McCabe draws blank on Democrats’ funding of Trump dossier, new subpoenas planned
EXCLUSIVE: Congressional investigators tell Fox News that Tuesday’s seven-hour interrogation of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe contained numerous conflicts with the testimony of previous witnesses, prompting the Republican majority staff of the House Intelligence Committee to decide to issue fresh subpoenas next week on Justice Department and FBI personnel.
While HPSCI staff would not confirm who will be summoned for testimony, all indications point to demoted DOJ official Bruce G. Ohr and FBI General Counsel James A. Baker, who accompanied McCabe, along with other lawyers, to Tuesday’s HPSCI session.
The issuance of a subpoena against the Justice Department’s top lawyer could provoke a new constitutional clash between the two branches, even worse than the months-long tug of war over documents and witnesses that has already led House Speaker Paul Ryan to accuse DOJ and FBI of “stonewalling” and HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., to threaten contempt-of-Congress citations against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
“It’s hard to know who’s telling us the truth,” said one House investigator after McCabe’s questioning.
Fox News is told that several lawmakers participated in the questioning of McCabe, led chiefly by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.
Sources close to the investigation say that McCabe was a “friendly witness” to the Democrats in the room, who are said to have pressed the deputy director, without success, to help them build a case against President Trump for obstruction of justice in the Russia-collusion probe. “If he could have, he would have,” said one participant in the questioning.
Investigators say McCabe recounted to the panel how hard the FBI had worked to verify the contents of the anti-Trump “dossier” and stood by its credibility. But when pressed to identify what in the salacious document the bureau had actually corroborated, the sources said, McCabe cited only the fact that Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had traveled to Moscow. Beyond that, investigators said, McCabe could not even say that the bureau had verified the dossier’s allegations about the specific meetings Page supposedly held in Moscow.
The sources said that when asked when he learned that the dossier had been funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, McCabe claimed he could not recall – despite the reported existence of documents with McCabe’s own signature on them establishing his knowledge of the dossier’s financing and provenance.
The decision by HPSCI staff to subpoena Ohr comes as he is set to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting its own probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Until earlier this month, when Fox News began investigating him, Ohr held two titles at DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, a post that placed him four doors down from his boss, Rosenstein; and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF), a program described by the department as “the centerpiece of the attorney general’s drug strategy.”
Ohr will retain his OCDETF title but was stripped of his higher post and ousted from his office on the fourth floor of “Main Justice.” Department officials confirmed that Ohr had withheld from superiors his secret meetings in 2016 with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the dossier with input from Russian sources; and with Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that hired Steele with funds supplied by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Subsequently, Fox News disclosed that Ohr’s wife Nellie, an academic expert on Russia, had worked for Fusion GPS through the summer and fall of 2016.
Former FBI Director James Comey, testifying before the House in March, described the dossier as a compendium of “salacious and unverified” allegations against then-candidate Donald Trump and his associates. The Nunes panel has spent much of this year investigating whether DOJ, under then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, used the dossier to justify a foreign surveillance warrant against Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.
DOJ and FBI say they have cooperated extensively with Nunes and his team, including the provision of several hundred pages of classified documents relating to the dossier. The DOJ has also made McCabe available to the House Judiciary Committee for a closed-door interview on Thursday.
The Justice Department and FBI declined to comment for this report.
James Rosen joined FOX News Channel (FNC) in 1999 and is the network’s chief Washington correspondent.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/20/mccabe-draws-blank-on-democrats-funding-trump-dossier-new-subpoenas-planned.html
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Trouble is brewing for the "deep state"
The deep state is real. Except it is not 'government,' it is private. Koch. Mercer. Adelson. Murdoch and many others with the aid of the 'information ministry' of FOX.
You forgot the Soros Machine, since you decided to go there. If you check, he gives far more money to political candidates than any of the others you've named.
false
Funny, Libby got indicted for perjury for remembering he heard about Plame from one source, while a rabid "independent prosecutor" said he learned it from another (based on a witness who subsequently recanted her testimony).
McCabe better hope an independent prosecutor doesn't start looking into FBI misconduct during the 2016 election, because the phony "I don't remember" card might end up with him in jail.
McCabe confirmed, yet again, the "Russian dossier" is a piece of unverifiable crap. Yet, we all know we can look forward to progressives claiming that it's been "verified."
Who funds what is not relevant.
Is the information in 'the dossier' true or not? This is the only issue.
None of it has been verified. The whole thing was a manufactured hit job on Trump. Thankfully, the voters were not gullible or stupid enough to believe it.
"Verified?" I do not know that and neither do you.
Manufactured hit job? I doubt that. Trump is a money launderer. He can not reveal his taxes because the truth will out him.
Funny how you know this, yet Andew McCabe managed to overlook it in his testimony yesterday. I guess you know more about the dossier than the FBI does.
Sure, OK.
And your statement is unverified. I could say you are a child molester. That is also unverified. Do you see how that works?
Republicans like Spike refuse to admit that Trump has no one to blame for his troubles but himself.
Before he said this,
“I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
That was on July 26, 2016. Prior to that moment no one had connected Donald Trump to any hacking of Democrats or to Russia. In typical fashion he couldn't keep his mouth shut, and now , a year and a half later law enforcement is investigating whether Trump had learned, shortly before his comments, that Russia wanted to offer his campaign 'dirt' on Clinton in return for later favors from a Trump administration.
When one has nowhere to go and all day to get there......................keep on shufflin'.
Possible the 'gop inquisitors' have nothing meaningful to offer.
Joke or not, he clearly got what he wanted. The emails were found and then made their way to WIKIleaks. Russia sent the emails to Flynn and wikileaks. Not a big secret. Also? Joke or not, it's proof of collusion at a minimum.
I remember this from history class, it's the same shit pulled when the Nazi's took over the German government, anyone who tried to prove Hitler was against the German people and, didn't have the best interest of Germany in mind seemed to either disappear or, were charged with "crimes" and, jailed. If you will notice, all of the people involved in this "hearing" are Republicans who have taken the "loyalty pledge" of their "fearless leader". This is the witch hunt.
here we go with Hitler and Nazi chit again
Much like people who failed the Clintons? There's a list of the bodies left behind.....
Lol it does my heart good to see an article and comments where both sides of the political spectrum are working together to find common acceptable ground in a respectful, non-divisive manner .