This just in: Judicial Watch has obtained and shared FBI documents containing reports summarizing interviews with Bruce Ohr on his correspondence with Christopher Steele.
You may recall the demands that Ohr be removed from the DOJ after his connections to Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS came to light.
However, it may be these 302s stemming from Ohr’s relations with Steele that confirm what many have suspected all along: the real motive behind the Russia probe was to dig up dirt and take down then-presidential hopeful President Trump in an attempt to prevent him from winning the presidency!
At least, that’s what many, many people are saying, including President of Judicial Watch Tom Fitton, who commented on the reports,
“This new Bruce Ohr FBI 302s show an unprecedented and irregular effort by the FBI, DOJ, and State Department to dig up dirt on President Trump using the conflicted Bruce Ohr, his wife, and the Clinton/DNC spies at Fusion GPS. The FISA courts weren’t informed of this corrupted process when they were asked to approve and approve extraordinary spy warrants targeting President Trump.”
Check out this breaking news that hit Twitter:
Tom Fitton also pointed out a part in the reports where Ohr passes on a message from a person with a redacted name (that many suspect to be Christopher Steele) that “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not becoming the U.S. president.”
Needless to say, along with the FISA abuse investigation that is still underway, these FBI documents may be the last drops of water that break the dam loose!
Rudy Giuliani, Trump's attorney, spoke with Hannity to discuss the newly-released Ohr 302s and their implications.
Watch what Giulani thinks is going to happen with it here:
Politico has more details on the documents:
Supporters of President Donald Trump are seizing on newly released FBI reports to argue that the law enforcement agency had clear warnings within weeks after the election that a former British intelligence officer who authored a disputed dossier about Trump’s alleged ties to Russia was intent on preventing the real estate mogul from becoming president.
The FBI on Thursday released its notes — known as 302 reports — detailing a dozen interviews agents had with senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr as they investigated potential ties between the incoming president and Russia. Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for the private investigation firm Fusion GPS and relayed research the former British spy, Christopher Steele, was conducting for the company.
A code name for Steele appears to have been redacted from the earliest reports on Bruce Ohr’s meetings with FBI agents, but one from a Nov. 22, 2016, interview says the unnamed source whose information Ohr was passing on “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not becoming the U.S. president.”
In the same interview, Ohr said the source of the dossier was hired by “a lawyer who does opposition research” and the information about Trump and Russia was being relayed to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, a close aide to then-Secretary of State John Kerry and the FBI.
Many of Trump’s backers have expressed deep suspicion of Ohr and suggested he acted improperly by relaying his wife’s research to the FBI. And after the 21 pages of reports emerged Thursday, the president’s supporters said they show Ohr’s candor about Steele’s motivations wasn’t adequately considered by the FBI or disclosed to judges who approved a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant for communications of a former Trump foreign policy adviser, Carter Page.
The Hill also had the following to say on the reports' revelations:
The FBI on Thursday released the bureau's notes from its Russia probe interviews with Bruce Ohr, a Justice Department official who has come under GOP fire for his ties to the Steele dossier.
Ohr emerged as a key figure in the counterintelligence investigation examining ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, particularly after his connections to former British spy Christopher Steele and the opposition research firm Fusion GPS were revealed.
As a result of these ties, Ohr became a GOP target of attacks by President Trump and others who have called for his firing from the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The FBI released 34 pages of the 302s, an internal FBI term referring to notes of their interviews, that detailed contacts between Ohr and Steele from the start of 2016 to May 2017, which were released as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the conservative group Judicial Watch.
While heavily redacted, the documents reveal how Ohr and Steele came to form a relationship in which Steele began sharing intelligence he collected with the DOJ official, including early contacts between members of the Trump campaign and Russia.
They also reveal that Ohr continued to serve as an unofficial contact between the FBI and Steele after the bureau cut ties with the intelligence official over contacts with the press.
Steele and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson shared intelligence on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s ties to Russian oligarchs, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page and financial ties between Alfa Bank and Trump, among other allegations.
Ohr, who shared notes from his contacts with Steele with the FBI, knew the nature of Steele’s work for Simpson.
According to the 302s, Ohr knew Simpson had hired Steele to examine ties between Trump and Russia and that this information was contracted as opposition research that would be shared with the Clinton campaign, State Department employee Jon Winer, and the FBI.
Despite this, Ohr believed Steele was genuine in passing along intelligence he’d collected, but he also recognized that there was a bounty of conspiracy theories that dribbled out of the Kremlin.
“Ohr never believed [Steele] was making up information or shading it,” the memos read in part. “There are always Russian conspiracy theories that come from the Kremlin,” it continues.
Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, worked as a contractor for Fusion GPS during this time. According to the documents, Bruce Ohr voluntarily provided his wife’s research to the FBI.
Republicans have long alleged that Bruce Ohr’s ties to Fusion GPS through his wife support their claims that there was bias against Trump within the FBI and DOJ.The Hill
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