Leaked Bruce Ohr testimony may be the key to unraveling the biggest political scandal in American history
The mobilization of law enforcement and intelligence assets by the Obama administration in 2016 to spy on the presidential campaign of rival party candidate Donald Trump is the biggest political scandal in our history. The Mueller probe of Trump is a cover-up, as are leaks to friendly media by anonymous former officials. Yet the pieces are falling into place to burn through the dust clouds and see the underlying crimes.
John Solomon of The Hill is one of our leading sources for the real story obscured by the guilty parties and their media allies. Fully uncovering it will require prosecution of related crimes, and the testimony of cooperating witnesses in the interest of mitigating their legal consequences, up to and including prison time.
Testimony given by former FBI top lawyer Bruce Ohr that has been leaked to Solomon provides, in Solomon's words:
... 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.
Misleading a federal judge is a big crime.
Ohr has testified that the officials who submitted the FIA warrant applications knowingly lied, because he warned them that the Fusion-GPS dossier was opposition research from the Hillary Campaign:
The then-No. 4 Department of Justice (DOJ) official briefed both senior FBI and DOJ officials in summer 2016 about Christopher Steele's Russia dossier, explicitly cautioning that the British intelligence operative's work was opposition research connected to Hillary Clinton's campaign and might be biased.
Ohr's briefings, in July and August 2016, included the deputy director of the FBI, a top lawyer for then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a Justice official who later would become the top deputy to special counsel Robert Mueller.
At the time, Ohr was the associate attorney general. Yet his warnings about political bias were pointedly omitted weeks later from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant that the FBI obtained from a federal court, granting it permission to spy on whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to hijack the 2016 presidential election.
According to Solomon's sources, Ohr has corroborating evidence, including notes taken at the time. And Ohr warned them:
... saying he disclosed to FBI agents that his wife and Steele were working for the same firm and that it was conducting the Trump-Russia research project at the behest of Trump's Democratic rival, the Clinton campaign.
"These guys were hired by somebody relating to, who's related to the Clinton campaign and be aware," Ohr told Congress, explaining what he warned the bureau.
It sounds to me as though Ohr is prepared to turn state's evidence, perhaps to spare his wife, as well as himself, a stay at the Graybar Hotel.
Rod Rosenstein, who signed off on one of the FISA applications, is getting out of the DOJ as soon as William Barr is confirmed. Will he have his hands full defending that signature on a document that misled a federal judge into granting an illegitimate warrant to spy on a presidential campaign?
Just because the media are loath to publicize the unraveling, don't be fooled into believing that this scandal will be dropped. William Barr had no motive beyond seeing justice served for accepting the nomination as A.G. He already had as much prestige and money as he would ever need.