Christopher Steele: somehow it all disappeared
Why is this no surprise? [Emphasis mine]:
Christopher Steele told a British court last month that he no longer has documents and other information from his meetings with the main source for his Trump dossier, suggesting that the former British spy has no way of backing up his side in a dispute with the Justice Department’s inspector general (IG), according to a deposition transcript obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Steele also told the court that his communications regarding the dossier, including with Fusion GPS, were “wiped” in December 2016 and January 2017, the transcript shows…
It is unclear if Steele made audio or video recordings of the debriefings with the source, or if the retired spy was referring to written or electronic documents. It is also unclear whether Steele got rid of the information himself, or if it was lost through other means…
The status of the information was revealed during an exchange Steele had on March 18 with Hugh Tomlinson, a lawyer for Petr Aven, German Khan, and Mikhail Fridman, the owners of Alfa Bank.
The three Russian bankers are suing Steele for defamation over a memo in the dossier that accused them of making illicit payments to Vladimir Putin…
The lawyer asked Steele about the existence of the documents and recordings that his attorneys mentioned in their rebuttal to the IG report.
“But none of these documents exist, so they have all been destroyed?” a lawyer asked Steele.
“They no longer exist,” Steele said.
Steele indicated that many other records related to the dossier were deleted, including from a personal email account he used for the Fusion GPS project.
“As I understand your position, you have no contemporaneous notes or emails, save for your notes of interactions with the FBI; is that right?” Tomlinson asked.
“I believe that is true, yes,” Steele replied…
“You have no record of anything, have you?” Tomlinson asked.
“I haven’t got any records relating to the creation of 112,” said Steele.
“Or indeed any of the other memoranda?”
“No, they were wiped in early January 2017.”
More at the link.
One of the many things that’s interesting about this (to me, anyway) is Steele’s use of the passive voice without any prepositional phrase telling who the actor might have been. The records were wiped, as though some magic eraser came down from the sky. The documents no longer exist, having evaporated in a puff of smoke.
Huh!
It’s kinda like what all of the gun-owners have been rehearsing over and over in their minds.
“Oh, officer, THAT gun that is on your records? Well, there was this tragic boating accident ….”
More of the same stuff we have come to expect of everyone who was involved in the Russia collusion hoax. We have two systems of justice — one for our betters and one for us. Steele is not one of us.
Slippery guy. But then he’s a spy, or was one. Spies are very good liars. Part of their trade. Getting evidence to prosecute all the perps is not going to be easy. 🙁
That dog sure has an appetite for that “homework.”
Of course, the other possibility is that Steele just made up, out of thin air, much of his work of fiction; that there were NO sources, NONE whatsoever, that comprised his work of fiction.
Too bad he is a UK resident , because he is immune to any US prosecution (not that the lame, timid dumb-pulicans would bother to seek his indictment).
Think about it; one of Trump’s main campaign points was energy independence for the USA; drill, drill, drill, frack frack frack. Which, of course , increases the supply of world oil/gas, which obviously depresses world oil/gas prices, which REALLY hurts the Russians/Putin because OVER 50% of Russian foreign revenue comes from their sales of oil/gas.
Hillary promoted the Obama energy plan; e.g., restrict/limit/deter US oil/gas production, GUARANTEE USA dependence of foreign oil; limit US production; all of which would benefit Putin/Russia due to less oil/gas available in the international markets.
If you were Putin, who would you want as the President??
The smart money says Durham’s book is investigation theatre and Huber’s doing nothing at all. None of these grifters will be brought to account. No committed Democrat will ever admit anything untoward happened.
Amen Brother Art. Been saying that for a long time.
I’m surprised he could even recall that the documents are gone.
“… interesting about this (to me, anyway) is Steele’s use of the passive voice …”
Interesting to me too, good catch neo.
Too bad he is a UK resident , because he is immune to any US prosecution (not that the lame, timid dumb-pulicans would bother to seek his indictment).
I believe he has been punished in a UK court action and he admitted that he was hired by the Clinton campaign. I don’t think it involved anything serious, though. Libel actions in UK are more onerous and that is why he admitted his actions.
Destruction of evidence… guess its ok… worked for Hillary who wiped an illegal server that made it easy to steal information from and leave no trace..
Ah, the stuff i could tell you from my job and hobbies… look up HashCat (Hashcat is a password recovery tool)… been running that software on my TitanX for a while… and you cant forget the rock you list… [as a start only]
Anyone who wants can down load the rock you list from GitHub
(humongous list of stolen passwords that people tend to reinvent)
You can also download Kali Linux to a thumb drive which will help you get in trouble.. lots of nice tools..
25-GPU cluster cracks every standard Windows password in <6 hours
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/25-gpu-cluster-cracks-every-standard-windows-password-in-6-hours/
A password-cracking expert has unveiled a computer cluster that can cycle through as many as 350 billion guesses per second. It’s an almost unprecedented speed that can try every possible Windows passcode in the typical enterprise in less than six hours.
“What this cluster means is, we can do all the things we normally would with Hashcat, just at a greatly accelerated rate,” Jeremi Gosney, the founder and CEO of Stricture Consulting Group, wrote in an e-mail to Ars. “We can attack hashes approximately four times faster than we could previously.”
i can only do about 100k AES a second… but then again, i use my cards mostly for Machine learning and AI fun…
These are the same processors China uses to mine bit coin…
so i am pretty sure that everything on Hillarys servers were open book..
and i personally think it was done just for that reason and deniability…
a lot safer than any other way of revealing information
also, there are lots of other ways in if the server wasnt up to date patched.. use the kali linux and tools to do that… even the wifi is not all that hard to crack if there is enough traffic.
For the time being, readers should assume that the vast majority of their passwords are hashed with fast algorithms. That means passwords should never be less than nine characters, and using 13 or even 20 characters offers even better security. But long passwords aren’t enough. Given the prevalence of cracking lists measured in the hundreds of millions, it’s also crucial that passwords not be names, words, or common phrases.
I could write reams on this, but no one listens
35 years plus and cant even get them to back up their systems
though i can tell the story of one person that called me panicked
their system was compromised.. badly.. needed a complete wipe and rebuild… however, i had avised them to use an external drive when doing their work and not use the system to save anything, removing the drive when not using it..
when i asked they said they did..
they lost nothing..
only person in my career who cried joy and lost nothing
they were back up by the next day [dell tech even complimented them]
He’s using Hillary’s method. He doesn’t recall, and the documents are gone. It was all imaginary.
forgot to mention the article about the machine was 2012..
today you can have arrays with over 250 such cards and more
bit coin made it even larger…
JohnTyler: Too bad he is a UK resident , because he is immune to any US prosecution
Thats not (necessarily) true…
I am reminded of one of Yogi Berra’s alleged quips: “I really didn’t say everything I said.” 🙂
Was it Roseann Roseannadanna on SNL who made “Never mind” famous?
Was it Roseann Roseannadanna on SNL who made “Never mind” famous?
It was Gilda Radner in her Emily Litella character. The tagline
neoRadner as Roseann used was ‘Yer making me sick!”. (Every routine also had a cut directed at New Jersey).He should swing from the gallows at dawn. He attempted something far, far worse than any terror attack. Time for the nation to punish him. And dissuade anyone thinking of trying it themselves.
A nation unwilling to defend itself will soon no longer be a nation.
I believe he’s likely to find himself at the bottom of a deep hole with a lot of ordure on top of him.
Stan,
I am far less concerned about Steele than I am with the people who paid him.
Treason to try to take down and elected head of state with fabrications and all of those who aided him should be charged, there never was anything but fairy dust and lies.
The talk about Steele’s diplomatic immunity makes me think of this great scene from Lethal Weapon II:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwC_IaY3BmY
We can dream, can’t we?
Yes it is super-creepy how Steele just…floats…the fact that all these records no longer exist. Numerous records made in various forms at different times are just no longer on this earthly plane. Nothing to see here. And then how frustrating that the attorney who had the power at that point to compel more information never even asks him the obvious questions of how and why these records ceased to be.
}}} It is also unclear whether Steele got rid of the information himself, or if it was lost through other means…
Or never existed in the first place, being total fabrications…?
Nawwww… Cain’t be…
Bill Whittle’s erstwhile website, Eject! Eject! Eject! hasn’t existed for 12 years…
It’s still out there, somehow.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070213112642/http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000129.html
But not, somehow, a copy of critically important information designed to affect the future of the US Presidency… nawww, that… that’s “Jus’ Gon’, man!!”
They were all stored on Hildabeast’s server that was bleachpitted.
Fortunately, no Russian prostitutes were physically harmed by Mr. Steele, in the creation of this illegal farce.
Perhaps Stalin had a point: charges, trial, verdict, 2 to the back of the head.
There be monsters.
This statement reminds me of what Dr. Theodore Dalrymple wrote about the prisoners, and the killers he dealt with in prison, and how they would slide away from guilt, deflect blame for the actions that they had taken, by saying things like “the knife went in,” i.e. it was the knife that was responsible, rather than them, and their actions in carrying that knife, selecting the victim, and wielding that inanimate object to kill.*
It was always someone else’s fault.
See https://www.city-journal.org/html/%E2%80%9C-knife-went-in%E2%80%9D-12530.html
I think you mean Bleach Bitted…
https://www.bleachbit.org/
but that actually would not matter…
it only matters AFTER the worst was done
People from china and russia and others were already reading the server as an open book given their expertise, resources and the lack of that on the other side
the point of bleachbit was to make sure no one knew how bad the set up was and whether or not they were in there downloading everything… not really any other point as we knew by other means that such things were there..
in fact, the way she did it was quite clever in transferring state secrets without a way to directly blame her for it… there was no dead drop… it was like “accidentally” leaving stuff out on the desk for the secretary spy to take pictures of… how would you prove accidentally on purpose? Technically they dont, they just make it a crime to leave it out regardless of reason, which they are refusing to apply
for her the point was how to create a means of moving state secrets
the other side was how to get paid or get the quid pro quo
and that had to do with the non profit organization and stooges with high salaries who then would take a portion and donate that to the right thing..
again.. its a system.. on one side you put information in a place where others can take it… you pretend you dont know better and play loose with that area of rules (the kind of thing analysts come up with)..
on the other side you create a body that takes in 10 million… and then you over pay the people, who then donate large sums of what is now laundered money to the areas that has to go.. so rather than they get paid 60,000 they get paid 300,000… they keep 100k which is 40 more than they would.. taxes take another third, cleaning the payments.. and 100k is taken and donated, which is upping the 40 more through deductions taking part of the 300k back.
[what is not paid in salary in that org is then given to another organization as a donation, and the process repeats till the cash is disbursed]
Aint it beautiful?
but americans are too good to think that way about people they want to trust
they are not paranoid enough to analyse things and not give benefit of doubt
when you hear of 419 scam… its cause they are too nice and trusting
when you hear of people cleaning out someones bank account after being hired, same thing
when you hear someone refusing to prosecute what is obvious malfeasance cause they refuse to answer knave and live in that kind of world, same thing
America will fall because of this..
the kids are too trusting, like feminists, of people using them and are not willing to break free by admitting they are being used to hurt their own, ruin their dreams, and destroy the future (while being told they are the future, they are the smartest etc… really? the smart make up more than 65% of the bell curve? on what planet? in what reality is the rare common?)
Attorneys for retired Gen. Michael Flynn asked a judge Friday to dismiss his criminal conviction immediately, saying new evidence belatedly turned over by federal prosecutors proves the former national security adviser to President Trump was framed in the Russia investigation. “This afternoon, the government produced to Mr. Flynn stunning Brady evidence that proves Mr. Flynn’s allegations of having been deliberately set up and framed by corrupt agents at the top of the FBI,” Flynn’s attorneys said in an eight page filing Brady evidence is pretrial information that could exonerate a defendant.
Related:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/leak_of_sealed_evidence_in_the_michael_flynn_case_points_to_a_highranking_deep_state_operative_as_a_key_to_the_russia_hoax_conspiracy_at_doj_and_fbi_.html
H/T Powerline blog.
Indeed, those history buffs extraordinaire, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Lynch, Rice (she of writing-“exculpatory”-emails-to-self fame), et al.—the whole slough of self-important clowns in that merrye crew— decided to go back in time, to fin-de-(19me)siècle France, and re-enact (restage? plagiarize?) almost to the letter the country-polarizing—almost country-destroying—Dreyfus case.
And so, according to the sordid, regurgitated script, Trump HAD to be accused of selling out his country; Flynn HAD to be accused of betrayal; and the whole Trump team, and anyone associated with him—even if they were, as in Carter Page’s case, CIA—HAD to be elaborately FRAMED by a well-oiled, consummately-planned, if disgusting, Democratic Party operation, from POTUS44 on down (with the MSM riding enthusiastic shotgun).
(So should we call these paragons “the FRAMERS”? …)
Well, no.
Let’s call them the Anti-Trumpusards (perhaps updated, in certain cases at least, to “Never-Trumpusards”….)
Who to protect themselves (BUT FOR THE HIGHEST OF MOTIVES!!), decided to tear apart the nation, shred its laws, trample its Constitution, vandalize its institutions, pit citizen against citizen and family member against family member, and destroy every vestige of reliability in Government and the Fourth Estate, in what MUST ultimately be considered as THE MOST MALEVALENT, PERNICIOUS, PSYCHOTIC and CRIMINAL POLITICAL SCANDAL in American history.
And they were relentless, indominatable. Dreyfus—as was the case with TRUMP—never had a chance. HAD TO BE found guilty. The evidence, after all, WAS CLEAR. (That is, before it was proven to be entirely forged.)
Meanwhile (back in the 21st Century), against the Anti-Trumpusards were arrayed “the Trumpusards”—crying “J’ACCUSE!” against the foul lies and perverse claims of the loathsome Democratic machine and its MSM henchmen, lies repeated and embellished ad infinitum and ad nauseum—heroic patriots, upright individuals, people of true moral values and steadfast resolution, starting with Devin Nunes, Lee Smith, Andrew McCarthy, Mollie Z. Hemingway Alan Dershowitz, and other stalwart writers and journalists (my apologies for not listing all these heroes) ; and including indefatigable bloggers—such as our gracious host—all trying to make sense of the gob-smacking, mindboggling, simply unbelievable, inconceivable, unimaginable coup d’état engineered and orchestrated by “our political betters” of the Obama administration and its media stooges.
As in the original version, Dreyfus 2.0 is very simply a battle of good vs. evil for a nation’s soul and very existence, where although evil initially triumphed it could not—CANNOT—ultimately sustain itself against what started out as a tiny flame of decency but which became—which has become—a bright beacon of Truth, Liberty, Decency and Uprightness…
…and, ultimately—one hopes—JUSTICE.
JohnTyler on April 24, 2020 at 5:13 pm said:
Of course, the other possibility is that Steele just made up, out of thin air, much of his work of fiction; that there were NO sources, NONE whatsoever, that comprised his work of fiction.
…
Think about it; one of Trump’s main campaign points was energy independence for the USA; drill, drill, drill, frack frack frack. Which, of course , increases the supply of world oil/gas, which obviously depresses world oil/gas prices, which REALLY hurts the Russians/Putin because OVER 50% of Russian foreign revenue comes from their sales of oil/gas.
Hillary promoted the Obama energy plan; e.g., restrict/limit/deter US oil/gas production, GUARANTEE USA dependence of foreign oil; limit US production; all of which would benefit Putin/Russia due to less oil/gas available in the international markets.
If you were Putin, who would you want as the President??
* * *
To the first point: very possibly Steele never expected to be outed as the source of the smears of Trump, and certainly never expected to have to actually produce his “evidence” in court. Very similar to the Mueller ops’ splashy indictment of the Russian oligarchs they charged with nefarious deeds – their claims of solid evidence lasted only until one of the Russian companies actually elected to show up in court.
To the second point: that was so obvious from the beginning that I am still SMH over the fact that so many people (media fueled, of course) ever took the charges seriously.