Sally Yates firing alarmed dossier author Christopher Steele, emails to shady DOJ contact show
March 07, 2019
Newly revealed emails show Trump dossier author Christopher Steele was uneasy when President Trump fired Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in January 2017.
In a brief correspondence between Steele and Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, Steele pressed for a back-up plan to be put in place if his backchannel to the FBI was ever placed in jeopardy.
"B, doubtless a sad and crazy day for you re-SY [Sally Yates]. Just wanted to check you are OK, still in situ and able to help locally as discussed, along with your Bureau colleagues, with our guy if the need arises? Many Thanks and Best as Always, C," Steele wrote to Ohr on Jan. 31.
Ohr replied: "Bruce: Yes, a crazy day. I’m still here and able to help as discussed. I’ll let you know if that Changes. Thanks!"
"Thanks. You have my sympathy and support," Steele wrote back. "If you end up out though, I really need another (Bureau?) contact point/number who is briefed. We can’t allow our guy to be forced to go back home. It would be disastrous all round, though his position right now looks stable. A million thanks. C."
Ohr said in return: "Bruce: Understood. I can certainly give you an FBI contact if it becomes necessary."
The email exchange was obtained by Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information lawsuit that led to the conservative watchdog group obtaining 339 pages of heavily redacted records from the Justice Department concerning Ohr's communications with Fusion GPS and Steele.
Ohr created an unofficial back channel between the FBI and Steele, a British ex-spy who was hired by Fusion GPS and provided agents with opposition research on President Trump, even after Steele was dropped as an FBI source for providing confidential information to the media.
Ohr, formerly the associate deputy attorney general and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, was demoted after it came to light he met with Steele and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. His wife, Nellie Ohr, had done Russia research for Fusion GPS and also passed along her work to her husband to give to the FBI.
Steele's work is central to the GOP-led effort to investigate possible surveillance abuse by the U.S. government targeting members of the 2016 Trump campaign.
Last February, the House Intelligence Committee, then led by Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., released a memo asserting Steele's dossier, which contained unverified claims about Trump's ties to Russia, was used by the FBI to help obtain the FISA warrants to spy on onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, but key information, including its author's anti-Trump bias and Democratic benefactors, was left out.
Democrats argued in a rebuttal memo that the FISA process was not abused and the GOP allegations were meant to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Yates was fired by Trump while serving as acting attorney general in late January 2017 after she refused to defend his initial travel ban, but not before she signed off on at least one of the FISA warrant applications to spy on Page.
Yates has been critical of Trump ever since her departure from office. Last summer, for instance, she warned that the rule of law in the U.S. could dissipate after Trump called on then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to put an immediate end to the federal Russia investigation.
Of particular concern to Republican lawmakers was a previously revealed text Ohr sent to Steele, saying, "very concerned (abt) about [former FBI Director James] Comey's firing -- afraid they will be exposed." Comey was fired in May 2017.
Ahead of testimony Ohr gave to a GOP task force looking into alleged bias by the FBI and DOJ last year, Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, a key member of a GOP task force that looked into alleged bias by the FBI and DOJ, said there were other "equally troubling" texts that "relate to the firing of Sally Yates and the impact that that may have and that leads to some questions."
At the time, he said the House Oversight and Judiciary committees were interested in bringing Yates in for questioning, along with Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, to find out whether a possible bias campaign against Trump led even further up the power chain in the Obama administration than Ohr.
It's unclear whether Yates was ever brought in, and after the Democrats took control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections, the task force ended their inquiry.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/sally...ntact-show
March 07, 2019
Newly revealed emails show Trump dossier author Christopher Steele was uneasy when President Trump fired Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in January 2017.
In a brief correspondence between Steele and Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, Steele pressed for a back-up plan to be put in place if his backchannel to the FBI was ever placed in jeopardy.
"B, doubtless a sad and crazy day for you re-SY [Sally Yates]. Just wanted to check you are OK, still in situ and able to help locally as discussed, along with your Bureau colleagues, with our guy if the need arises? Many Thanks and Best as Always, C," Steele wrote to Ohr on Jan. 31.
Ohr replied: "Bruce: Yes, a crazy day. I’m still here and able to help as discussed. I’ll let you know if that Changes. Thanks!"
"Thanks. You have my sympathy and support," Steele wrote back. "If you end up out though, I really need another (Bureau?) contact point/number who is briefed. We can’t allow our guy to be forced to go back home. It would be disastrous all round, though his position right now looks stable. A million thanks. C."
Ohr said in return: "Bruce: Understood. I can certainly give you an FBI contact if it becomes necessary."
The email exchange was obtained by Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information lawsuit that led to the conservative watchdog group obtaining 339 pages of heavily redacted records from the Justice Department concerning Ohr's communications with Fusion GPS and Steele.
Ohr created an unofficial back channel between the FBI and Steele, a British ex-spy who was hired by Fusion GPS and provided agents with opposition research on President Trump, even after Steele was dropped as an FBI source for providing confidential information to the media.
Ohr, formerly the associate deputy attorney general and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, was demoted after it came to light he met with Steele and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. His wife, Nellie Ohr, had done Russia research for Fusion GPS and also passed along her work to her husband to give to the FBI.
Steele's work is central to the GOP-led effort to investigate possible surveillance abuse by the U.S. government targeting members of the 2016 Trump campaign.
Last February, the House Intelligence Committee, then led by Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., released a memo asserting Steele's dossier, which contained unverified claims about Trump's ties to Russia, was used by the FBI to help obtain the FISA warrants to spy on onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, but key information, including its author's anti-Trump bias and Democratic benefactors, was left out.
Democrats argued in a rebuttal memo that the FISA process was not abused and the GOP allegations were meant to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Yates was fired by Trump while serving as acting attorney general in late January 2017 after she refused to defend his initial travel ban, but not before she signed off on at least one of the FISA warrant applications to spy on Page.
Yates has been critical of Trump ever since her departure from office. Last summer, for instance, she warned that the rule of law in the U.S. could dissipate after Trump called on then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to put an immediate end to the federal Russia investigation.
Of particular concern to Republican lawmakers was a previously revealed text Ohr sent to Steele, saying, "very concerned (abt) about [former FBI Director James] Comey's firing -- afraid they will be exposed." Comey was fired in May 2017.
Ahead of testimony Ohr gave to a GOP task force looking into alleged bias by the FBI and DOJ last year, Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, a key member of a GOP task force that looked into alleged bias by the FBI and DOJ, said there were other "equally troubling" texts that "relate to the firing of Sally Yates and the impact that that may have and that leads to some questions."
At the time, he said the House Oversight and Judiciary committees were interested in bringing Yates in for questioning, along with Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, to find out whether a possible bias campaign against Trump led even further up the power chain in the Obama administration than Ohr.
It's unclear whether Yates was ever brought in, and after the Democrats took control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections, the task force ended their inquiry.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/sally...ntact-show
