summary version of the dossier to both President Obama and President-elect Trump" as an indication "that they may have had a relatively high degree of confidence that at least some of the claims therein were credible, or at least worth investigating further".[67] The author of the dossier said he believes that 70–90% of the document is accurate.[68] Steele said that his FBI contacts greeted his intelligence report with "shock and horror".[68] In his June 2017 congressional testimony, former FBI director James Comey called the dossier "salacious and unverified", without stating that it was false. Under questioning by Senator Richard Burr, Comey declined to discuss the dossier further in a public setting.[69][7

Obama.

Vice President Biden told reporters that while he and President Obama were receiving a briefing on the extent of Russian hackers trying to influence the US election, there was a two-page addendum which addressed the contents of the Steele dossier.[71] Top intelligence officials told them they "felt obligated to inform them about uncorroborated allegations about President-elect Donald Trump out of concern the information would become public and catch them off-guard".[72]

Biden.

fter Trump emerged as the probable Republican nominee, attorney Marc Elias of the Perkins Coie law firm retained American research firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research about Trump on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton presidential campaign.

Team Clinton and the DNC.

"The innuendo and misinformation circulating about the transcript are part of a deeply troubling effort to undermine the investigation into potential collusion and obstruction of justice," Feinstein said in a statement

FeinStein.

Partisan witch hunt.

en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: Perfectenemy
a reply to: theantediluvian

They are throwing McCain to the wolves. Holy sh!t the bank records are a treasure trove.

If the cancer diagnosis is accurate, he's become politically expendable, so that's not hard to do.

In pages 169 and later, he talks about Steele's communication with the FBI. According to Simpson, Steele briefed his contact on the first memo in July.

19 Q. Was there a discussion about whether and
20 when he would take information to the FBI?
21 A. Not that I recall. After the initial memo
22 he told me that he had briefed him. I don't
23 remember anything specific about the issue arising
24 again other than to say generally that as the
25 summer progressed the situation with the hacking of

16 Q. So do you know whether or not Mr. Steele
17 did have any subsequent conversations with the FBI
18 after that initial conversation in the first week
19 of July 2016?
20 A. Yes, I do. He did.
21 Q. So can you explain the next incident where
22 you know that Mr. Steele met with the FBI?
23 A. Yes. I guess what I'd like to explain is
24 what I knew at the time and what I know now. It
25 was September and obviously the controversy was

20 So anyway, we were working on all of that and
21 then he said, hey, I heard back from the FBI and
22 they want me to come talk to them and they said
23 they want everything I have, to which I said okay.
24 He said he had to go to Rome, I said okay. He went
25 to Rome. Then afterwards he came back and said,

1 you know, I gave them a full briefing.

Important bits pages 172-173:

20 Q. So when did that -- you had said the FBI
21 then came back and contacted Mr. Steele?
22 A. That's my understanding.
23 Q. When did that, to the best of your
24 knowledge, take place?
25 A. Mid to late September.

1 Q. So in that intervening time period
2 Mr
. Steele continues his research, he also
3 continues to provide you with memos?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And at no point in that time between
6 July -- the first week of July when he first met
7 with the FBI and then mid to late September did you
8 suggest to him that he should go back to the FBI?
9 A. Not that I recall. What I would -- what I
10 believe I may have said was have you heard anything
11 from the FBI because by then it was obvious there
12 was a crime in progress. So I just was curious
13 whether he'd heard back.

Interestingly, in this question, the date of July 5th is mentioned as the date of the initial contact:

24 Q. So do you know whether or not Mr. Steele
25 was directed -- you said you did not direct him or

1 ask him to go back to the FBI -- whether anyone
2 el
se either directly or indirectly asked him to go
3 to the FBI after his July 5th --
4 A. To my knowledge, no one else told him to
5 report this. He may have conferred with his
6 business associates, but I don't know.
7 Q. And you said that meeting with the FBI,
8 you said Mr. Steele said he had to go to Rome for
9 this meeting. Do you otherwise know who he met
10 with?
11 A. This gets into the chronology of what I
12 learned when. At some point I learned that he was
13 meeting with the lead FBI guy from Rome. I don't
14 remember when he told me that.