77 How Michael Cohen Inspired Me to Reread the Steele Dossier
Yet another Cohen-Steele Dossier chapter
UPDATE: EW lastest on SD
Without Integrity: The Debunking of the Metadata Debunkers – emptywheel
How the Steele Dossier Broke MAGAts’ Brains – emptywheel
Which is pretty ironic considering his abiding goal has to be to completely discredit the Steele Dossier. Yet upon reading his book Revenge, I was inspired to read the Dossier again fresh eyes.
UPDATE:
Trump’s Lawyer: I Did Not Go to Prague I Did NHow the Steele Dossier Broke MAGAts’ Brains – emptywheelot Go to Prague I Did Not Go to Prague I Did Not Go to Prague – emptywheel
Marcy Wheeler in August 2017:
“Before I look at the letter, let me reiterate what I have suggested elsewhere (I plan to return to these shortly). There are real, unanswered questions about the provenance of the document as leaked by BuzzFeed. Some of the circumstances surrounding its production — most notably its funders and their claimed goals, and Steele’s production of a final report, based off voluntarily provided information, for free — raise real questions about parts of the dossier. I think it quite likely some parts of the dossier, especially the last, most inflammatory report (which accuses Cohen of attending a meeting where payments from Trump to the hackers that targeted the Democrats were discussed), were disinformation fed by the Russians. I believe the Intelligence Community is almost certainly lying about what they knew about the dossier. I believe the Russians know precisely how the dossier got constructed (remember, a suspected source for it died in mysterious circumstances in December), and they expect the exposure of those details will discredit it.”
So while I think there are truths in the dossier, I do think its current form includes rumor and even affirmative disinformation meant to discredit it.
By definition that’s what you’d expect from a dossier of raw intelligence. Seth Abramson estimates maybe 75% of its accurate which would certainly leave considerable foul territory for both rumor and disinformation from the Russians. Assuming you understand what a dossier of raw intelligence is-many folks in the MSM like Erik Wemple or the author of that huge hitpiece apparently don’t-then this is the opposite of surprising-it’d be pretty astonishing if everything in it were true. Indeed, IF Abramson is right in his estimate that in itself is very impressive. It may welll-be most of the topline allegations in retrospect are self evidently true the disinformation such as it is resides in the dirty granular details.
Like maybe Cohen didn’t pay off hackers in Prague instead Peter Smith did after Oct 7-as EW has suggested.
What’s notable is that Cohen is still even now telling a version of a lie Trump is still telling in the Alvin Braggs MA DA case regarding the payments to Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, et al. Trump has claimed that the payments Cohen made on his behalf had nothing to do with the election but just to protect the feelings of his wife from learning of the revelations-Trump is such a sensitive guy that way!
It’s further notable, though, that for a year and a half back in 2017 and early 2018 Cohen himself was telling this same lie-the payments were not about the election, that they were paid ust three weeks before the election was merely a big old coinkydink.
FN: Again remember the Malcolm Nance point about coincidences-they take a lot of planning.
And Cohen is still for whatever reason telling this same lie even now that he’s literally testifying against Trump-that his and Felix Sater’s work on a Trump Tower Moscow was totally incidental to the 2016 campaign and the fact that the deal was with Russia-the country the Dossier alleged was colluding with the campaign-was a complete coincidence. After spending many months dismissing the idea of Russia Collusion entirely, Cohen had to admit that he had worked on getting a Trump tower in Russia but insist that this was a total coincidence and in no way related to the campaign-that it happened during the campaign was another coincidence and the Trump Tower Moscow proposal was just a business deal with no relation to the campaign.
Basically that his work on the Trump Tower Moscow deal was in his capacity as Trump’s lawyer rather than as part of the campaign.
Then of course, he first claimed to have just basically just called Peskov out of a phonebook and never got any meaningful response when it turned out that Peskov’s assitant spoke iwth him for 20 mintues and took copious notes.
FN: Notable too that the Dossier actually claimed that business deals wwere offered to Trump but he had expressed no interest. This claim too is perplexing in light of the work Cohen did with Sater on Trump Tower Moscow. Perhaps THAT is an exampe of the Russian disinfo in the Dossier EW alleges?
Regarding the infamous Michael Cohen went to Prague allegation, EW notes:
The Cohen-in-Prague story provided an easy way for Cohen to issue true denials. But it also magnified the risk of the secret — a secret Russia knew — they were keeping, because they committed crimes to keep the secret.
There can be little doubt that, if the Cohen-in-Prague story was deliberate disinformation, it was wildly successful. Indeed, most Trump supporters — including many of the people debunking the dossier full time — seemed to believe that if they could prove that Cohen never went to Prague, that by itself would amount to proof that Trump had no ties with Russia in 2016, a claim every bit as outlandish as the pee tape.
Yes and Cohen himself for some pretty mysterious reason is still arguing Trump had no ties to Russia in 2016 which begs some pretty awkward questions-questions for Cohen himself.
While Galkina denies allegations of her being the source, Trump has been vehemently denying the authenticity of the report and even called it “Fake News Dossier” in one of his tweets from 2017. Aside from accusing him of throwing “golden shower parties”, the reports also suggest that the Russian government has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” Trump for years, and played a role in helping Trump secure victory during the 2016 presidential elections”
Again while the “golden shower parties” allegation has not been proved-or disproved-it’s common knowledge today that the Russian government ” played a role in helping Trump secure victory during the 2016 presidential elections”
Again the topline allegations of the Dossier look very good while many of the details remain in a kind of epistemological purgatory being neither proved nor disproved.
Russian in Cyprus Was Behind Key Parts of Discredited Dossier on Trump – WSJ
“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.”
They really haven’t. I mean “discredited” in the sense that the Savvy Mainstream has assumed it was but as so often with mainstream media narratives this assumption has a fairly threadbare foundation.
John Durham May Have Made Igor Danchenko “Aggrieved” Under FISA – emptywheel
February 9, 2017 Electronic Communication.pdf (senate.gov)
200415-DOJ-IG-Footnotes.pdf (emptywheel.net)
On CIPA and Sequestration: Durham’s Discovery Deadends – emptywheel
Emails Reveal Top Trump Accountant Allen Weisselberg Had Secret Campaign Role (thedailybeast.com)
So Cohen insists he didn’t visit Prague in 2016-or ever-but he his alibi on visiting Capri feel through. Indeed, EW has documented other Cohen attempts to debunk the Dossier have also failed.
UPDATE: this probably belongs lower down.
Understand she has been a leader in Dossier skepticism but she has noted Cohen’s attempts both in his testimony before the House and Grand Jury to debunk the Dossier in fact failed to debunk it.
And the Dossier has not been debunked. Even the Mueller report didn’t deubunk it just didn’t verify it. A large number of specific assertions in it have neither been debunked or verified. But in the broader big picture narrative it hasn’t been disproven-quite the opposite.
UPDATE: Again this should be moved down and rearranged, edited, etc.
Regarding even the widely panned assertion of Cohen in Prague it has NOT been conclusively-or even not so conclusively debunked. The case against it is:
A. Cohen vociferously says it didn’t happen-though as EW notes herself he was unable to disprove it in court.
B. The Mueller report kind of sort of rules it out-though with no elaboration in terms of what the Mueller team did to confirm or debunk it; even the McClatchy report remains in a kind of purgatory-we don’t know if the paper’s claims that the Mueller team investigated the alleged ping action of Cohen’s in eastern Europe is true or not.
In favor of Cohen in Prague you have
1. The falsehoods Cohen told about his time in Capri in July, 2016
2. The fact that he is not so credible on the subject of the 2016’s campaign’s relationship with Russia and other things like his denying crimes he pleaded guilty to.
UPDATE: Any more quotes from Revenge on Cohen-Russia Interference
UPDATE: So many implications
Use at least some of these Seth Abramson’s tweets below in the course of making the case for and against the SD
This Is The Inside Of Trump’s Lawyer’s Passport (buzzfeednews.com)
BuzzFeed Pushes Back on Special Counsel’s Denial of Michael Cohen Report – TheWrap
UPDATE: File this high under What Steele got RIGHT considering we’ve just gone through a 7 month fight in Congress to fund our allies in Ukraine with threats from MTG etc to MTV Johnson and the vows of many GOP co-conspirators that this is the last time the US will fund Ukraine.
Today this idea is basically a truism it’s so self evidently Putin’s goal.
Interesting on a lot of levels considering among other things Israel also did Trump campaign collusion
This is the kind of thing Emptywheel argues is Russian disinformation
We can also add another name-Max Blumenthal see Chapter Max Blumenthal.
Indeed, in early 2017-January?-Cohen, Sater, and Erik Prince tried to help Putin pass on his version of a “pleace plan” for Crimea.
CF:
https://read.amazon.com/notebook.
Pretty sure it was unintentionally-quite the contrary, if Cohen had his way it would be burned in effigy, literally-true it largely has been metaphorically, publicly cum Durah cum Erik Wemple, etc.
Cohen has done everything he can to discredit the Dossier of course. But in his new book Revenge all his endless denunications about it led me to feel I need to reread it with fresh eyes.
Great except the Steele Dossier hasn’t been debunked
Grassley ranting about Danchenko
Igor Danchenko Acquitted on All Remaining Charges – emptywheel
I hadn’t started to read Revenge with any thought of the Dossier-certainly not the Pee Tape or Cohen Went to Prague. I had thought the book was about how Trump and Bill Barr put Cohen in prison to prevent him publishing a book-his previous book in 2020, Disloyal. It does discuss this but , first, it spends a lot of time first relitigating the Dossier, the initial raid of his office in 2018, and the orginal indictment. Indeed, while the name of Cohen’s podacst is Mea Culpa, at many points in his book it sounds more like Sorry Not Sorry.
UPDATE: Confirm how many pages before Cohen moves on to 2020. Largely he doesn’t-even later, he keeps getting back to Steele, etc.
“When it came down to it, I went to prison because I paid off the president’s paramour for him! It wasn’t virtuous, but illegal? Come on. When I was confronted with omissions (a lack of information) on my income tax returns I was ready, willing and able to fix it and attempted to explain how it should have been a civil and not a criminal matter. I was directed not to—by the government—and then faced bogus charges of income tax evasion when I never faced an audit, never got a delinquency notice, never filed a late return, never requested an extension, and paid every tax dollar my CPA determined that was due and owed. At each step along the way the government contrived to ruin my reputation, crush my soul, and destroy my family—for the sake of an orange-faced piece of shit who ran roughshod over the Constitution. As of this writing he remains unindicted and free, and I’ve had to pay the price for illegal activities he perpetrated, planned, and directed.”
Pg. XViii of 297
Well actually it is a crime if it was to save Trump political embarrassment-in fact it was a campaign finance vilolation. Cohen had tried to argue that it was nothing to do with the campaign-despite the fact it was just weeks before the election but clearly the court didn’t believe that and it’s not terribly plausible.
UPDATE: Now assuming there was ever really any doubt-there was never much-David Pecker’s recent NYDA testimony cinches it.
Now I do agree with Cohen’s complaint that Trump walked away scott free. This was-still is-certainly a serious and great injustice. While Cohen was indicted and then convicted, Trump aka Individual 1 remained an unindicted co-conspirator. And I think that many of us considered that at the time grossly unfair-I certainly did and still do. But co-conspirators are criminally liable too. Because he did this for Trump doesn’t mean he wasn’t guilty. If anything it underscores the stupidity of what Cohen did though as he himself admits it was par for the course for him during the many years he worked for Trump.
The injustice isn’t that Cohen was prosecuted but that Trump wasn’t. And it is absurd that his co-conspirators defended Trump against Cohen’s testimony against him by pointing out that Cohen was a convicted criminal-yes crimes he committed on Trump’s behalf.
At the time of Cohen’s conviction I suspect many felt that it was pretty unfair that Cohen was going to prison while Trump got off scott free-though this was a lifelong pattern for Trump who has never been held accountable for anything.
I certainly agreed-and still agree-with Cohen here:
“At least Sammy the Bull got to testify against John Gotti, who was ultimately charged and convicted. Trump has never been charged and every attempt to do so, so far, has been thwarted. It turns out he’s truly the “Teflon Don.” This is what the American public has to understand. There are two separate types of justice in the United States.”
One is for those who have the power. They don’t pay for their illegal actions. The other is for the rest of us—and we pay too damn much. One of my sins was thinking I was a member of the class of protected individuals: those who are able to get away with anything they want.”
Pgs xviii-xix
He was until he became a liability for the illegitimate former “President.” There’s a long history of this too-when you stop being useful for the powerful you are disposable. There are many examples of this in the last 60 years of American politics
FN: Going back to the JFK assassination! I chose that just for fun…
For one example many previously high ranking officials had to walk the plank during Iran-Contra to make sure the guys at the top-Reagan-Bush Sr-got off Scott Free. Even Bill Casey…
Yes the official cause of death was a brain tumor. Maybe it was but it was a pretty convenient time for him to have a brain tumor-literally the morning he was going to testify. This after he had a seizure the previous time he was scheduled to testify.
Conspiratorial? A number of US Senators were feeling conspiratorial at that moment.
This is also part of a veritable history of inconvenient people ending up either dead and/or accused of pedophilia.
FN: The fate of many who investigated 9/11 too closely.
A more recent relevant example is Peter Smith. Maybe he commit suicide. But it sure was convenient that he did as he knew (WAY) too much. Smith’s alleged suicide note also has a veritable history of suicide notes assuring us there was no foul play.
FN: Maybe that’s starting to change-Tish James, espionage, etc?
At the same time Cohen’s sentence seemed rather long and excessive-especially as Trump got nothing. The long sentence was handed down from SDNY. Mueller himself seemed satisfied with Cohen’s cooperation.
In any event, subesquently, his report would exonerate me. As Vox reported: Mueller’s sentencing memo for Cohen…suggests that the special counsel is investigating this—and that he found Cohen’s information useful. Mueller wrote: “Cohen provided relevant and useful information concerning his contacts with persons connected to the White House during the 2017-2018 time period.” “Cohen described the circumstances of preparing and circulating his response to the congressional inquiries.”
However, a recurring theme of the Mueller Report is that Mueller was easy to satisfy when it came to the explanations of Trump and his co-conspirators-we saw this with Carter Page, with Don Jr, etc.
109/ I’m hoping this early summary is bare bones, because it’s certainly very credulous—saying that Page went to Moscow “in his personal capacity” when it’s clear the campaign knew of the trip, approved it, and afterward was debriefed on it (because Page met a Kremlin official).”
108/ Mueller’s early Papadopoulos summary does *not* include the allegation from Trump adviser John Mashburn that Papadopoulos told the campaign what Mifsud told him about the Kremlin having stolen Clinton emails. I’m not sure why; this was Congressional testimony from Mashburn.”
It also doesn’t include the reporting on Jeff Wilson-but then no one does. Mueller seems to simply take Don Jr’s word on the June, 2016 Trump Tower meeting with the Russians, and even seems to credit Trump’s claim that “Russia if you’re listening” was just sarcasm-even though Mueller reveals that Russia actually attempted to hack Hillary’s office later that day.
FN: Seth Abramson’s epic thread on the Mueller Report is a must read. As I mentioned above, after reading Cohen I was inspired to reread the Dossier. After reading the Dossier I felt further inspired to reread Abramson’s epic Mueller Report thread.
Thread 392:
392/ And here I am—making an ass of myself with a 400-TWEET THREAD so that someone will NOTICE and wake up and realize that the standard for impeachment on the only thing that was ever going to lead to impeachment has been met. And it’s *not* obstruction—it’s a compromised POTUS.
Don’t let anyone make you feel like an ass, Seth. Your thread was a wonderful public service.
What public service have the snarky folks whinging about your thread done?
End FN
So Mueller was satisfied with Cohen but he tended to be easy to satisfy. More on this phenomenon below when we get to Cohen’s rants about the Steele Dossier-particularly the allegations regarding the Pee Tape and that Cohen went to Prague.
SDNY was considerably less impressed.
One thing they pointed out was that he didn’t cooperate THAT MUCH and he certainly wasn’t THAT SORRY… He certainly doesn’t sound that sorry in Revenge.
One complaint of Cohen’s is that they charged him for alleged personal crimes unrelated to his work for Trump.
Robert Khuzami, Attorney for the United States, Acting Under Authority Conferred by 28 U.S.C. § 515, William F. Sweeney Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and James D. Robnett, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (“IRS-CI”), announced today the guilty plea of MICHAEL COHEN to charges of tax evasion, making false statements to a federally-insured bank, and campaign finance violations. The plea was entered followed the filing of an eight-count criminal information, which alleged that COHEN concealed more than $4 million in personal income from the IRS, made false statements to a federally-insured financial institution in connection with a $500,000 home equity loan, and, in 2016, caused $280,000 in payments to be made to silence two women who otherwise planned to speak publicly about their alleged affairs with a presidential candidate, thereby intending to influence the 2016 presidential election. COHEN pled guilty today before U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III.”
Indeed, Cohen alleges a deliberate malicious prosecution-not just for when Barr sends him back to prison in 2020 to prevent the book-which clearly was a malicious prosecution-but in the original prosecution.
To be sure this is not a new practice-charging previous crimes-tax evasion, financial etc-not related to current crime. Manafort was similarly charged for previous tax evasion and financial crimes unrelated to the Trump campaign and similar complaints were made by Trump and the GOP co-conspirators.
But it’s the Steele Dossier which especially raises Cohen’s ire.
For those who don’t know about it, the mess that came to be known as the Steele Dossier was originally an opposition research paper financed by the Democrats and written between June and December of 2016. It contained allegations of misconduct, conspiracy, and cooperation between Trump and the government of Russia prior to the election in 2016.”
Pg 6
Like Trump and his GOP co-conspirators, Cohen wrongly tries to reduce it as simply a piece of oppo research by the Democrats-failing to note that the Fusion GPS project begun with anti Trump Republicans. And it was not “the Democrats”-it was the lawyer of one particular Democrat, Hillary Clinton, where Hillary herself didn’t even know the specifics of.
Most of the Democratic leaders knew nothing about it and weren’t involved. Generally speaking the Democrats soft pedaled the fact of Russian interference including Obama and his Administration.
Regarding Carter Page, Cohen actually provides a little new information-it was new to me in any case.
“The day after Independence Day in 2016 Steele met with an FBI agent in London to reveal his initial findings, and two weeks later Steele submitted a report to Fusion that stated that an adviser to the Trump campaign named Carter Page (who can be seen in the videotape of the WHCA 2011 dinner sitting near Trump)[5] met with senior officials from Russian oil giant Rosneft, including Rosneft chief Igor Sechin (the former Deputy Prime Minister under Putin), and senior Kremlin official Igor Diveykin, during the Moscow trip. Page, a former American petroleum industry consultant, downplayed that meeting when he later had to testify before Congress. He described it as merely “a brief, less-than-10-second chat with Arkadiy Dvorkovich,” Russia’s deputy prime minister.[6] But when the House Intelligence Committee released the full transcript of Page’s testimony, it did validate some of the Steele Dossier. For example, as one report noted, “Page revealed during his testimony that he met with members of Russia’s presidential administration and the head of investor relations at the Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft during his trip to Moscow in July 2016.”[7] It was enough to provide a thin veneer of credibility to an otherwise ridiculous and erroneous document. And ask a reporter who worked at the White House at that time. Most reporters thought it signaled the end of Donald Trump.”
Pg 12
I didn’t realize Trump went that far back with Carter Page-the public narrative-which with Trump is usually little more than a cover story-was he was first introduced to Page in March, 2016-Page’s name was on a list of names for his first campaign foreign policy team.
But Cohen’s claim that it was “ridiculous and erroneous document” just can’t stand up to scrutiny either. Indeed, Cohen’s fulminations against the Dossier are very similar to Page’s-who despite the conventional wisdom a la Erik Wemple and Durham’s failed prosecution of Igor Danchenko-wasn’t able to prove the Dossier slandered him.
Indeed, an irony is that it appears that Cohen was originally considered for attending Page’s Moscow trip in July, 2016 Cohen references above.
FN: Seth Abramson Proof of Collusion Pg. 167
Indeed, as I argue above-and in the chapter title-all this bellyaching about the Steele Dossier convinced me to reread it-as I’d read it at least once soon after it’s initial release in 2017. But over 5 and a half years later gives you knew eyes to look at it.
And I think it’s important as Steele and his Dossier have had so much calumny and lies thrown at him. It matters because the American people deserve the truth of what happened in our election in 2016 we have still far from gotten a full and honest accounting. Indeed, Trump, his GOP co-conspirators, assisted by Savvy MSM hacks like Erik Wemple have used the Dossier to totally confuse and distort the truth of what happened in 2016. And Cohen for whatever reason does this in his book that throws at least as many hits at Christopher Steele than at Donald Trump. That is to say, Cohen further contributes to this obfuscation.
Because for whatever reason Cohen expends a lot of time and ink not just defending himself but the former illegitimate “President” Cohen calls “an orange-faced piece of shit” against charges of conspiring with Russia.
It’s one thing for Cohen to insist he never went to Prague and that he wasn’t in on the conspiracy with Russia-though clearly he was at least for his work on the Trump Tower Moscow project.
FN: Or for that matter, his work with Felix Sater again and Bannon/Erik Prince to get Putin’s “Ukraine piece plan” in January 2017.
But for him to claim as he does that the Trump and his campaign didn’t conspire-well that’s false and it further contributes to the lies that have been told to protect Trump from the fact that he was never legitimate in the first place.
If you think the topic of Trump’s 2016 Russian assistance is dead then you should take a closer look at the highly sensitive top secret information he stole-aka his espionage.
As I argue in Chapter 2016 not 2020, Trump’s espionage is all about 2016. For those who want to accuse us of “relitigating 2016” the litigating of it never stopped first and foremost from Trump himself. Indeed that explains the strange reaction of the Establishment GOP after news of the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago. Prior to that there were all these stories that with the revelations of the January 6 Committee, the GOP was finally ready to move on from Trump. Yet after the story of the raid, suddenly they all hugged Trump harder than ever vowing to go on a crusade to protect him. Why?
Because they can do anything but they can’t do that.
They can accept that Trump lost 2020 and his insurrection was a great act evil if not a crime-just look at the denunications of #MoscowMitch after he voted to acquit Trump. In the J6 Committee Trump’s entire cabinet testified.
The GOP can admit Trump lost and then tried to steal the 2020 election. What they can never admit was that he stole 2016. This is the ultimate repressed-that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia-and as this book documents-with rogue anti Clinton agents at the FBI to steal 2016.
Yet the MSM finds it some big mystery as to why Trump stole all those sensitive government documents. It’s about Russia and 2016. Even after his defeat and failed insurrection in 2020, relitigating 2016 was topmost in his mind.
And for whatever reason, Cohen also continues to deny Russian Interference and Collusion in 2016. And this is what led me to reread the Dossier, Seth Abramson, et al-ie to again begin relitigating 2016.
The lies that Trump, his GOP co-conspirators, Erik Wemple, and, alas, Michael Cohen continue to tell are the opposite of harmless. And so they must be confronted.
So nearly six years since Buzzfeed first published it let’s read the Steele Dossier. First of all a note on Buzzfeed-who Cohen sued though he dropped the suit after the FBI raid of his office in April 2018. Cohen, of course, lambasts the media for publishing the Dossier but his framing of this is even more misleading than declaring “The Democrats” created the Dossier which “created the Russia hoax”-pithy narrative though with the inconvenience of being wrong as the Russia investigation which wasn’t a “hoax” begun before Steele wrote his first report in July, 2016.
But Cohen’s narrative on the media and the Dossier is even more erroneous if possible.
“But to give the devil his due, reporters knew from the beginning that the information was unvetted. They knew there was no corroboration for most of it. The very thing that journalists claim they hold dear—reporting vetted, factual information—they sacrificed to print spurious, scandalous and prurient information within the Steele Dossier. The race to be the first reporting it overcame the desire to get it right. Today the press rarely does anything else. It’s even rarer that a member of the press thinks of doing anything else.”
Pg. 20
This is actually the opposite of the media’s attitude on the Steele Dossier-there was no race to be first. To the contrary there was a race not to publish at all. There was an unspoken agreement by the Savvy to keep this story buried. And Jason Leopold and Buzzfeed were actually excoriated by the Savvy MSM for breaching this pack mentality of publicly refusing to even acknowledge what the entire media knew about privately.
FN: It’s always violation of the unwritten, unspoken rules that a social organization won’t forgive.
As for “unvetted” the media has a long history of this if the subject is Hillary Clinton-Whitewater, Vince Foster, But Her Emails,, Today it’s Hunter Biden.. But with Trump, they actually had far more fastidious standards-certainly Dean Baquet did when he buried the story of Russian interference a few days after it’s total Comey Letter freakout-‘The FBI sees no clear links.’
And this leads us to a point developed in Sarah Kendzior’s crucially important book They Knew. Basically what you find is that the enticement of getting the big scoop or writing a piece that blows up and goes viral doesn’t always win out among Savvy pundits if potential big scoop contradicts the current narrative as this is way to get yourself sidelined if you’re in the Savvy Beltway journalism club. It explains the great many “orphans” we saw develop during the two years before the Mueller Report-many big scoops ended up abandoned by their author-a classic example was when the NYT disavowed its own bombshell reporting on Manafort’s apparent connections to Julian Assange…
End FN
Think about it. Indeed, Cohen actually documented this fact himself but he had the telescope turned upside down.
Meanwhile, although Steele’s report wasn’t known yet to the public, it was the worst kept secret in Washington D.C. And that says a lot since no one in D.C. can keep a secret—especially politicians and reporters. They trade on innuendo and dark secrets that are usually little more than supposition. Thus was precisely the case with the Steele Dossier. Reporters were openly discussing it over beers at local restaurants, as were staffers in the halls of Congress and in the offices of the West Wing. It was later reported[13] that at least a dozen national media organizations had a copy of the Dossier before it became public. One reporter friend of mine said the thing was passed around “like a bottle of booze at a frat party.” Everyone saw it. Everyone spoke about it—to each other. While it was unvetted information, most of the press bought the premise: Trump was courting Putin and everyone around him was selling out their country. By the time I heard about it—in that phone call from the Washington Post reporters—dozens, if not hundreds of reporters, had discussed the Dossier for months. And, of course, the more the stories circulated, the worse they got.”
Pgs 15-16
Yes but this worst kept secret was nevertheless kept secret. It’s hard to accept Cohen’s premise that the media recklessly couldn’t wait to get a scoop on the Dossier regardless the facts when in fact no one in the mainstream media breathed a word about it before the election-and THAT WOMAN who they had such disdain for was defeated.
But even then they sat on the story. This was a big part of Christopher Steele’s outrage and disillusionment with the FBI. Comey had somehow managed to both
A. Refuse to discuss Russian Interference and Collusion because it was too close to the election
and yet, and yet-
B. Do the Comey Letter which flipped the election to Trump who Comey knew had received Russian assitance and that this relationship was a potential counterintelligence threat.
Indeed as it would happen, the late John McCain would be pivotal to getting the report publicly released. Cohen discusses this-though, of course-he excoriates McCain for his role.
As for Cohen’s complaint that “most of the press bought the premise: Trump was courting Putin and everyone around him was selling out their country.”
He actually gets this exactly wrong. This was exactly what happened but the mainstream press has done everything to deny and minimize this fact the last 7 years.
FN: Remember the Savvy taunting from Dilanian-Kasey Hunt, et al-you should be happy Democrats, our President didn’t collude with Russia-after Bill Barr’s fake exoneration memo in late March, 2019?
But this gets to the locus of why Cohen’s effect was basically the opposite of what he presumably wanted-rather than agreeing that the Dossier should be buried in a deep, dark grave, it led me to reread it with fresh eyes. Because Cohen is not only denying that he didn’t go to Prague and that he wasn’t involved in the Trump campaign’s conspiring with Russia but that the Trump campaign didn’t conspire with Russia; that is a appalling lie that has done great harm and must be combated at every turn-wether this disinformation comes from Trump and his GOP co-onspirators, a la Chuck Grassley, from a Savvy hack like Erik Wemple, or for whatever reason, Cohen still feels that to claim exoneration for himself he has to exonerate the Trump campaign.
Cohen mocks the idea of a Russian conspiracy when he was an important member of the Russian conspiracy-a la the Trump Tower Moscow project he continues to attempt to minimize and rationalize; for Grassley to mock the idea of a Trump campaign conspiracy with Russia is even richer when you remember that Barbara Leeden was his aide-she wrote the the manifesto that the GOP should coordinate, collude, and conspire with Russian government hackers to find Hillary’s legally deleted emails.
At a minimum, when he dismisses not the Steele Dossier or his own role, but any kind of Russian conspiracy with the Trump campaign at all, we can note he’s lied before specifically regarding his own conduct in 2016 multiple times. Indeed, that’s what got him indicted for perjury-claiming he never spoke to Peskov’s office among other things.
A 2016 Trump campaign conspiracy with Russia to steal the 2016 election-with no little assistance from Comey and the rogue FBI agents is a provable fact. Anyone peddling these lies to the contrary must be combated. For whatever reason despite the disdain Cohen expresses for his old illegitimate boss, he still feels the need to defend him from the-legitimate-charge of Russian conspiracy to steal the 2016 election.
So let us reread the Dossier. Let’s start with the first page, indeed, the first sentence:
Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance
Pg 1
So here we are over six years later.. What in this opening paragraph has been disproven? Nothing. Indeed six years later it’s quite the opposite
But which of the three assertions in this opening sentence have been discredited? Certainly not that Putin sought to cause divisions in the western alliance. Quite the contrary it’s far more clear over six years since Steele wrote these words just how self evidently true they are. Putin desired to cause divisions in the NATO countries to keep the world safe for his authoritarianism and imperialistic intent in Ukraine.
It’s clear with Putin’s embarrassing setbacks in Ukraine how crucial it has been for the Russian dictator to keep the US and its European allies divided-thanks to the great work of President Joe and his intelligence services Putin is flailing terribly in his dirty war in Ukraine; first US intelligence telegraphed months in advance the coming Russian invasion of Ukraine depriving Putin of the element of surprise, and then Biden’s masterclass in diplomacy in keeping the NATO alliance far more unified than could ever have been imagined.
It was vital for Putin that he keep the alliance divided and his utter failure-Biden’s great success in keeping uniy-is a big part of his failure-though clearly the biggest part is the stunning bravery of Zelensky and his Ukrainian people.
But it’s clear this was a desperately necessary objective of Putin and that logically Trump was a dream candidate for him-someone who spoke admiringly of Putin himself and made threats to leave NATO unless our allies ‘pay their fair share’-reducing NATO to a protection racket. Trump has since over the years expressed complete disdain for Ukraine-documented many places and obvious in his attempt to shakedown Zelensky in 2019 in exchange for military aid the latest documentation in Maggie Haberman’s new book.
In addition Trump’s clear racism-“shithole countries”, and misogyny-“grab them by the pussy”- played very much in line with Putin’s own reactionary jingoism. Clearly Trump has been the ultimate divider for America.
FN: Find link
So it’s hardly dubious much less “discredtied” that Putin would sign off on Trump. Beyond that we know Russia had been cozying up with Trump the last few years-their relationship actually begun in the 1980s when the Trump Tower was one of the few large apartment complexes in NYC that allowed anonymous sales-thereby making Trump’s apartments idea for money laundering.
But the relationship had only gotten closer over the last 30 years going into 2016. It’s been noted that Trump first floated running in 1988 after returning from a trip to the-rapidly dissolving-Soviet Union. After Trump’s very large business failures in the 1990s-losing money running a casino in Atlantic City; something it would seem pretty hard to do-Trump became such a bad credit risk few Western banks would take, leaving him more dependent on Russian financing.
Then in the few years leading up to 2016, it reached a new phase. Clearly a new level of rapproachment was reached with Trump’s trip to the Moscow beauty pageant in 2013-a trip that Cohen accompanied him on.
This trip, of course, was when the (in)famous Pee Tape allegedly happened-we will look at this below, starting with Cohen’s comments. But the bigger picture was this trip was arranged by Trump’s friend, Crocus CEO, Aras Agalarov, who, in a “total coincidence” would be the architect of the Trump campaign’s June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with the Russians.
So while Cohen calls it a “ridiculous document” the opening paragraph is hardly ridiculous-quite the opposite.
Back to the Steele Dossier:
Former top Russian intelligence officer claims FSB has compromised TRUMP through his activities in Moscow sufficiently to be able to blackmail him. According to several knowledgeable sources, his conduct in Moscow has included perverted sexual acts which have been arranged/monitored by the FSB.
Ibid.
So another word-after “discredited”, ‘unvetted”-it’s kind of amazing to hear the complaints about “unvetted” after 25 years of phony, unvetted Clinton scandals-Whitewater, Troopergate Travelgate, Vince Foster, Benghazi, Emailgate, Clinton Cash… I mean when the subject was Hillary Clinton, nothing had to be “vetted” to get top of front page, sober treatment from the New York Times.
But when the subject wasn’t Hillary but her manifestly unfit opponent-who was self evidently a counterintelligence threat-things had to be “vetted” to even be reported on-again this was not the practice over 25 years of faux Clinton scandals.
Chuck Grassley claims that Steele’s Dossier as well as the entire Trump-Russia conspiracy has been “debunked” despite the fact that his own staff aide wrote the Leeden Manifesto that called for: working with Russian intelligence to hack Hillary’s legally deleted personal emails…
Another snarky term that has often been applied to the Steele Dossier is “outlandish”
A representative for Trump could not immediately be reached for comment. Richard Grenell, who served as acting director of national intelligence in the Trump administration, tweeted that the verdict “doesn’t clear up” the “outlandish claims” in the Steele dossier.”
To be quite certain, it is kind of rich for Trump’s (un)confirmed DNI during his Insurrection-aka the premise that he actually won an election he lost by 7 million votes-to be the referee on what is or is not “outlandish.”
But, in any case, when the Dossier is called “outlandish” as it has many times no doubt first and foremost this is the claim in the Dossier they have in mind-the (in)famous Pee Tape.
Cohen categorically insists there is no Pee Tape-more on this below. But there’s nothing “outlandish”-or “ridiculous” as Cohen calls the allegations that Russia would compile sexual blackmail. Sexual blackmail is a far more common occurrence than the conventional wisdom would have us believe. It has certainly often been quite common in American history.
Then there’s Russian history, Russia under Putin. Suffice it to say this it is the opposite of “outlandish”, “unlikely”, or “ridiculous” to imagine Putin using sexual kompromat for political manipulation-it’s about as “outlandish” as predicting the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning then at the end of the day set in the west.
I’m not saying it’s a certainty that Trump was sexually blackmailed just that it’s not implausible. Anyone who claims otherwise themselves lack credibility and are in fact dubious.
I mean we know Trump has a history of sexual promiscuity-often going over the line in terms of a woman’s consent to the level of harassment and assault and we know using these kinds of peccadilos against politicians is Putin’s stock and trade so it’s not an absurd idea true or false.
FN: CF The Senate Intel report on Putin’s clear pattern in this regard.
But Cohen seems to find the idea absurd of the Pee Tape absurd on its face.
FN: My position is different: I don’t know if it happened or not but it’s not implausible that it would.
It’s an opposite of a surprise that Cohen quotes approvingly the Nation which naturally assumes the Dossier has been “debunked” but as usual when this is claimed no specific facts are actually shown to have been debunked.
UPDATE
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/13/danchenko-informant-trial-dossier-durham/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/18/igor-danchenko-john-durham-verdict/
Great except the Steele Dossier hasn’t been debunked
https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download
Igor Danchenko’s unmasking and indictment is one of the most disgraceful episodes in US judicial history. Igor, a valuable FBI source on Russia, was thrown under the bus for partisan political gain. Imo the only beneficiaries from Barr and Durham’s actions are Putin and the FSB.
— Christopher Steele (@Chris_D_Steele) October 19, 2022
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/13/mueller-indicts-12-russians-for-hacking-into-dnc-718805
And the author doesn’t even bother to say what specifically has been “debunked” it’s just an article of faith amongst Jay Rosen’s Church of the Savvy
Again note the entirely dismissive snark about “pee tape” author Christopher Steele
John Durham Avenged Warrants Targeting Carter Page by Getting a Warrant Targeting Sergei Millian
Despite all the insistence that the Dossier lied about Carter Page
A representative for Trump could not immediately be reached for comment. Richard Grenell, who served as acting director of national intelligence in the Trump administration, tweeted that the verdict “doesn’t clear up” the “outlandish claims” in the Steele dossier.”
Like what? 15 pages in still have yet to find any
So now that Danchenko has been cleared will the WaPo correct the correction? Amazing how they took such an unprecedented step based on Durham's surmise-seeing as Durham's record is so weak https://t.co/LJJ3puAzkV
— Expand the Court (@ProChoiceMike) October 25, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/18/igor-danchenko-john-durham-verdict/
Time and again Mueller seems to take the word of Trump’s co-conspirators
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1118631217212067841.html
Erik Wemple Media at it again
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/media-washington-post-steele-dossier/2021/11/12/f7c9b770-43d5-11ec-a88e-2aa4632af69b_story.html
UPDATE: Regarding the Pee Tape:
John Durham Created a False Pee Tape Panic Based Off a “Literally True” Alleged Lie
Great piece by Cohen’s lawyer
https://twitter.com/Edanyaperry?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-eight-counts-including-criminal-tax
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Innocent-Plead-Guilty-Free/dp/B091BGTNZ2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=258UQ7QM9CPSB&keywords=jed+rakoff&qid=1665690322&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjkzIiwicXNhIjoiMS44OCIsInFzcCI6IjEuODkifQ%3D%3D&s=audible&sprefix=jed+rak%2Caudible%2C123&sr=1-1
In Mueller Report see pg 153 (364) for MR analysis of wether Cohen went to Prague.
The Steele Dossier and the Mueller Investigation: Michael Cohen
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/us/politics/the-mueller-report-excerpts.html
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/mueller-knows-everything-perplexing-case-michael-cohen-prague-grows-increasingly-bizarre-bewildering/
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/investigations/article229424084.html