AP sources: Lawyer was told Russia had 'Trump over a barrel'

[highplainsdem]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior Justice Department lawyer says a former British spy told him at a breakfast meeting two years ago that Russian intelligence believed it had Donald Trump “over a barrel,” according to multiple people familiar with the encounter.

The lawyer, Bruce Ohr, also says he learned that a Trump campaign aide had met with higher-level Russian officials than the aide had acknowledged, the people said.

The previously unreported details of the July 30, 2016, breakfast with Christopher Steele, which Ohr described to lawmakers this week in a private interview, reveal an exchange of potentially explosive information about Trump between two men the president has relentlessly sought to discredit.

They add to the public understanding of those pivotal summer months as the FBI and intelligence community scrambled to untangle possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. And they reflect the concern of Steele, a longtime FBI informant whose Democratic-funded research into Trump ties to Russia was compiled into a dossier, that the Republican presidential candidate was possibly compromised and his urgent efforts to convey that anxiety to contacts at the FBI and Justice Department.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/4ac772445073491aa7d3ca9e558e0144/AP:-Justice-lawyer-was-told-Russia-had-'Trump-over-a-barrel

[Botany]

1. And this why Trump wants Bruce Ohr gone

The Russians and the Soviet Union/KGB have been "working" Trump
for almost 30 years now.

I wonder if they found a video of Trump getting bags of cash from the Russians
and w/Trump promising his loyalty to Putin what % of the GOP/Deplorable would
still be loyal to Trump?

HE IS A RUSSINA ASSET ... end of story.

[brush]

7. That explains that. One thing in the OP irks me though. The Steele dossier was originally repug-...

funded, oppo research on trump. I believe by the Rubio campaign.

I see it written and spoken on TV and radio all the time that it was Dem-funded. That only happened later when Rubio or Cruz, whoever originally funded it, dropped out of the primary race.

[Botany]

10. So far no part of the Steele dossier has not been proven true.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-russia-dossier-true-proven-929839

We should own and push the Steele Dossier because it is true. The pee
pee part is small potatoes the big part is that Russia under orders from
Putin attacked our democracy and that Michael Cohen met with and paid off
Russian hackers in Prague in the late summer of 2016.

[7962]

22. Proving a negative is hard. Theres no proof the pee tape DOES exist either.

The article only points out a few things; theres a lot of other stuff too
Mueller may have that proof, we dont know yet. But as of now, theres nothing that would hold up in court to show that it actually exists. As for the other points, theres still nothing but conjecture tying in trump. An intel official saying "trumps compromised" has to have proof of HOW along with it. We know Russia meddled. But we know they've meddled in the past too.
I just want solid proof released so theres NO question.
Show that article to a trumper & they'll point out that "Russia had dirt on Clinton & the DNC"

[Botany]

24. "nothing that would hold up in court"

Mueller has the goods and it will hold up in court too.

[7962]

30. Yes, IF Mueller has the goods. We dont know WHAT he's got till its released.

Until then, I'm not holding my breath. Just yesterday Chuck Todd was telling everyone to watch out for today. Of course the day isnt over, but I'm not expecting to hear any earth shattering news by the end of it.
This is my best imitation of being patient. I've been hearing "this is it!!!!" every couple weeks since he's been in office, but so far "it" hasnt amounted to the BOOT from office.

[meadowlander]

28. Clinton didn't change the Democratic platform to favor Russia though.

Nor did she try to lift the sanctions, refuse to enforce new sanctions, praise Putin every chance she got, defend the Russian civil rights records by saying "America is just as bad", sit on her hands instead of investigating how to stop cyber-attacks in the next election, gut the State department and fire all the top FBI Russian spy hunters or contradict her own intelligence chiefs to deny interference in the election.

There's a mountain of proof that Trump is compromised. What we don't have is the specifics of what kompromat Putin has and which vault in the Kremlin it's sitting in. But you don't actually need that to verify the basic premise of the dossier that Putin is holding something over Trump.

[onit2day]

39. did Trump spend as much time in any other country besides Russia?

[Backwoodsrider]

11. yeah I caught that too

Was surprised to not hear it was started by repugs. Also when they talk about the 'disproven' dossier. Ok what exactly is disproven? Only thing I can fond that so far might be wrong is the date Cohen was in Prague, but Cohen is now a convicted liar . Wonder if he came clean about if and when he met with the hackers when he spoke with the prosecuters of SENY.....

[NewJeffCT]

13. Steele was not brought into it until after Fusion GPS

was hired by lawyers working with the DNC. The Republican opposition research started the process and got the ball rolling, but Steele didn't come aboard until Fusion GPS started working with the DNC

[brush]

16. The oppo research project was originally repug-funded though. Steele's named was attached later.

[PatSeg]

27. Yes, that jumped out at me as well

The media needs to stop letting republicans write the narrative. They repeated this misrepresentation of the Steele dossier so many times that even journalists are saying it.

[lagomorph777]

33. Yup - that's why we suddenly started hearing about Ohr after the testimony.

[BadGimp]

36. YA THINK? :)

[onit2day]

38. Don't you remember the senator in the brothel from Godfather II

He comes to with a bloody, chained to bed dead hooker whom he was told he knifed to death and didn't remember due to all the drugs. All that is left he's told is "our friendship" with the godfather.
Now fast forward to Russia, Putin and Trumps teenage beauty pageants and his comments that he could just walk right into their dressing rooms etc. Imagine a dead bloody naked teen lying on the bed nest to a naked dumbfounded Trump with her blood all over him coming too after all the drugs were fading and Putin telling him "all that's left is our friendship".
We all saw how Trump acted around Putin in Helsinki...how shook up he was just standing next to him

[dalton99a]

2. That's why Trump is going after Ohr with such ferocity

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Trump knows the word Treason will

tied to his name shortly.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. This week has been a good one too

nice that info keeps leaking, stories keep rolling, that the issue of elections is being interwoven into the mix instead of just tax fraud.

Wonder if post-election we will see more indictments for campaiging violations, won't the FBI be watching a little more closely this year?

[Achilleaze]

5. republicans are selling out American democracy

for shit. For shame.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

6. Ohr is next on Trump's hit list.

Clearly, he an "enemy of the people," if you define "people" as meaning "Donald J. Trump."

[lagomorph777]

34. I would never define "Donald J. Trump" as a person.

more like a slime mold.

[Sneederbunk]

8. Mueller has already received what Ohr has to offer.

[lagomorph777]

35. Oops! Too late, Donnie!

[MelissaB]

9. Big K&R!

[truthisfreedom]

12. Democratic-funded research? Iirc it was first funded by republicans

And later taken over by Democratic opposition research when he won the primary.

[chowder66]

25. It's maddening isn't it? nt

[Hugin]

42. Yeah, especially since it was McCain who brought the Dossier to the FBI's attention.

"John McCain describes how he received the Steele dossier that contains the most salacious allegations about Trump and Russia."

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-john-mccain-received-steele-dossier-trump-russia-2018-5

It seems misinformation is the friend of Brump.

[highplainsdem]

14. Joyce Vance tweet about this story:

Link to tweet

Imagine you're a career DOJ prosecutor, someone who has worked on Russian organized crime & you are told this. There is no doubt you should take it straight to the top, just like Bruce Ohr did. Trump has no business condemning Ohr & the American people should be thanking him.

[Hortensis]

15. Bruce Ohr is/was also the DoJ's man in charge of

investigating Russian organized crime. It's a pretty safe guess that they need to discredit in him than just this discussion with a frantic Christopher Steele.

We need another investigation: Steele thought he was passing vital information that would stop us from electing an agent of Putin to the presidency.

Steele passed the information to the FBI. Silence. The UK and Senator McCain made it public and forced the FBI to take action. But not exactly the kind intended.

In addition to taking extremely harmful actions against the Democratic candidate, the FBI had the NYT rewrite a story, over the protests of its authors, to imply Trump was clean.. The article, published October 31, 2016, a week before the election, implied the FBI investigation had found nothing of significance and buried the reality of the rapidly expanding investigation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/05/16/new-york-times-acknowledges-it-buried-the-lead-in-pre-election-russia-trump-story/?utm_term=.31c77f0934a1

If we know all this about highly unethical, illegal and even traitorous actions by the FBI, what don't we know?

[hedda_foil]

18. Could "the FBI" in this story mean then head Comey?

[Hortensis]

21. We know Comey and his assistant director

committed breaches that resulted in immediate OIG and internal DoJ investigations and recommendations for their firings. It may be the Manhattan office did some things independently; reports are of rabid anti-Clinton sentiment there and renegade behavior.

But reality is that we have no idea of what all was done from within the FBI and who did it. The scope of that OIG investigation into Comey, for instance, did not extend to finding out why the DNC had no idea Russian intelligence was in their computers, even though the FBI was fully aware and watching.

[Grasswire2]

17. Jonathan Lemire broke this story?! He is THE MAN.

He is the hard-working, courageous reporter who was the star of Helsinki, getting Putin and Trump on the record with his two questions.

[ginnyinWI]

19. Well he certainly acts like it!

When dealing with a liar, you have to just look at what they do to know the truth.

[underthematrix]

20. Here's what it looks like to me

Link to tweet

[Doodley]

23. Is this the news that Chuck Todd was talking about?

[LisaM]

26. Yeah, maybe they shouldn't have fired and investigated Ohr?

Too ironic.

[DeminPennswoods]

29. Money laundering is my bet

Trump has been taking laundered money for years from both the sale of units in the buildings he owns to assorted Russian crooks, then by taking a cut of their money from licensing his name to their real estate developments.

[Midnight Writer]

31. No wonder we are not hearing Republicans crowing about Bruce Ohr's Congressional testimony.

[red dog 1]

32. K&R

[yurbud]

37. this part of Russia-gate I don't doubt: Russia either has dirt on Trump or made a deal

to forgive some of his debts if he played ball with them.

That reflects more poorly on Trump than Russia.

That's the kind of shit we do to most countries before we get out of bed on Sunday.

[workinclasszero]

40. No! Really?

[Cha]

41. No Shite. The Big Bully(yes, melania you're married to

an atrocious Bully) is Whipped by putin.