Senator John McCain Pushed Trump Dossier to the Intel Community

[Newmexican]

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Senator John McCain Pushed Trump Dossier to the Intel Community

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

by JOHN HAYWARD

11 Jan 2017

The UK Daily Mail on Wednesday reported that Senator John McCain (R-AZ) pushed the dossier full of unverified claims about Donald Trump to the FBI:

Sworn Donald Trump enemy John McCain admitted Wednesday that he passed the dossier of claims of a Russian blackmail plot against the president-elect.
The Arizona senator issued a public statement amid mounting questions of his exact role in the affair – and how a document riddled with errors and unverifiable claims came to be published.
‘Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public,’ he said.
‘Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI.
‘That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue.’

But the Daily Mail – which, it should be noted, seems to like McCain about as much as McCain likes Trump – argues that the “2008 Republican loser” might have been “far more intimately involved than that.”

Watergate legend Carl Bernstein is quoted telling CNN that McCain got the dossier from the former British ambassador to Moscow, who in turn got it from that mysterious “former British MI6 agent who was hired from a political opposition research firm in Washington” that we’ve been hearing so much about lately.

Isn’t this precisely the kind of political influence operation our media spent the past few weeks freaking out about, when they thought Russia ran one against Hillary Clinton?

It’s also a perfect example of what the establishment media really means when it complains about “fake news.” They’re very protective of their ability to shut down stories. They hate it when people who aren’t credentialed journalists use the Internet and talk radio to generate interest in something the media earlier deemed a non-story. If that interest grows intense enough, establishment media can find itself dragged back into covering something it didn’t want to cover. That’s what happened here: against its political interests, the establishment media didn’t think this bundle of opposition research was solid enough to merit coverage, but now it’s been pushed into the spotlight and they’re all talking about it.

The new White House Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, denigrated the source of what he called “phony-baloney garbage” perfectly on Wednesday morning: “I’ve read most of it. But what I can tell you is that even the New York Times last night refused to publish this document, which is not an intelligence document. Keep in mind, this is some retired guy somewhere out in the world acting like Ian Fleming, apparently trying to maybe write a fiction novel.”

On Wednesday morning, we learned that a key figure in the dirty dossier, Trump counsel Michael Cohen, has produced convincing documentary evidence that he did not travel to Prague to meet with Kremlin officials, as the anti-Trump oppo dump alleges. We’re now told that it was some other Michael Cohen in Prague. It’s all starting to sound like a script written by the Coen Brothers.

Also on Wednesday, NBC News revealed that the dossier, which contains “obvious errors,” was not actually presented to Trump by the intelligence community, as early reporting breathlessly asserted.

Instead, Trump was given an oral briefing based on a two-page summary… as an example of what “disinformation” looks like.

“Intel and law enforcement officials agree that none of the investigations have found any conclusive or direct link between Trump and the Russian government period,” the senior official said.
According to the official, the two-page summary about the unsubstantiated material made available to the briefers was to provide context, should they need it, to draw the distinction for Trump between analyzed intelligence and unvetted “disinformation.”
The briefers also had available to them unvetted “disinformation” about the Clinton Foundation, although that was not shared with Trump.

(Emphasis mine, but NBC really should have emphasized it, or made it the lede for their story.)

But Buzzfeed threw the full contents of that dossier out the public and said, Top media organizations and intelligence agencies couldn’t verify any of this stuff after months of hard work, but you folks can decide for yourselves! No doubt local Rotary clubs are putting together top-shelf intelligence bureaus and developing contacts in Moscow at this very moment.

In his press conference on Wednesday morning, Trump thanked news organizations which refused to publish the salacious material when it was shopped to them during the campaign.

“I do have to say that, and I must say that I want to thank a lot of the news organizations here today because they looked at that nonsense that was released by maybe the intelligence agencies, who knows, but maybe the intelligence agencies, which would be a tremendous blot on their record if they in fact did that, a tremendous blot. Because a thing like that should have never been written, and it should certainly never have been released,” he said.

Senator McCain has absolutely no excuse for pushing this tripe to the FBI. He’s a senior senator with intelligence experience. He knew the sources for the most explosive “revelations” were extremely dodgy. He has always been very chummy with the press, so he would have known they didn’t think this material was solid enough to even allude to it during the election, no matter how badly they wanted Hillary Clinton to win – not even when they believed the FBI investigation of Clinton was severely damaging her image.

To borrow a phrase from President-elect Trump, there are plenty of tremendous blots to go around today.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...tel-community/

[Newmexican]

The Daily Mail Article. This is from January 2017.

'I did what any citizen should do': Sworn Trump enemy John McCain admits HE handed smear dossier to FBI - because he had no idea if it was credible

• Arizona senator who disowned Trump before election admits he handed document outlining claims of Kremlin blackmail to FBI
• He was simply a concerned citizen, 80-year-old Republican claimed
• Brief statement claims that he received it and gave it directly to FBI Director James Comey because he was 'unable to make judgment about accuracy'
• But Washington reporter Carl Bernstein says former British ambassador to Moscow handed it to McCain
• Ambassador has not been named - and author of report also gave to FBI agent he knew at its station in Rome months ago
• Report was apparently paid for first BY Republican enemies of Trump then by Democrats

By Darren Boyle for MailOnline

PUBLISHED: 06:48 EST,
11 January 2017 | UPDATED: 19:19 EST, 11 January 2017

• e-mail

Sworn Donald Trump enemy John McCain admitted Wednesday that he passed the dossier of claims of a Russian blackmail plot against the president-elect - calling it 'what any citizen should do'.
McCain - a longstanding anti-Trump Republican who had disassociated himself from the candidate's campaign weeks before the election - cast himself as an innocent and concerned member of the public as he justified his move.

He claimed he had no idea whether it was accurate or not - but that he believed the FBI should have it because it was 'sensitive'.
'I did what any citizen should do. I received sensitive information and handed it to the FBI,' he told CNN - the network which broke the story that the document existed. It was then published in full by Buzzfeed.


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'What any citizen should do': The Arizona senator, 80, claimed he was simply acting as a concerned member of the public when he had his face-to-face meeting with the FBI Director

'That's why I gave it to the FBI. I don't know if it is credible or not but the information I thought deserved to be delivered to the FBI, the appropriate agency of government.'

He added: 'It doesn't trouble me because I don't know if it is accurate or not. I have no way of corroborating that.

'The individual gave me the information. I looked at it. After receiving that information I took it to the FBI.'

He added that he was now aware from media reports that the FBI was apparently already in possession of the information. '

The Arizona senator had issued a public statement amid mounting questions of his exact role in the affair - and how a document riddled with errors and unverifiable claims came to be published.
'Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public,' he said.

'Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI.

'That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue.'

But the 2008 Republican loser, who disowned his party's candidate weeks before the election, may have been far more intimately involved than that.


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John McCain admits he handed the report w over to FBI Director James Comey late last year. The agency were first handed parts of it in August





The dossier claims Russian authorities filmed Trump in a Moscow hotel room with two prostitutes who 'defiled a bed' which had previously been used by President Barack Obama




Trump branded the leaked dossier as 'fake news' and 'a total political witch hunt'

The chain of how the document reached the FBI is not officially known.

However Carl Bernstein, the Watergate reporter who contributed to the first story about its existence, published by CNN on Tuesday afternoon, suggested that McCain was handed it by a former British ambassador to Moscow.

Bernstein told CNN: 'It came from a former British MI6 agent who was hired from a political opposition research firm in Washington who was doing work about Donald Trump for both republican and democratic candidates opposed to Trump.

'They were looking at Trumps business ties, they saw some questionable things about Russians, about his businesses in Russia, they in turn hired this MI6 former investigator, he then came up with additional information from his Russian sources, he was very concerned by the implications of it, he then took it to an FBI colleague that he had known in his undercover work for years, he took it to this FBI man in Rome who turned it over to the bureau in Washington in August.

'And then, a former British ambassador to Russia independently was made aware of these findings and he took the information to John McCain – Senator John McCain of Arizona – in the period just after the election, and showed it to McCain – additional findings.

'McCain was sufficiently disturbed by what he read to take it to FBI director James Comey himself personally, they had a five minute meeting the two men, very little was said, McCain turned it over to him and is now awaiting what the FBI’s response is to that information.'

The identity of the former British ambassador has not been disclosed.

Only one former British ambassador to Moscow remains in UK government service, Sir Tim Barrow, who went on to be Foreign Office political director and is now Britain's ambassador to the European Union.

McCain's long-standing opposition to Trump is well known although he only formally ended support for the Republican candidate in October, when the notorious 'p****' tape emerged.



The Arizona senator said at the time: '"Donald Trump’s behavior... concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assaults, make it impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy.'
US intelligence agencies have claimed that Russian spies hacked the Democratic National Committee and leaked damaging emails designed to undermine Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.

+7



Trump claimed Russia said the report was a 'complete and total fabrication'




Trump has once again taken to Twitter in order to defend himself from allegations




He said 'crooked opponents' were trying to destroy his victory with 'fake news'


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Some of the allegations relate to a 2013 visit to Moscow of the Miss Universe competition where Trump is alleged to have paid two prostitutes to defile a bed during a bizarre sex act

The new information, which has not been independently verified, claims that Russian officials also gathered highly damaging information on Trump, but only released the details attacking Clinton through the WikiLeaks website.

The Kremlin has denied all of the allegations, while Trump tweeted: 'FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT'.
JOHN MCCAIN'S FEUD WITH DONALD TRUMP

JULY 18, 2015
Donald Trump questions John McCain's war record claiming: 'He’s not a war hero.
'He’s a war hero because he was captured? I like people who weren’t captured.'
AUGUST 1, 2016
McCain continues to endorse Trump's campaign, even though Trump attacked the Gold Star family of Captain Humayan Khan who was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004
OCTOBER 8
McCain withdrew his endorsement of Trump after audio of the reality TV star was leaked including the phrase 'grab her by the p****'
DECEMBER 9
McCain meets FBI Director James Comey and hands over the Kremlin dossier assembled by a former British spy

However, McCain was so concerned about the information contained within the 35-page dossier, which included allegations that Trump had hired prostitutes in Moscow to urinate on a bed that had previously been used by US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, that he passed the information onto the FBI

CNN reported that intelligence chiefs had presented Trump with a two-page summary of the dossier late last week following a briefing with President Obama.

It is not known if it included the most salacious details.

Trump has consistently denied that Russian intelligence agencies had launched a massive cyber attack ahead of last November's election.

The dossier which McCain passed to FBI Director James Comey was compiled by the former MI6 man.

The memos describe sex videos involving prostitutes filmed during a 2013 visit by Trump to a luxury Moscow hotel, supposedly as a potential means for blackmail.

They also suggest Russian officials proposed lucrative deals in order to win influence over the Republican real estate magnate.

One claim, that special counsel to Trump Michael Cohen met with Kremlin officials in Prague in August 2016 has been branded as 'fake news'.

Cohen denied that he was central 'to the ongoing secret liaison relationship between the New York tycoon's campaign and the Russian leadership'.

Cohen tweeted a photograph of his passport and said he had never visited Prague.

According to reports, the former MI6 man had been hired to conduct 'opposition research' on the Trump campaign by first Republican enemies of Trump, then Democratic ones.

Russia denied the claims, with President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling journalists:'The Kremlin does not have compromising information on Trump.'

The Kremlin spokesman called the dossier a 'total fake' and 'an obvious attempt to harm our bilateral relations'.

Earlier, the Kremlin had denied hacking the Democratic National Committee and leaking information to deliberately weaken Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Donald Trump's transition team has repeatedly denied allegations that it had received any help from Moscow.


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The dossier was compiled by a former member of the British Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, based in Vauxhall Cross in central London, pictured,

WHY DID BUZZFEED RUN UNVERIFIABLE 'KREMLIN DOSSIER' CLAIMS?

Buzzfeed followed up a report by CNN which disclosed the existence of the explosive dossier, but only gave a brief outline of the contents.

The 35-page document, which had been collated by a former British Secret Intelligence Service agent had initially been handed over to the FBI in August.
Buzzfeed's Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith wrote an email to his staff shortly after publishing the document.


+7

BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith sent a memo to his staff outlining the reasons why he published the Trump dossier despite reservations over its accuracy

Smith said the dossier contained 'explosive and unverified allegations about Donald Trump and Russia'.

He justified the decision to release the information to allow Americans 'to make up their own minds about the allegations' which had been circulated at the 'highest levels of the US government'.
Smith claimed publishing the dossier was an example of 'transparent' journalism.

Further down in his memo, he appeared to discredit his own story as 'there is serious reason to doubt the allegations'.

He said Buzzfeed had been trying to stand up the allegations for 'weeks' - suggesting that it had failed to do so. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post said they had been handed the material and been unable to verify it.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz56F0SwN51

[Judy]

You crazy sick bastard, you were a player in this charade from day one. You're the fool who was the patsy to try and make this dossier look like a big news report instead of the dishonest, evil and vile garbage it was designed and fabricated to be by the FBI working with a spy from England who was paying Russians for this fabricated scheme to try to blackmail the newly elected President of the United States.

That's why Comey took it to New York, to use it to try to ruffle Trump and be the "insurance" through blackmail. Trump said, get lost, and Comey never got over it. Their blackmail "insurance" scheme failed.

McCain needs to be investigated along with everyone else for this hoax and ruse to try to blackmail a President of the United States. They all need to go to jail.

[Beezer]

And wasn't McCain travelling overseas to countries ahead of Trump and undermining Trump's policies spewing his rhetoric!

He needs to be removed from office.

[Judy]

Yes, he sure was, Beezer. McCain is a menace and has been in my opinion since Vietnam.