2) In June 2016, Steele began to reach out to the FBI through Michael Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Rome. Gaeta was also Steele's FBI handler.
On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele’s firm.3) After nearly a month, it seems that Steele and Simpson decided to pursue a new channel into the FBI, through then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr.
Steele had already been in contact with Bruce Ohr via email in early 2016.4) Ohr testified that Steele relayed information from his dossier at this meeting and claimed that “a former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service" said they "had Donald Trump over a barrel.”5) Steele also referenced Deripaska’s business dealings with Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and foreign policy adviser Carter Page’s meetings in Moscow.
Ohr noted that Steele told him he had been in contact with the FBI but now had additional reports.6) Immediately following Ohr’s meeting with Steele, Ohr reached out to Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and the two met in McCabe’s office in early August.
Also present - Lisa Page.
Ohr testified he wanted the FBI to have the information and be aware of his meeting w/Steele.7) On Aug. 22, Ohr had a meeting with Simpson.
"I knew that Chris Steele was working for Glenn Simpson, and that Glenn might have additional information.”
Ohr testified that Simpson mentioned Sergei Millian, Michael Cohen, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort during their meeting.8) On Sept. 23, 2016, Ohr again met with Steele:
“Steele was in Washington, D.C., again, and he reached out to me, and, again, we met for breakfast, and he provided some additional information.”9) These meetings w/Ohr worked.
The FBI had reached out to Steele in late September, asking him for the information in his possession.
The team working on “Crossfire Hurricane” received documents and a briefing from Steele shortly thereafter.10) In either late September or early October, Ohr had a meeting w/Strzok, Lisa Page, and two or three DOJ career officials from the criminal division: Bruce Swartz, Zainab Ahmad, and Andrew Weissman.
(Ohr testified he was unsure whether Weismann was at this or a later meeting).11) Sometime prior to the election, Simpson gave parts of the dossier to Mother Jones reporter David Corn - who was friends w/FBI's James Baker.
Corn provided these copies to Baker:
"some of the parts that David Corn gave us were parts that we did not have from another source"12) Baker said of Corn: “Even though he was my friend, I was also an FBI official. He knew that. And so he wanted to somehow get that into the hands of the FBI.”13) All of these data points are aside from Sussmann's direct push of the fabricated Alfa Bank info to FBI's Baker.
Elias claims he was worried about FBI involvement.
But Fusion GPS, the firm Elias hired, worked diligently to push Steele’s info into the FBI.
/End
Read the full thread here.
For more on Spygate see these articles by Margot Cleveland.
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