Bi_3 wrote:The current story is that the dossier wasn't started until some time after the unknown GOP person had stopped paying Fusion GPS.
More specifically, the story is that Fusion didn't bring Steele on board with the research until then, which is inconsequential to the accuracy of his findings.
I understand the absurdity of Clinton's camp not admitting they were paying when this happened, but frankly I'm glad they did. If Clinton's name had been attached back when all this was blowing up, it would have made dismissing it as a partisan hatchet job too easy.
It's not a big leap from that to Goodwin wrote in the NYPost:
"The explosive report in the Washington Post goes a long way to explaining how the dossier was so widely spread among political reporters during the election. The Clinton camp must have passed it out like Halloween candy to its media handmaidens.
News organizations tried for months to confirm the salacious details, but couldn’t.
No, but the FBI has confirmed much of what it says.
The Post report provides possible answers to other questions, too. Because Clinton’s team paid for the dossier, it’s likely that she gave it to the FBI, where James Comey planned to hire the former British agent who had compiled it to keep digging dirt on Trump.
McCain provided it as well, and multiple foreign intelligence agencies reached out to us. Also, "digging dirt" is a dispicably dismissive phrase
The finding also raises the possibility that the dossier is what led the Obama White House to snoop on members of Trump’s team, and leak the “unmasked” names to the anti-Trump media in a bid to help Clinton.
Wat
Also, some of those people had been subject to FISA warrants for several years by this point
In short, we now have compelling evidence that the dossier was the largest and dirtiest dirty trick of the 2016 campaign. And Clinton, who has played the victim card ever since her loss, was behind it the whole time."
My problem with this take is that you have to process the following highly
truncated timeline, and think both “Clinton’s team paying Steele and lying about it is the biggest dirty trick of them all,” and also “It shows that the Russia stuff is nonsense, so this is just partisan politics as usual."
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A Kremlin-linked company bought Facebook ads for a period of almost two years (June 2015 to May 2017).
The DNC is hacked in September of 2015.
Kushner meets Kislyak. There are 18 other known communication points between the campaign and Kislyak and/or other Russian contacts.
Shortly after meeting Kislyak, Kushner takes on digital campaign efforts, and brings in Cambridge Analytica.
Don Jr. gets an offer regarding Russian information on HC. He famously “loves it.”
While he’s waiting for that meeting to occur, Trump claims in a speech that he is going to “reveal things that have taken place with the Clintons….” When nothing surfaces, he pivots to the emails.
Rohrabacher tries to show an anti-Magnitsky, pro-Kremlin documentary to the entire House Foreign Affairs Committee. They pass.
Cambridge Analytica reaches out to Wikileaks.
As e-mails continue to leak whenever Trump is in trouble, Manafort offers to provide campaign briefings to one of Putin’s associates.
Trump then demands only one change to the GOP platform: the position on the Ukraine. He swears he didn’t, until they admit he did.
Sessions then meets with Kislyak.
Page then meets with Kislyak.
By the end of July, 2016, the FBI is investigating the possibility of collusion. They receive the dossier a few months later.
Several people in the campaign suddenly insist Russia had nothing to do with the DNC hack.
Russian accounts use a Facebook page called “Being Patriotic” to mobilize a pro-Trump “flash mob” in 17 Florida cities simultaneously.
Stone then tweets that Podesta’s time in the barrel is coming.
Podesta emails leak.
Sessions meets with Kislyak AGAIN.
In the days leading up to the election, Russian hackers target voting systems in 21 states.
After the election, Obama provides Trump with intel on Flynn and recommends against bringing him into the White House.
The White House brings Flynn in.
Flynn, Kushner, Sessions, and Don Jr all intentionally lie about Russian contacts during the campaign.
Flynn tries to schedule another Kislyak meeting, with senior Trump officials.
Kushner then suggests, to the Russians, using the Russian embassy as a safe place to talk.
Page goes to Moscow.
Trump dismisses the CIA report on Russian interference.
Trump starts pushing to remove Russian sanctions.
Flynn repeatedly calls Kislyak. Five phone calls in a brief period following the election.
The collective intelligence organizations agree that Russia attempted to interfere with the election.
Trump immediately begins attacking the intelligence organizations.
Betsy Devos’s brother then meets with a Putin associate.
Pence denies any contact between the campaign and Russia. We now know he was aware of contacts at the time.
Trump fires Yates.
Trump asks Comey to let Flynn go.
Trump fires Preet Bharara.
Trump fires Comey.
Trump admits that he fired Comey in a bid to end the investigation.
Trump tells Flynn to “stay strong.”
Trump weighs refusing to sign the new sanctions bill, then caves.
Trump sits on Russian sanctions, passing the deadline in the bill without action.
Rohrabacher openly meets with Assange for dirt to help Trump.
