A secretive Washington firm that commissioned the dubious intelligence dossier on Donald Trump is stonewalling congressional investigators trying to learn more about its connections to the Democratic Party.
The Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month threatened to subpoena the firm, Fusion GPS, after it refused to answer questions and provide records to the panel identifying who financed the error-ridden dossier, which was circulated during the election and has sparked much of the Russia scandal now engulfing the White House.
What is the company hiding? Fusion GPS describes itself as a “research and strategic intelligence firm” founded by “three former Wall Street Journal investigative reporters.” But congressional sources says it’s actually an opposition-research group for Democrats, and the founders, who are more political activists than journalists, have a pro-Hillary, anti-Trump agenda.
“These weren’t mercenaries or hired guns,” a congressional source familiar with the dossier probe said. “These guys had a vested personal and ideological interest in smearing Trump and boosting Hillary’s chances of winning the White House.”
Fusion GPS was on the payroll of an unidentified Democratic ally of Clinton when it hired a long-retired British spy to dig up dirt on Trump. In 2012, Democrats hired Fusion GPS to uncover dirt on GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. And in 2015, Democrat ally Planned Parenthood retained Fusion GPS to investigate pro-life activists protesting the abortion group.
More, federal records show a key co-founder and partner in the firm was a Hillary Clinton donor and supporter of her presidential campaign.
Not surprising. Hillary has a fascination with intelligence operations. She was actually running her own parallel intel ops in Libya alongside State, some had speculated looking for Khadafy’s gold on the side to spirit it away to a vault somewhere.
But there are implications to this. If they were hiring spooks, they were running surveillance. You try to never start surveillance after a target thinks surveillance is possible. If you are going to run surveillance, you try to identify targets long before they think anyone would ever look at them, and then you blanket them under surveillance while they go about their activities thinking nobody could possibly be watching.
My guess is Hillary’s spooks and the establishmeent are running constant scans of the alt-right, looking for any possible up and comers to watch, even as they scan the broader business community for anyone who might one day become a billionaire and run for President. If you have a drug addiction or a prostitute problem, my guess is either you will be corruptible and this will help your career as you lateral into the establishment and become a good cuck, or you will be destroyed. If you don’t have anything to be blackmailed over, expect a long hard slog, because the success you see is usually establishment-granted, and not hard-earned.
If I had to guess, this firm is not just stonewalling to cover up the dossier thing. My guess is their records would be a gold mine of surveillance and intelligence operations run against a plethora of right wing figures, probably ranging from Donald Trump’s sons, to obscure bloggers.
The FBI received a copy of the Democrat-funded dossier in August, during the heat of the campaign, and is said to have contracted in October to pay Steele $50,000 to help corroborate the dirt on Trump — a relationship that “raises substantial questions about the independence” of the bureau in investigating Trump, warned Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
Senate investigators are demanding to see records of communications between Fusion GPS and the FBI and the Justice Department, including any contacts with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, now under congressional investigation for possibly obstructing the Hillary Clinton email probe, and deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, who is under investigation by the Senate and the Justice inspector general for failing to recuse himself despite financial and political connections to the Clinton campaign through his Democrat activist wife. Senate investigators have singled out McCabe as the FBI official who negotiated with Steele.
Like Fusion GPS, the FBI has failed to cooperate with congressional investigators seeking documents.
So McCabe paid the guy who wrote the dossier to investigate the dossier and judge its truthfulness. How do I get one of these jobs cutting and pasting Wikipedia stuff for $350,000? And then getting another $50,000 to vouch for its authenticity. Talk about free resources.
My guess is Obama’s cronies did a lot of damage at the FBI, which now has to be covered up by the rank and file lest the entire agency be destroyed by it. It does put a different spin on President Trump getting close to Comey, asking him to stay on, waiting until he flew 3,000 miles away and was in the middle of a public appearance, then firing him and raiding his office for records and documents.
There was more going on behind the scenes with Comey than we were told about. He was up to something, and Trump was just one step ahead.
Trump is a sharp operator who knows how to play the game. I imagine the really fascinating story behind his Presidency will be how he kept this massive intelligence machine from destroying him. I’d imagine it was a battle royale.
Spread r/K Theory, because everyone had better be on their game
[…] Dems Are Running Intel Ops Against Opposition […]
If the DNC clowns don’t go to jail for this (which is illegal btw) Trump may have to break up the FBI. Too many paddies in that dang ole’ swamp.
OT: What the surveillance state in China can do, and is willing to let the world know it can do, today:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-all-seeing-surveillance-state-feared-in-the-west-is-a-reality-in-china-1498493020