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This seems to be a revelation as to where the investigations are going…
WASHINGTON — Federal authorities on Thursday arrested an analyst who in 2016 gathered leads about possible links between Donald J. Trump and Russia for what turned out to be Democratic-funded opposition research, according to people familiar with the matter.
The arrest of the analyst, Igor Danchenko, is part of the special counsel inquiry led by John H. Durham, who was appointed by the Trump administration to scrutinize the Russia investigation for any wrongdoing, the people said.
Mr. Danchenko, was the primary researcher of the so-called Steele dossier, a compendium of rumors and unproven assertions suggesting that Mr. Trump and his 2016 campaign were compromised by and conspiring with Russian intelligence officials in Moscow’s covert operation to help him defeat Hillary Clinton.
The people familiar with the matter spoke on condition of anonymity because the indictment of Mr. Danchenko had yet to be unsealed. A spokesman for Mr. Durham did not respond to a request for comment.
Some claims from the Steele dossier made their way into an F.B.I. wiretap application targeting a former Trump campaign adviser in October 2016. Other portions of it — particularly a salacious claim about a purported sex tape — caused a political and media firestorm when Buzzfeed published the materials in January 2017, shortly before Mr. Trump was sworn in.
But most of the important claims in the dossier — which was written by Mr. Danchenko’s employer, Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent — have not been proven, and some have been refuted. F.B.I. agents interviewed Mr. Danchenko in 2017 when they were seeking to run down the claims in the dossier.
The interview suggested that aspects of the dossier were misleading: Mr. Steele left unclear that much of the material was thirdhand information, and some of what Mr. Danchenko — who was born in Russia but lives in the United States — had relayed was more speculative than the dossier implied.
A 2019 investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general sharply criticized the F.B.I. for continuing to cite material from the dossier after the bureau interviewed Mr. Danchenko without alerting judges that some of what he said had cast doubt on the contents of the dossier.
The inspector general report also said that a decade earlier, when Mr. Danchenko worked for the Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington think-tank, he had been the subject of a counterintelligence investigation into whether he was a Russian agent.
In an interview with The New York Times in 2020, Mr. Danchenko defended the integrity of his work, saying he had been tasked to gather “raw intelligence” and was simply passing it on to Mr. Steele. Mr. Danchenko — who made his name as a Russia analyst by exposing indications that the dissertation of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia contained plagiarized material — also denied being a Russian agent.
“I’ve never been a Russian agent,” Mr. Danchenko said. “It is ridiculous to suggest that. This, I think, it’s slander.”
Mr. Steele’s efforts were part of opposition research that Democrats were indirectly funding by the time the 2016 general election took shape. Mr. Steele’s business intelligence firm was a subcontractor to another research firm, Fusion GPS, which in turn had been hired by the Perkins Coie law firm, which was working for the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Mr. Danchenko said he did not know who Mr. Steele’s client was at the time and considered himself a nonpartisan analyst and researcher.
Mr. Durham has been known to be interested in Mr. Danchenko and the Steele dossier saga. In February, he used a subpoena to obtain old personnel files and other documents related to Mr. Danchenko from the Brookings Institution, where Mr. Danchenko had worked from 2005 until 2010.
The charges against Mr. Danchenko follow Mr. Durham’s indictment in September of a cybersecurity lawyer, Michael Sussmann, which accused him of lying to the F.B.I. about who he was working for when he brought concerns about possible Trump-Russia links to the bureau in September 2016.
Mr. Sussmann, who then also worked for Perkins Coie, was relaying concerns developed by data scientists about odd internet logs they said suggested the possibility of a covert communications channel between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked financial institution. He has denied lying to the F.B.I. about who he was working for.
William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.
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Steve Bannon has been indicted.
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Jan. 6 Planners Spoke Directly to Eric Trump Using Cash-Bought Burner Phones, Says Report
A few days before Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building, one of the top organizers for the rally that preceded the riot reportedly issued an unusual request to some underlings. According to Rolling Stone , Jan. 6 planners were ordered to use cash to purchase burner phones that were used to communicate directly with the Trump family and White House officials. The request reportedly came from Kylie Kremer from the “March for Trump” group that helped plan the D.C. rally that later turned into the Capitol riot. According to the report, the phones were used to talk to figures including Donald Trump’s son Eric, his wife Lara Trump, and Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff. An anonymous “March for Trump” team member said: “[Kremer] needed burner phones in order to communicate with high level people is how she put it.” Kremer didn’t respond to a request for comment on Rolling Stone’s report, nor did any Trump family members or Meadows.
Jan. 6 Organizers Used Anonymous Burner Phones to Communicate with White House and Trump Family, Sources Say
A key planner of the Jan. 6 rally near the White House insisted the burner phones be purchased with cash, a source says
Some of the organizers who planned the rally that took place on the White House Ellipse on Jan. 6 allegedly used difficult-to-trace burner phones for their most “high level” communications with former President Trump’s team.
Kylie Kremer, a top official in the March for Trump group that helped plan the Ellipse rally, directed an aide to pick up three burner phones days before Jan. 6, according to three sources who were involved in the event. One of the sources, a member of the March for Trump team, says Kremer insisted the phones be purchased using cash and described this as being “of the utmost importance.”
The three sources say Kylie Kremer took one of the phones and used it to communicate with top White House and Trump campaign officials, including Eric Trump, the president’s second-oldest son, who leads the family’s real-estate business; Lara Trump, Eric’s wife and a former senior Trump campaign consultant; Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff; and Katrina Pierson, a Trump surrogate and campaign consultant.
The member says a second phone was given to Amy Kremer, Kylie Kremer’s mother and another key rally organizer. The team member says they did not know who the third phone was purchased for.
“That was when the planning for the event on the Ellipse was happening, she needed burner phones in order to communicate with high-level people is how she put it,” the March for Trump team member tells Rolling Stone, referencing Kylie Kremer.
Kylie and Amy Kremer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on record.
According to the three sources, some of the most crucial planning conversations between top rally organizers and Trump’s inner circle took place on those burner phones. “They were planning all kinds of stuff, marches and rallies. Any conversation she had with the White House or Trump family took place on those phones,” the team member says of Kylie Kremer.
Representatives for Donald Trump and Meadows also did not respond to a request for comment. Eric Trump, Lara Trump, and Pierson did not respond to requests for comment.
Burner phones — cheap, prepaid cells designed for temporary usage — do not require users to have an account. This makes them hard to trace and ideal for those who are seeking anonymity — particularly if they are purchased with cash. The use of burner phones could make it more difficult for congressional investigators to find evidence of coordination between Trump’s team and rally planners.
The House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack has been examining what role Trump and his allies played in what the committee has described as “efforts to subvert the rule of law, overturn the results of the Nov. 3, 2020, election, or otherwise impede the peaceful transfer of power.” As part of that effort, the committee has subpoenaed documents from the Kremers, other March for Trump organizers, rally planners, and top Trump advisers, including members of his White House staff and campaign team. The committee has received “thousands of pages of records” and, according to an attorney familiar with the investigation, that includes “tons” of group-text conversations. (The committee declined to comment.) Rolling Stone reviewed group texts from the rally planners that show the Kremers claiming they worked with the White House Trump team to plan the Ellipse event.
Kylie and Amy Kremer helped lead the nationwide March for Trump bus tour, where speakers promoted false conspiracy theories about last November’s election and called for the results to be overturned. That tour culminated on Jan. 6, with the large “Save America” rally on the White House Ellipse, which took place as Trump’s loss was being certified at the U.S. Capitol. The Kremers also lead an organization called Women for America First, which obtained the permit for the Ellipse rally.
Trump spoke at the Ellipse rally on Jan. 6 and said they should “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” to the Capitol, which is located about 1.5 miles away from the Ellipse. In his remarks, the former president told the crowd to both “fight like hell” and to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” As the speech concluded, crowds of Trump supporters breached barricades at the Capitol complex. Some supporters proceeded to break into the building and spend hours attacking Capitol police and threatening violence against lawmakers, an attack that delayed the certification of President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
There was no evidence the Kremers and the other rally organizers encouraged or planned violence in the group-text messages reviewed by Rolling Stone. However, critics have argued that Trump and the leaders who encouraged thousands of his supporters to come to Washington as the vote was certified deserve some blame for the violence because of their pre-Jan. 6 rhetoric and the fiery content of the former president’s speech at the Ellipse rally.
The three sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the ongoing investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, say Kylie asked the aide to buy the three burner phones as the group passed through Palm Springs, California, about a week before the Ellipse event. Based on the group’s website, which has since been deleted, the tour began on Dec. 27, 2020, in Las Vegas before moving on to California.
There could still be some evidence of direct communications between Kylie Kremer and the White House in more traditional phone records. The team member says that there were rare exceptions in which Kylie Kremer used her regular phone to communicate with Trump officials. “She talked with Mark Meadows on her personal phone once, but mainly on the burner phone,” the team member says.
The sources who spoke to Rolling Stone about the phones also describe an incident that occurred around last Christmastime as the March for Trump bus tour kicked off in Las Vegas — just before the phones were allegedly purchased. According to the sources, the group stayed at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, which is co-owned and managed by the former president’s real-estate company. The team member says the group hoped to park its bus, which was emblazoned with logos, a picture of Trump, and a message declaring “PROTECT ELECTION INTEGRITY,” in front of the hotel. However, the team member says hotel management initially declined due to political sensitivities and a lack of space in front of the building.
“The hotel manager said, ‘There’s no way in hell you can have that here unless you can have a member of the Trump family on the phone,’ ” the team member recalls.
Photos reviewed by Rolling Stone showed the bus parked prominently in front of the hotel’s main entrance. According to the team member, it was able to park because of calls from the Kremers to the Trump family.
“Amy and Kylie,” the team member says, “got Eric and Lara on the phone right away.”
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Ex-Trump chief of staff Meadows cooperating with Jan. 6 panel - for now
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Look at that. One by one, they’re lining up to plead the 5th and not incriminate themselves. I wonder what John Eastman’s so afraid of?
We know, of course, the basics. I can’t wait for the details.
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‘Absolute liars’: Ex-D.C. Guard official says generals lied to Congress about Jan. 6
In a 36-page memo to the Capitol riot committee, Col. Earl Matthews also slams the Pentagon’s inspector general for what he calls an error-ridden report.
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Trump-Starved Republicans Don’t Want to Wait Until 2024, Play Him Up as Potential House Speaker
Rep. Matt Gaetz said during a press conference on Tuesday that he discussed a potential speakership role with the former president
Trump Just Wanted to Remind America that He Committed Obstruction of Justice
“If I didn’t fire Comey, they were looking to take down the president of the United States,” the former president said Sunday as he admitted to a crime
Trump Ordered Staff to ‘Bust Some Heads’ of Black Lives Matter Protesters Prior to Church Photo Op: Book
“We need to restore order,” the former president told his chief of staff before his infamous Bible photo op
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So, two stories here. First:
Here is the powerpoint presentation:
And then:
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‘You Are a Loose End … That Needs to Tidy Up.’
Kanye West associate and former R. Kelly publicist Trevian Kutti has been accused of pressuring Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman to confess to voter fraud or be arrested.
Whaaaaat?
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Trump campaign lawyer authored two memos claiming Pence could halt Biden’s victory
In one previously unreported memo, Jenna Ellis delivered a technical — and far-fetched — legal argument to another of the former president’s outside lawyers.
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‘Reasonable questions’ over financing of Donald Trump’s Scottish resorts, court hears
There are “reasonable questions” surrounding the money used by Donald Trump to purchase his Scottish properties and the continuing source of the wealth used for their financing, a court has heard.
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Um…
Meadows Jan. 5 email indicated Guard on standby to ‘protect pro Trump people,’ investigators say
The context for the message is unclear, but it comes amid scrutiny of the Guard’s slow response to the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol.
https://www.politicalflare.com/2021/12/bombshell-mark-meadows-sent-email-on-jan-5th-telling-national-guard-to-protect-trump-supporters/
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So apparently Fox News hosts and Don Jr were all begging Meadows to get Trump to call off the insurrectionist attackers.
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Hannity Hosts Meadows After Their Bombshell Text Drop, Ignores It Completely
Viewers watching Hannity’s show on Monday night would have had no idea that the Fox star was texting Mark Meadows as the Capitol riots raged, begging Trump to stop the violence.
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A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed an effort from former President Trump to prevent the Treasury Department and IRS from providing House Democrats with his tax returns.
Has Mark Meadows Just Taken Down Donald Trump?
Liz Cheney revealed text messages from Donald Trump Jr., Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham to Trump’s chief of staff on Jan. 6 – and they are damning
Jim Jordan May Have A Big Problem As Questions Grow About Coup Briefing
Jan. 6 Committee Examines PowerPoint Document Sent to Meadows
Mark Meadows’s lawyer said the former White House chief of staff did not act on the document, which recommended that President Donald J. Trump declare a national emergency to keep himself in power.
On Jan. 6 itself, Trump’s allies understood that he was the catalyst
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