FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Muellergate Is Coming on Fast, as Trump Promises To ‘Get Involved... if I Have To’
Aug. 31, 2018—President Trump promised a rally in Evansville, Indiana Aug. 30 that if the Justice Department (DOJ) and FBI don’t “start doing their job and doing it right and doing it now ... I will get involved and I’ll get in there if I have to.”
His legal team, meanwhile, is nearing completion of a “counter-report” to any report Special Counsel Robert Mueller may come out with. Rudy Giuliani told the Daily Beast on Aug. 30 that the first part—as of now 58 pages long—goes after the opening of the investigation itself as illegal and details the conflicts of interests of top DOJ officials; the second part will respond to allegations of collusion and obstruction of justice.
One head likely to roll next is that of Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, after his Aug. 28 testimony to a closed-door, joint House committee hearing. Giuliani tweeted Aug. 30 that Ohr should face felony charges, for violating 18 USC sec. 208 of the Federal Criminal Code. As he explained:
“Ohr’s wife was financially benefitted by Ohr, a DOJ official, advancing the Steele phony dossier. Her firm [Fusion GPS] got some part of the $1.02 million paid by Hillary and DNC. A crime unless he has a written waiver from Obama’s politicized DOJ which is possible.”
(A nice touch: Were Ohr to have a written waiver to cough up to exonerate himself, he would implicate higher-ups in Obama’s DOJ.)
Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel on Aug. 31 zeroed in on the implications of Ohr’s testimony for the legality of the FBI’s applications for warrants from the FISA Court. According to her sources, Ohr told the hearing that he had verbally warned the FBI that (British spy) Christopher Steele had both a credibility problem and a “passionate” determination to keep Trump from being elected, and that he told them that his wife, Nellie Ohr, was working on Steele’s dossier project—and financially benefitting from it.
“All this is what Republicans are referring to when they hint that the Ohr interview provided solid evidence that the FBI abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA],”
Strassel wrote. She quoted a tweet from Rep. John Ratcliffe of Texas following the hearing:
“Before yesterday, we thought the FBI and DOJ had not disclosed material facts they were aware of in the FISA application. If Bruce Ohr testified truthfully, we now know that to be the case.”
Judicial Watch revealed Aug. 31 that the Justice Department has confirmed as of Aug. 30 that the FISA Court did not even hold a hearing on the FBI’s request for a warrant to spy on President Trump’s campaign, a request based on the fraudulent dossier concocted by “former” MI6 operative Christopher Steele.
