According to a report by award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon, former top DOJ official, Bruce Ohr warned FBI and DOJ officials that Steele’s dossier was connected to Hillary Clinton and cautioned them it may be biased — weeks BEFORE they obtained a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
Twice-demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr briefed FBI and DOJ officials in July and August of 2016 and cautioned them about Steele’s connection to Hillary’s camp and warned them about political bias.
Two of the top DOJ officials, Andrew Weissmann and Zainab Ahmad then migrated to Mueller’s team to hunt down President Trump!
This crucial information provided to the FBI by Bruce Ohr was omitted weeks later from the FISA warrant application that the FBI submitted to the court to spy on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign through advisor Carter Page.
John Solomon of The Hill reported:
Ohr’s activities, chronicled in handwritten notes and congressional testimony I gleaned from sources, provide the most damning evidence to date that FBI and DOJ officials may have misled federal judges in October 2016 in their zeal to obtain the warrant targeting Trump adviser Carter Page just weeks before Election Day.
They also contradict a key argument that House Democrats have made in their formal intelligence conclusions about the Russia case.
Since it was disclosed last year that Steele’s dossier formed a central piece of evidence supporting the FISA warrant, Justice and FBI officials have been vague about exactly when they learned that Steele’s work was paid for by the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Last year, the House Intel Committee released a 2-page FISA memo showing the dossier formed an essential part of the initial and three subsequent renewal FISA application against Carter Page.
The FBI claimed it was “unaware of any derogatory information” about Christopher Steele, that Steele was “never advised … as to the motivation behind the research” but that the FBI “speculates” that those who hired Steele were “likely looking for information to discredit” Trump’s campaign.
Bruce Ohr’s testimony to congressional investigators last summer revealed FBI and DOJ officials had no reason to speculate. Ohr told investigators that he explicitly warned the FBI officials that Christopher Steele was biased against Donald Trump and was working on a project connected to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
John Solomon continues:
“I certainly told the FBI that Fusion GPS was working with, doing opposition research on Donald Trump,” Ohr told congressional investigators, adding that he warned the FBI that Steele expressed bias during their conversations.
“I provided information to the FBI when I thought Christopher Steele was, as I said, desperate that Trump not be elected,” he added. “So, yes, of course I provided that to the FBI.”
When pressed why he would offer that information to the FBI, Ohr answered: “In case there might be any kind of bias or anything like that.” He added later, “So when I provided it to the FBI, I tried to be clear that this is source information, I don’t know how reliable it is. You’re going to have to check it out and be aware.”
Investigative reporter Sara Carter has the exchange between Trey Gowdy and Bruce Ohr during Ohr’s testimony revealing the names of the top DOJ officials:
Under intense questioning from former North Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, Ohr named the officials he informed about his contact with Steele.
“I spoke with some people in the Criminal Division, other career officials who dealt with some of these matters,” Ohr told Gowdy.
“Yes,” said Ohr. “So, I was about to tell you. One of them was Bruce Swartz, who is the counselor for International Affairs in the Criminal Division; a person who was working with him at the time, working on similar matters in the Criminal Division was Zainab Ahmad; and a third person who was working on some—some of these matters I believe was Andrew Weissmann.”
John Solomon points out that Bruce Ohr’s testimony about his contacts with top DOJ officials in the summer of 2016 destroys Adam Schiff’s junk counter-memo where he argued that Bruce Ohr’s contacts with the FBI began “weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FISA application.”
The FBI is required to present exculpatory evidence to the FISA court so by omitting this information, it is clear that Obama’s corrupt FBI/DOJ abused the FISA system.
