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The Robert Mueller Investigation

Hugo Stiglitz

By Hugo Stiglitz
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Biff Tannen

Biff Tannen 45494

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, notre dame joe said:

This will sink Trump for sure says increasingly bored man.

 

Just imagine: Barr coordinated with the Trump Campaign and took out FISA warrants off of phony Russian BS,  

 

The debate moderator decides that's not important enough to bring up in light of a SCOTUS vacancy and climate change.

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Goredho
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Just to make sure I have the alternative facts straight...  Our government -- but I'm guessing only the deep state part of it --- is now guilty of torturing a poor, naive Russian exchange student who

Incredulity
Incredulity

liberals suddenly being terrified of Russia and manic for election integrity is just pure comedy gold.

Chooky
Chooky

I don't believe for a moment that any of this is entertaining to you.  I think it gives you a bit of anxiety knowing that your best weapon against a group who you despise is a bumbling fraud as a busi

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23356

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Trump pulled off the slow motion Saturday Night Massacre by decapitating both the FBI and the DOJ multiple times, over a NATIONAL SECURITY investigation into his campaign’s possible treason to elect him President. 

LIKE HE ACTUALLY DID THIS AND IT’S NOT EVEN THE THING HE WILL BE REMEMBERED FOR. 

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Captainant

Captainant 27450

Posted
Posted
Just now, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Trump pulled off the slow motion Saturday Night Massacre by decapitating both the FBI and the DOJ multiple times, over a NATIONAL SECURITY investigation into his campaign’s possible treason to elect him President. 

LIKE HE ACTUALLY DID THIS AND IT’S NOT EVEN THE THING HE WILL BE REMEMBERED FOR. 

And that's why he brought on Bill Barr to be his AG. That's the shit he does. He's the teflon man who got Reagan through Iran/Contra

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 45557

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, GW Hayduke said:

It seems rather unfair that I now have such low regard for the University of Notre Dame. 

I've started to wonder if the high regard for ND isn't similar to the high regard for the priesthood.  I mean, once I realized that a significant minority of priests like to diddle young boys, the coverup became clear.

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Captainant

Captainant 27450

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, notre dame joe said:

Did Russia fuck up 100,000 ballots?  That is serious election meddling. 

It looks like a procedural error, if you actually read the article you link to, it reports the following error:

Michael Ryan, the executive director of the New York City Board of Elections, told the board during its weekly meeting Tuesday that the third-party vendor used to print the absentee ballots, Phoenix Graphics Inc., erroneously sent oath envelopes with names, address and bar codes that were different from the names and address listed on the voter's ballot.

Swing and a miss there, fucko. The fact that they caught it and are addressing it in a timely manner would go the other way to the conclusion that is NOT election meddling. Just error-correction along the way, which is gonna be necessary in a system meant to handle over 100MM votes.

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notre dame joe

notre dame joe 172

Posted
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7 hours ago, Captainant said:

It looks like a procedural error, if you actually read the article you link to, it reports the following error:

Michael Ryan, the executive director of the New York City Board of Elections, told the board during its weekly meeting Tuesday that the third-party vendor used to print the absentee ballots, Phoenix Graphics Inc., erroneously sent oath envelopes with names, address and bar codes that were different from the names and address listed on the voter's ballot.

Swing and a miss there, fucko. The fact that they caught it and are addressing it in a timely manner would go the other way to the conclusion that is NOT election meddling. Just error-correction along the way, which is gonna be necessary in a system meant to handle over 100MM votes.

 

Yes, all of the Russian meddling for the past 100 years added together, still can't hold a candle to how badly the Left is fucking it up right now.  You always accuse Trump of doing the things you do yourself. 

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hobbes2702

hobbes2702 12824

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, notre dame joe said:

 

Yes, all of the Russian meddling for the past 100 years added together, still can't hold a candle to how badly the Left is fucking it up right now.  You always accuse Trump of doing the things you do yourself. 

I’m sure you can prove that right?...

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GW Hayduke

GW Hayduke 1952

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1 hour ago, Enchubben said:

Any updates or bombshells this week on Russia? 

Nothing?

I get that the trumpkins and the both-sides boys are anxiously scraping the barrel, and you guys want this stuff to be relevant.  But let me know if any of these mind blowing revelations change what we know about:

- trump asking Russia for assistance.

- trump’s son and campaign chairman meeting with Russian attorneys to get dirt on Hillary.

- Russia running a hacking and dumping operation to get trump elected. Whatabout her emails!!!

- trump and his advisor working with Wikileaks to coordinate timing of Russian hacked materials.

- Russia running a social media campaign to get trump elected.

- trump’s campaign manager providing internal polling data to Russian cutouts.

- trump obstructing the investigation into Russian election interference including firing the director of the fbi because of that “Russia thing.”

- trump and the GOP refusing to pass legislation to help protect our elections from foreign interference.

- trump using national security funds as leverage to get foreign allies to attack his campaign rival.

- Russia is currently meddling in the 2020 election to elect trump.

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Yuk

Yuk 1509

Posted
Posted
34 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

I get that the trumpkins and the both-sides boys are anxiously scraping the barrel, and you guys want this stuff to be relevant.  But let me know if any of these mind blowing revelations change what we know about:

- trump asking Russia for assistance.

- trump’s son and campaign chairman meeting with Russian attorneys to get dirt on Hillary.

- Russia running a hacking and dumping operation to get trump elected. Whatabout her emails!!!

- trump and his advisor working with Wikileaks to coordinate timing of Russian hacked materials.

- Russia running a social media campaign to get trump elected.

- trump’s campaign manager providing internal polling data to Russian cutouts.

- trump obstructing the investigation into Russian election interference including firing the director of the fbi because of that “Russia thing.”

- trump and the GOP refusing to pass legislation to help protect our elections from foreign interference.

- trump using national security funds as leverage to get foreign allies to attack his campaign rival.

- Russia is currently meddling in the 2020 election to elect trump.

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31272

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On 9/30/2020 at 3:46 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

It was always a cover up in plain sight. The entire GOP went along with it. 

For the sake of context, Judge Walton found that DOJ had properly redacted and withheld material in four of five objected-to categories.  

The category of information that must be disclosed is: information that is protected by the deliberative process privilege because the information pertains to “deliberations about charging decisions not to prosecute, which would reveal criminal charges considered but not pursued against certain named individuals under investigation.”

According to the Judge, such information, if related to a final, as opposed to pending, charging decision, must be disclosed.  Only "pre-decisional" material can be withheld.

So, while he was skeptical of the proffered reasons for withholding, for good reason, he "sustained" those reasons in 80-someodd percent of the cases.

 

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SmokeyTheBear

SmokeyTheBear 5562

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45 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

I get that the trumpkins and the both-sides boys are anxiously scraping the barrel, and you guys want this stuff to be relevant.  But let me know if any of these mind blowing revelations change what we know about:

- trump asking Russia for assistance.

- trump’s son and campaign chairman meeting with Russian attorneys to get dirt on Hillary.

- Russia running a hacking and dumping operation to get trump elected. Whatabout her emails!!!

- trump and his advisor working with Wikileaks to coordinate timing of Russian hacked materials.

- Russia running a social media campaign to get trump elected.

- trump’s campaign manager providing internal polling data to Russian cutouts.

- trump obstructing the investigation into Russian election interference including firing the director of the fbi because of that “Russia thing.”

- trump and the GOP refusing to pass legislation to help protect our elections from foreign interference.

- trump using national security funds as leverage to get foreign allies to attack his campaign rival.

- Russia is currently meddling in the 2020 election to elect trump.

With the back drop of his own son admitting that they are financed by Russian money. 

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Mdhorn

Mdhorn 5911

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49 minutes ago, SmokeyTheBear said:

With the back drop of his own son admitting that they are financed by Russian money. 

The newspaper report quoted McCarthy saying, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.”

According to the Washington Post report, House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fellow Republican, interrupted McCarthy and urged Republicans present to keep McCarthy’s remarks secret.

 

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notre dame joe

notre dame joe 172

Posted
Posted
16 hours ago, GW Hayduke said:

I get that the trumpkins and the both-sides boys are anxiously scraping the barrel, and you guys want this stuff to be relevant.  But let me know if any of these mind blowing revelations change what we know about:

- trump asking Russia for assistance.

- trump’s son and campaign chairman meeting with Russian attorneys to get dirt on Hillary.

- Russia running a hacking and dumping operation to get trump elected. Whatabout her emails!!!

- trump and his advisor working with Wikileaks to coordinate timing of Russian hacked materials.

- Russia running a social media campaign to get trump elected.

- trump’s campaign manager providing internal polling data to Russian cutouts.

- trump obstructing the investigation into Russian election interference including firing the director of the fbi because of that “Russia thing.”

- trump and the GOP refusing to pass legislation to help protect our elections from foreign interference.

- trump using national security funds as leverage to get foreign allies to attack his campaign rival.

- Russia is currently meddling in the 2020 election to elect trump.

You forgot AND CARTER PAGE WALKED INTO A BAR

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TtomTerrific

TtomTerrific 200

Posted
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Checking on ol’ Hugu. Mad props ridin this bitch all the way to expiration!

 

Perhaps you could forward this summary representation of what you chose to do with this percentage of available minutes awake during what’s left of your lifespan, to James Comey. The head detective in the land! Who doesn’t remember anything you’ve chronicled so thoroughly, night after night for your readers through the years.

 

I think Rachael Maddow went on a similar deep dive with accompanying multimedia study along type visuals

 

No problem James. Hugo’s got it from here !

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Tom

Tom 2959

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16 minutes ago, TtomTerrific said:

Checking on ol’ Hugu. Mad props ridin this bitch all the way to expiration!

 

Perhaps you could forward this summary representation of what you chose to do with this percentage of available minutes awake during what’s left of your lifespan, to James Comey. The head detective in the land! Who doesn’t remember anything you’ve chronicled so thoroughly, night after night for your readers through the years.

 

I think Rachael Maddow went on a similar deep dive with accompanying multimedia study along type visuals

 

No problem James. Hugo’s got it from here !

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Captainant

Captainant 27450

Posted
Posted
17 hours ago, notre dame joe said:

I just got 3 alerts.  Some prick went through downvoting my old posts and he doesn't even contribute to the thread.  If the Surly Like function is just an emotional outlet for lurkers it should be capped or even disabled.

take ya lumps, if you don't like getting negged try being less shitty.

Alternatively, you could try posting things that get you posrep so you can deal with the occassional crazy like stone oak or CTJ neg-bombing

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 45557

Posted
Posted

Most people try not to neg rep on CR.  I cross that line now and again.  Wish I didn't.

That said, I would suggest that, should one give a fucking damn about rep, they might try to actually be a positive contributor, you know, as insurance against the occasional misstep.  This goes double for the closeted bigots.  Rally sons of Notre Dame, indeed.

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notre dame joe

notre dame joe 172

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Most people try not to neg rep on CR.  I cross that line now and again.  Wish I didn't.

That said, I would suggest that, should one give a fucking damn about rep, they might try to actually be a positive contributor, you know, as insurance against the occasional misstep.  This goes double for the closeted bigots.  Rally sons of Notre Dame, indeed.

I cannot agree with that.  I don't recall 'negging' anyone because it amounts to nothing more than a difference of opinion.  

 

This got a bad delete from one of your former conference mates boards-

John Brennan was on CSPAN this weekend, railing against politicization of the national security system.  And also that Trump was selectively leaking. 

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Captainant

Captainant 27450

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

https://www.justsecurity.org/72262/the-trump-alfa-bank-server-mystery-resurfaces/

Thanks for the informative article on the new suit - it's interesting that Alfa is changing their story in the suit compared to their earlier representations. From the article:

Alfa Bank’s complaint makes the erroneous claim that in October 2016 the FBI was granted a FISA warrant to wiretap the Trump server, citing two sources: Louise Mensch, a known purveyor of conspiracy theories, and the December IG report, which discusses only warrants granted in relation to Carter Page.

As evidence for its conspiracy allegations, the complaint cites an April 2020 study by the cybersecurity firm Ankura. According to the 41-page analysis, a “likely scenario” is that third parties artificially created the activity to make it appear as though a connection existed. But computer scientist L. Jean Camp, one of those who first studied the server data, gave me her assessment of the analysis just after it was posted on the Internet by the conservative website Just the News: “It confuses the issue by adding remote possibilities.”

#end article snip#

Imo, the article's analysis is consistent with my view of the situation. The DNS logs in themselves don't prove anything - but Alfa and trumpco's shifting explanations and previous history with the truth lead me to suspicion of them generally. 

Either way, I'm down with Alfa dragging things into court. More answers and people on the record will provide more clarity

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23395

Posted
Posted (edited)
20 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Either way, I'm down with Alfa dragging things into court. More answers and people on the record will provide more clarity

Speaking of on the record...Durham has apparently subpoenaed twitter. 

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-contested-afterlife-of-the-trump-alfa-bank-story

In recent weeks, scientists and others quoted in my story have been summoned to testify to a grand jury impanelled by John Durham, the U.S. attorney appointed by Attorney General William Barr to investigate potential criminal conduct in the Russia probe.

...

The [Alfa Bank suit] filings charge that a group of unknown persons “executed a highly sophisticated cyberattacking scheme to fabricate apparent communications.” The suits say that the attackers used a method known as spoofing, in which they sent e-mails made to look as if they were from the Trump Organization to Alfa Bank, whose servers responded by looking up addresses for the sender. These attackers, the suits contend, alerted other scientists to this spurious evidence of communication, and the scientists tipped off the press.

...

The Alfa Bank case has also become an object of interest for federal agents working for John Durham, the prosecutor appointed by Barr. Durham’s agents have summoned some of the same computer scientists to testify before a grand jury, and are asking for the same material that Alfa Bank is seeking. (They’ve asked Jones, the investigator, to testify as well.) Some agents told scientists that they were exploring a potential criminal charge—presumably against Max and Tea Leaves—for giving false information to the government. A number of those called to testify are seeking to quash the subpoenas, and it’s not apparent that anyone has testified so far.

Edited by Anastasis
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GW Hayduke

GW Hayduke 1952

Posted
Posted (edited)

These guys are top notch criminals. Using a sophisticated system with the Alfa bank server to transfer data and then cover it up is grade A stuff.  A much lesser criminal organization would of done something dumb like simply have the campaign manger at the time, let’s pretend his name is Maul Panafort, email data directly to some Russian associate.  You can send almost anything by email these days, like even internal campaign polling data. It’s a shame these criminals were so sophisticated and have totally gotten away with it

Edited by GW Hayduke
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Anastasis

Anastasis 23395

Posted
Posted
14 minutes ago, Poolflood said:

So for those of us that may have taken cobol and fortran like a 100 years ago and now are just frustrated by spell check changing fuck to duck.... can you put into like small word explanation,  please?  Thanks @Anastasis

Twatters ginned up some nonsense, circular corroboration, DNC lawyers and operatives shopped it around. Some brain damaged posters still clinging to the narrative. 

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Irwin F Fletcher

Irwin F Fletcher 3550

Posted
Posted
I just got 3 alerts.  Some prick went through downvoting my old posts and he doesn't even contribute to the thread.  If the Surly Like function is just an emotional outlet for lurkers it should be capped or even disabled.
Wow that sucks. "Siri, remind me to Rage rep (-) notre dame joe when I get back to the laptop, he's having a rough day today for being a shitty poster"
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Anastasis

Anastasis 23395

Posted
Posted

New Steele source flushed out today.

Disaffected employee using Dashenko and Steele to inject their personal grievance into places where the sun don't shine. Source of the obvious Prague nonsense bought into by many here. Certain Surly Disinformation Operatives Surely Shocked. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-in-cyprus-was-behind-key-parts-of-discredited-dossier-on-trump-11603901989

In the nearly four years since they were published, many of the unverified allegations about President Trump compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele have been widely discredited, including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller ’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Yet the source of some of the most critical allegations in that dossier and how they reached Mr. Steele have remained a mystery.

A Wall Street Journal investigation provides an answer: a 40-year-old Russian public-relations executive named Olga Galkina fed notes to a friend and former schoolmate who worked for Mr. Steele. The Journal relied on interviews, law-enforcement records, declassified documents and the identification of Ms. Galkina by a former top U.S. national security official.

In 2016, Ms. Galkina was working in Cyprus at an affiliate of XBT Holding SA, a web-services company best known for its Webzilla internet hosting unit. XBT is owned by Russian internet entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev.

That summer, she received a request from an employee of Mr. Steele to help unearth potentially compromising information on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump ’s links to Russia, according to people familiar with the matter. Ms. Galkina was friends with the employee, Igor Danchenko, since their school days in Perm, a Russian provincial city near the Ural mountains.

Ms. Galkina was the source, for instance, of the dossier’s contention that Webzilla played a central role in the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee, according to people familiar with the matter. The release of emails stolen from the Democratic Party leadership roiled the presidential campaign.

The former British spy Christopher Steele arrived to a London court in July to attend his libel trial brought by Russian internet entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev.

PHOTO: TOLGA AKMEN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

She was also responsible for the mention of Mr. Gubarev in the dossier as a hacking expert recruited under duress by Russian security services, these people said.

Likewise, she was behind the dossier’s assertion that Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, and Russian intelligence officials, held a secret meeting in Prague in the summer of 2016 to discuss how to pay the hackers and cover up their work, the people said.

Messrs. Cohen, Gubarev and others have long since denied taking part in the activities described in the dossier. Contacted by the Journal, Ms. Galkina acknowledged receiving a reporter’s written questions, but didn’t respond to them.

While contributing to the dossier, the people familiar with the matter said, Ms. Galkina was in a messy dispute with her employer, Webzilla’s parent company.

A law graduate who spoke five languages and had worked in Russia in a variety of industries, according to an online resume and a person who worked with her, she appeared qualified for the job. But in August 2016, less than 10 months after her arrival in Cyprus, Ms. Galkina’s employer took steps to fire her.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

What have you seen as the most important impact of the Steele Dossier on U.S. politics? Join the conversation below.

Relations soured to the point where her manager went to authorities in the Cypriot city of Limassol in November of that year and filed a statement with police. According to the statement, which was reviewed by the Journal, Ms. Galkina was chronically showing up late to work, sometimes appearing drunk.

The manager told police that an acquaintance of Ms. Galkina had told him he would face deep trouble, including possible death, unless he paid €10,000 ($11,740) in compensation, according to the statement, which was confirmed by a Cypriot official and a person who attended its recording. Because the manager never filed a formal complaint, the matter was dropped, the official said.

In November 2016, Ms. Galkina was fired. Weeks later, she implicated Webzilla and Mr. Gubarev in the hacking, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Trump has said the dossier was part of a broader attempt to sully his reputation, referring broadly to information about Russian interference in the 2016 election as a “hoax.”

Mr. Mueller’s investigation found that the hacking of the DNC was directed by the Kremlin in a bid to benefit Mr. Trump. Mr. Mueller’s investigators obtained a related indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers as well as guilty pleas or convictions against several former aides and associates to Mr. Trump for lying to investigators or separate financial crimes. The investigation didn’t establish a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, which has repeatedly denied interfering in U.S. elections.

Mr. Gubarev arriving to a London court in July to pursue his libel case against Mr. Steele, who he blames for allegedly leaking the dossier to BuzzFeed.

PHOTO: TOLGA AKMEN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

The Mueller report presented no evidence the purported Prague meeting ever happened. Alleged attendees have denied they had anything to do with the hacking or met in the Czech capital. Mr. Gubarev, Webzilla and XBT have denied any involvement in the hacking.

Mr. Danchenko, the Russian national who conducted research for Mr. Steele’s dossier, was identified publicly for the first time this past summer after the Trump administration declassified documents from a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into the report’s origins.

In three days of interviews with the FBI in early 2017 as the agency tried to determine the origin of the dossier, Mr. Danchenko said he had been working for Mr. Steele as a researcher, according to the declassified documents. With the approach of U.S. elections in 2016, Mr. Danchenko told the FBI, Mr. Steele asked him for information about Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.

Mr. Danchenko told the FBI that the task was “outside the normal scope of work and it wasn’t completely comfortable” for him. To find such information on Mr. Trump, he turned to his “social circle” in Russia, according to declassified FBI notes of the meeting.

Mr. Danchenko told the FBI that a school friend, referred to in heavily redacted FBI notes as “Source 3,” had provided him with information for Mr. Steele “across a wide range of topics,” and stood as the dossier’s most important contributor. The former high-ranking U.S. national-security official told The Wall Street Journal that the source in question was Ms. Galkina.

Mr. Danchenko, in a statement released by his attorney, said he wouldn’t confirm or deny information concerning his sources or methods. “I have a longstanding relationship with most of my sources ... and have no reason to believe that any of them fabricated information that was given to me,” Mr. Danchenko said. “More importantly, I have yet to see anything credible that indicates that the raw intelligence I collected was inaccurate.”

Then-President-elect Trump, speaking to journalists in New York on Jan. 11, 2017, said the dossier was part of a broader attempt to taint his reputation.

PHOTO: JOHN TAGGART/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Acquaintances of Mr. Danchenko said that he and Ms. Galkina had been friends since high school in Perm. In his FBI interview, Mr. Danchenko said he knew Ms. Galkina since the equivalent of eighth grade and that she had remained a “close, personal friend” who he had helped financially over the years.

Mr. Danchenko told FBI investigators that Ms. Galkina, who had held a variety of jobs in government and the private sector in Russia over the years, had a “vast network of people” she could talk to, including some with connections to the Kremlin, and had helped him gather information in the past, according to the declassified notes.

According to Mr. Danchenko’s FBI interview and FBI notes, Mr. Steele gave him “four to five” names of officials in Mr. Trump’s circle to research, which he passed along to Ms. Galkina in the fall of 2016. “Almost immediately,” she recognized the name of Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Mr. Cohen, according to the declassified notes.

Ms. Galkina’s initial version of alleged contacts between Mr. Cohen and the Russian government was sketchy and she could identify few of the people involved, according to the declassified notes.

In mid-October, Ms. Galkina reported that Mr. Cohen had met with Kremlin officials that summer in an undisclosed European country, where they discussed ways to minimize the appearance of contacts between Mr. Trump’s aides and Russia, the FBI notes said.

In December, Ms. Galkina gave Mr. Danchenko new details about Mr. Cohen’s purported meeting and implicated her erstwhile boss, Mr. Gubarev, in the DNC hacking, the notes said. Mr. Cohen denied in an appearance before Congress in 2019 that he had ever been to Prague or that he had anything to do with the 2016 hacking of the Democrats.

The dossier also alleged that another individual, Seva Kaptsugovich, was involved with Mr. Gubarev in the hacking. A man bearing the same name was a notorious convict in Perm, Ms. Galkina’s Russian hometown, where a court in 2013 sentenced him to more than 18 years in prison on sexual-crime charges. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

Michael Cohen, a former attorney for Mr. Trump, has denied involvement in Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election that are described in the dossier.

PHOTO: STEPHANIE KEITH/REUTERS

The dossier, which consists of reports dated between June and December 2016, sprang from an effort initially commissioned by conservative Republican  opponents of Mr. Trump during the presidential primaries and was later continued by Democrats, including the campaign of candidate Hillary Clinton and the DNC.

Mr. Steele was hired by Fusion GPS, a business-intelligence research firm in Washington. The Journal in January 2017 was first to report that Mr. Steele was the author of the dossier.

Mr. Steele, who has said the dossier wasn’t meant for public consumption, through an associate declined to comment. The dossier was published by BuzzFeed News in January 2017. Other news outlets, including the Journal, subsequently published articles describing some of the allegations and making clear that they were unverified.

Mr. Gubarev sued BuzzFeed in the U.S., where a judge dismissed the case, saying that the dossier had become a government record that the publication couldn’t be held liable for, even if it was incorrect. Mr. Gubarev has filed a libel lawsuit against Mr. Steele in the U.K. Mr. Gubarev declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. Buzzfeed’s editor in chief at the time, Ben Smith, said the ruling was a vindication of the publication’s work.

The FBI in July 2016 launched an investigation into any links between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the election based on intelligence it had received overseas. Later, acting on a request from former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and complaints by members of Congress, the Justice Department’s inspector general reviewed the FBI’s actions in starting the Russia probe and last year reported it found “serious performance failures” in the FBI’s conduct in a portion of that investigation that relied on the dossier.

The review found that the FBI had reason to open its overall probe and found no evidence that political bias influenced the FBI’s decisions. The probe of the ties to Russia was handed to Mr. Mueller in May 2017.

FBI director Christopher Wray has introduced a series of reforms, including changes to the FBI’s confidential human-source program, under which Mr. Steele provided information to the FBI. The declassified FBI notes indicate U.S. federal agents distrusted Mr. Steele’s source network.

—Nonna Fomenko in Moscow contributed to this article.

 

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