#JohnHelmer

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U.S. Escalates Sanctions War on Russia, Frustrated Russians Debate How to Fight Back

What Do the Americans Want from Russia -- Short of Total Capitulation?

Notwithstanding the deep state allowing Trump’s peacemaking talks with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, it seems Bloomberg is wrong regarding both sides of Cold War 2 — the neocons in Trump’s own cabinet appear hellbent on sabotaging any thaw in U.S.-Russia relations. We are likely to see more chemical or other false flag events in Syria and possibly in Ukraine to derail Putin visiting the White House and the discussed reciprocal Trump presidential trip to Moscow. On the other side of the coin, while Russia’s largest aluminum conglomerate Rusal has been hammered by the sector and company specific sanctions imposed earlier this month, there is little evidence the Kremlin is ready to give in to what the Americans want.

Furthermore, even as Russian commentators like Yevgeny Satanovsky dismiss Trump as increasingly irrelevant and/or neutered by the U.S./UK deep state, there is no consensus in Moscow about what Washington really wants — short of total capitulation abroad followed by plundering of Russia's rich natural resources and talent base (as in the early to mid-1990s). Some former Israeli intelligence/military men or those with connections to Israel say the Trump White House wants Russia to dump its alliance with Iran in Syria, and there is indeed some evidence to support this theory, dating back to then recently retired Gen. Michael Flynn’s controversial visit to Moscow before becoming a Trump campaign aide and (briefly) U.S. national security adviser. Other commentators like New Eastern Outlook/Sputnik’s Andrew Korybko say Washington wants Moscow to dump its anti-dollar alliance with Beijing. But since that is even less likely to happen than an Russian-Iranian split over Israel (even with the coming Hezbollah-Israel war certain to test Tehran-Moscow ties), the Russians are digging in for a long economic siege. The debate over what it will take to win the economic war forced upon the Russians is airing on Sunday night talk shows and in newspapers watched and read across the country. Some of these clips have been translated and subtitled by the translators behind Vesti News. Others are summarized at sites like Vineyard of the Saker and Russia Insight.

The understanding that outlasting Washington's aggression will require de-oligarchization and ending the Russian corporate sector’s reliance on (post)Western capital markets/payment systems like SWIFT is clear enough. So too, is the absolute necessity to 'de-dollarize or die' that V the Guerrilla Economist and myself have been preaching since 2014, for any non-U.S. company or government that has ears to hear. The implementation of these projects, and the irrevocable attachment of Russia and 'the commanding heights' of her economy to China, will not be without pain or push back from the notorious bureaucrats, the oligarchs, and Russia's tiny but noisy band of pro-Western liberals.

To face these challenges Putin, well aware of his mortality and the threats against his life behind the scenes, knows he will have to prepare more than a successor as president. Putin will also need to shape an entire cadre of younger GenX and Millennial leaders (GenZ or those approaching age 18 have never known any preeminent national leader but Putin) for Russia -- above all in the entrepreneurial and technology fields.

While Russia's military has modernized to a degree inconceivable in the Nineties, surpassing the vaunted Americans in electronic warfare and missiles, access to capital and entrepreneurship remain weak in the Russian Federation. The country also faces the demographic headwinds of a shrinking ethnic Russian labor force due to the post-Soviet birth rate collapse suffered during the Nineties. Immigration of Russian speaking skilled laborers and IT staff from an economically imploding Ukraine can only do so much to address this distressing demographic reality. Moscow will need to consider opening the doors to more Chinese, Indian and perhaps, educated Syrian immigration to fill in the gaps, particularly in cities of Siberia and the Russian Far East. To understand what must be done by Putin or the new 'Politburo' that stands behind him, we need to first look at the aspects of the Russian economy that are actually working well, especially the turn toward China and the resurgence of agriculture. These are described by my Swiss born White Russian Floridian friend The Saker as Russia "turning away from the West to the East (to China and the dynamic markets of Asia) and looking to the North (her Arctic and pastoral lands) and South (the Muslim world and Africa)".

As the Russian Analyst wrote in a post about the Orthodox Saint Prince Alexander Nevsky, Russia made its civilizational choice 900 years ago that paying tribute to the Khans of the East was preferable to surrender and losing her identity, or her very soul to the aggressive, Papists and Teutonic Knights West. The next few decisive years of the 21st century with China eclipsing the USA as the last superpower are likely to echo that choice. But in order to follow through on that choice, the Russians are likely to get more Chinese in their governance if not in their national culture to endure the depredations of the Americans followed by a global economic collapse and reset. The world famous patience and willingness of Russians to endure suffering will be sorely tested. The task of the Russian leadership is to give them a non-Soviet, non-sectarian but sufficiently inspiring vision to endure -- and to present visible milestones along the way.

The Scorecard: What Putin and Co Have Managed to Accomplish in the Face of U.S./UK Economic Pressure is Tremendous, But More Severe Sanctions Are Coming

According to John Helmer, an Australian citizen who is now the longest serving (post)Western journalist in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin has formed a 'STAVKA' to deal with the pressing demands Cold War 2 and Russia's ongoing rearmament are placing on the economy: "...even before the US Treasury announced its newest sanctions against Russian individuals and their companies for “malign activity around the globe”, that President-elect Vladimir Putin was preparing a successor cabinet of ministers on the principle that they would be organized as a headquarters staff for fighting a war on all fronts, without the option of negotiating terms with the enemy."

"The impact of the US sanctions, along with the campaign of the British Government in the Skripal affair, and the Syrian front action escalating since the weekend, have reinforced what had already been decided in the Kremlin.  The new government is to be a war cabinet. In Russian parlance, a Stavka."

Undeniable progress has been made since the ruble hit a low amidst a concerted attack on it in mid-December 2014. Russia has twice in the last three years surpassed the U.S. as the number one wheat exporter on the planet. Oil prices have been steadily creeping upward, perhaps in part due to a deal negotiated between Moscow and OPEC, with the Saudis representing the other leading oil producers who found that Russia could endure cheaper crude for much longer then they could. The domestic SWIFT alternative payments systems SPFS is up and running, and in use by sanctioned arms manufacturer Rostec, with Rosneft and Gazprombank also using the platform. China's CIPS system is also available for large scale corporate transactions outside of Russia. The Power of Siberia mega-gas pipeline to China is set for completion by late 2019, while the Kerch strait bridge to 'annexed' Crimea is being finished ahead of schedule later this spring.

Barring a serious U.S.-engineered breach with Berlin and Ankara, either or likely both of the Nordstream 2 or the Turkstream pipelines to Europe will be operational sometime in 2021, bypassing Ukraine and denying the U.S.-propped up Kiev government lucrative transit revenue. The Kiev government may be able to survive this shortfall but not without becoming a heavier burden on its U.S. and EU patrons. Due to the loyalty it imposes on the German deep state, Washington stands a chance of perhaps delaying or blocking Nordstream. But the Anglo-Americans waning influence in Turkey almost certainly will hinder their ability to sabotage Turkstream -- or even prevent Iranian gas from being added to the Turkish energy transit mix. Continued Economic Pain for Russians and Sanctions Pressures Will Test Putin Consensus Despite all these achievements, which the Russian people acknowledged by re-electing Putin to an unprecedented third and final term in office this March, the economy and wages have stagnated. In several sectors and especially those subject to inflation in pricing imported goods and medicines, Russians have seen their purchasing power sharply decline since 2013-14. Such wage cuts in both real and in many cases nominal terms have not been compensated for with cheaper, high quality domestic food, or the steadying of a previously overheated housing sector.

Entrepreneurs remain starved for cheap credit while the oligarch owned combines, struggling with both announced and stealth sanctions, receive ruble bailouts from Russia's Central Bank. While Elvira Nabiullina's Volcker-esque policies have tamed inflation, they have done nothing to relieve the chronic capital shortages and high interest rates to borrow that Russians face. For the Kremlin, the problem of resentment between the pittances ordinary Russians receive from the State versus the bailouts oligarchs like Rusal's Oleg Deripaska demand in order to prevent mass layoffs in their Siberian company towns persists. And of course, this is by design. If Washington's Cold War 2 planners could never achieve a successful Maidan in Moscow, because Russia's tamed oligarchs were far too weak to topple Putin (in contrast with the Ukrainian oligarchy that overthrew President Viktor Yanukovych in a U.S. organized coup), they still hope to fuel unrest across Russia. In March, a suspicious fire set at a shopping mall in Kemerovo which killed dozens including many children had some hallmarks of an event intended to spark mass protests beyond Siberia, due to genuine grief and outrage over the corruption that enabled the tragedy.

Putin responded by flying to Kemerovo, condemning corruption in fire safety inspections, vowing a full investigation of the conflagration, and the longtime Kemerovo mayor whose underlings likely received bribes from the mall owner resigned. But the incident underscored the physical as well as metaphorical kindling for the flames of discontent in Russia, even if many of those opposed to Putin are more radically anti-Western and opposed to policies favorable to non-Russian ethnic minorities than he will ever be. Putin is, far from the paranoid xenophobe that his enemies caricature him as, a German speaking Teutonophile who gets along well with Russian Jews and seeks business-like relations with Israel.

The Limits on Moscow's Ability to Immediately Hit Back, and a Lamented Lack of Imagination in Stimulating the Russian Economy or Providing Affordable Credit to the People

The Kemerovo fire, which has all the hallmarks of an authentic but criminally planned scenario, illustrates the vulnerability of Russia through corruption to foreign attack. Even if said attacks will never be acknowledged by either side, they are real and the Russian security services know it. The more pressing problem than getting city and regional bureaucrats to stop demanding and receiving bribes from businesses for clean fire safety inspections is the oligarchy. Namely, those 100 or fewer individuals to whom so many Soviet era mineral and industrial assets were sold on the cheap. Putin tamed them in his first term in office through the arrest and imprisonment of the criminal Mikhail Khodorkovsky, but as Z. Brzezinski smirked at the time (and the Russian Analyst is paraphrasing here rather than offering a precise quote), "If your oligarchs, their yachts, their money and their children are in London rather than Russia, are they still yours, or ours?"

With Oleg Deripaska in particular spending large sums of money on lobbyists to obtain a U.S. visa only to be sanctioned by name and corporate listings over Moscow's globally 'malign activities', Washington's determination to squeeze the oligarchs as a form of pressure on the overall economy is evident. Since the Sergei and Yulia Skripal poisoning that the British have blamed on Russia, there have also been rumblings about seizures or sudden sanctions levied against Russian wealth in 'Londongrad'. The State Duma has responded to the Anglo-Americans by introducing legislation intended to inflict pain on specific American sectors reliant on Russian materials or technology, primarily aerospace. Boeing uses titanium to build its 787 Dreamliners, a Russian titanium embargo would devastate VSMPO-Avisma, while perhaps setting back the Boeing orders by months until the manufacturer could find alternative stocks or middlemen. Not surprisingly the Russian Trade Minister Denis Manturov overruled the angry Duma deputies -- for now.  A similar dynamic is apparent when it comes to Russia halting rocket engine shipments to the U.S. In that scenario, NASA and the Pentagon would be delayed in satellite launches by several months, but highly skilled Russian rocket engineers and builders would be furloughed for months -- making talent poaching offers from the heavily subsidized SpaceX or even Chinese competitors highly attractive. Not surprisingly, these facts have emboldened Washington's sanctions advocates into believing that Moscow needs Washington far more than the U.S. needs Russia, and the Russians cannot effectively punch back in the economic realm. Therefore the neocons will keep on pushing -- until Moscow finds a way to demonstrate it can impose pain on the American economy, beyond beating out the Americans for lucrative arms or nuclear power plant contracts in markets where the Cold War rivals go head to head like India.

A Snapshot of the Russian Debate Over How to Fight Back and Revive their Economy

Not surprisingly, many Russian commentators on television are expressing their frustration that the Kremlin is not hitting back hard enough, or finding any creative ways to do so. In this clip from a talk show on Vesti, the show host complains that Moscow still has tens of billions parked in U.S. Treasuries. Why he asks his guests from the State Duma, can't that entire total be converted to gold or other currencies, as the Russian Central Bank has already been doing? Why does the Kremlin keep own any national debt of the enemy that openly speaks of squeezing Russia from economic processes? The Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) Yuri Afonin, goes on to unfavorably contrast Russia's economic development enslaved to 'Western securities' to 'Communist' China's, which he says wisely invests greater resources into its infrastructure. Yury Vyacheslavovich does not even have time to mention in two minutes of remarks the absurdity of Russia continuing to hold debt of a country whose leadership openly seeks to discourage if not outright ban allies from buying Russian sovereign debt.

The economist Nikita A. Krichevsky, responds by pointing out the Russian government in the better times of 2006-2007 missed opportunities to invest in national projects (a critique the Russian Analyst is very familiar with), and could start in the present economic crunch by offering Russians mortgage relief at cheaper, refinanced rates as a simple and quick stimulus to the economy. Krichevsky blames lazy but well compensated Russian bureaucrats (as Russian Analyst readers are noticing, everyone loves to hate the chinovniki and has since Tsarist times) and the concurs that the Washington consensus promoting ideology inherited from the 'Gaidar-Chubais' dominated Nineties is to blame, along with the departments that promote it at Moscow State University and especially, the Moscow Higher School of Economics, for whom a post-Western dominated (read: after the U.S. dollar and euro collapse) future for Russia is  unthinkable. The Americans and their king dollar are always going to be on top, because it was so when the educations and attitudes of these thinkers were formed in the perestroika and Yeltsin years.

On a more optimistic (from Moscow's perspective) note, the economist Maxim Schein says that other countries are dumping American Treasury debt by the tens of billions every quarter, because they all understand interest rates must rise due to the growth in the American national debt. This means that if Russia dumps its U.S. debt holdings it will be doing what others are doing, and not taking an exceptional loss. Krichevsky responds by asking why the ruble dollar exchange rate cannot be fixed, the way China has managed its dollar-yuan peg within certain parameters. The host grunts something about market economy in reply. But the Americans clearly aren't playing by their own supposed market economic rules or legal niceties in seeking to destroy not just specific oligarchs for being Kremlin connected but entire sectors of the Russian economy such as metallurgy. Furthermore, 'market economy' dogmas might not apply to a company like Rusal that's already effectively embargoed from Western financing, owned by Russian state funded banks and which, as a producer of a strategic metal in aluminum, has military value in the current second Cold War which has prompted Russia's rapid rearmament.

The choice, according to the gloomy prognostications of individuals like Branko Milanovic, who believe Russia joining no anti-dollar bloc is possible much less preferable, is capitulation or autarky. But since autarky in the 21st century in a country like Russia, whose authorities cannot even competently ban the app Telegram is impossible, supposedly Moscow will have to find some face saving way to surrender to the Americans. Or so this narrative goes, ignoring the enormous liabilities the United States is aggressively lashing out to relieve, both economic and cultural, of which Putin and those advising him as well as China's Xi are well aware. Ultimately, time is not on the Americans side, the disagreement in Russia is over how to get through the period of maximum economic pressure rather than over whether Washington can sustain it for decades as it did during the last Cold War.

The Rossiya show hostess concludes this clip by saying RIA Novosti sources citing the Kremlin are reporting a Trump-Putin meeting planned for prior to November. But placing hopes on Trump, as many guests like Yevgeny Satanovsky speaking on the same network's shows have already declared, is foolish. Russia must become more like its big powerful and apparently, much more respected by the Americans neighbor China, in order to push the arrogant Yankees back and prevail. 

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Lavrov Points to Likely British Intelligence Role in Skripal Poisoning

The widespread skepticism of the novichok story coming fifteen years after Tony Blair's UK government joined the Bush 43 Administration in lying its way to war over Saddam Hussein's alleged awesome chemical weapons arsenal is spreading far beyond alternative media and Russian outlets, vindicating the doubts expressed in Parliament by Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn. The same Corbyn who is likely to succeed the incompetent, flailing Theresa May and who has been smeared as a Kremlin stooge via photoshopped graphics of him wearing a Russian-style hat in front of Red Square on the taxpayer funded BBC program Newsnight.

Moscow is also building its case that the British government has violated its 1963 and 1968 Parliament-ratified treaty obligations under the Vienna Conventions and relevant articles, denying a Russian citizen in distress, Yulia Skripal, access to consular assistance. Regardless of whether or not Yulia has asked to speak to her embassy and relatives (and an army of pro-NATO Twitter trolls are insisting as of this hour that she has not) while being denied phone access by hospital or law enforcement officials, it's apparent that a UK court hearing convened last month on the incapacitated Skripals' behalf, covered by Australian journalist John Helmer but largely ignored by MSM, (deliberately?) disregarded public facts and Russian media reporting.

Russian media reports at that time and since clearly demonstrated that the Skripals relatives in Moscow were seeking to contact the victims. and find out about their status in a hospital through their country's Embassy in Kensington. Adding to the mystery and signs of possible British Scotland Yard or GCHQ intelligence tampering with cyber forensics was the reported login to Yulia's VKontakte (Russian version of Facebook) account three days after she allegedly fell into a coma and was hospitalized from alleged nerve agent poisoning. -- JWS

FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Lavrov Points to Likely British Intelligence Role in Skripal Poisoning

April 2, 2018—The issue of likely British intelligence involvement in the poisoning of former Russian GRU colonel, turned British double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia is increasingly coming to the fore.

Speaking at a press conference this morning in Moscow, TASS reported, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out that British intelligence, “or the government,” were clearly the beneficiaries of the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter.

“There are other explanations besides the ones, which our Western colleagues trumpet that only the Russian trace can be considered to be the final verdict,”

Lavrov said. He cited experts who observe that the whole poisoning affair “may be advantageous for Britain’s special services, which are known for their ability to act with a license to kill.” Moreover, he emphasized,

“this can be also beneficial to the British government which found itself in an inconvenient situation” after failing to negotiate favorable terms for Britain’s exit from the European Union.

“Leaders of a whole number of countries are asking questions,”

the Foreign Minister stated, and

“Britain, I think, will not manage to avoid answering these questions, because they are already only too obvious and it’s only too obvious that our British colleagues have lost their sense of reality.”

From London, Russian Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko similarly charged that London’s refusal to share information on the poisoning has led Moscow to “strongly suspect” that London was the actual perpetrator of the crime. In an interview with Russia’s NTV “Weekly Results” news program, as reported by RT, Yakovenko explained that while Russia has no direct proof, the British government’s behavior constitutes “strong circumstantial evidence in support of this theory.”

Ambassador Yakovenko also pointed out that in order for Theresa May to win support from both the population and the Parliament, she needed a “serious provocation,” and came up with a particularly “savage” one, so as to claim a leading role in the Western campaign to “contain” Russia. But, Moscow will not allow London to escape the legal consequences of its actions, Yakovenko warned. “They will have to give answers,” and bear full responsibility for their actions.

British Empire War Plans Already Backfiring

From LaRouchePAC.com April 2, 2018 The Russian Embassy in London sent a list of 14 questions to the British Foreign Office which, in themselves, demonstrate the total fraud of the British declaration of Russian guilt for the nerve agent attack on two Russian citizens in Salisbury. Among the questions: Why has the U.K. presented no evidence; why have they broken several international laws and protocols to prevent access to the victims; what antidotes did the U.K. have on hand for the nerve agent, and how did they obtain them; do they have a control agent of the so-called Novichok; has the U.K. developed the agent themselves?

But also included in the list of questions is the revelation, not previously known, that the French are deeply involved in the investigation. Why, the Russians ask, and on what grounds? What U.K. legislation or international protocols allow for the French to be engaged in an attack on Russian citizens on U.K. soil, and what have the French been given access to?

Similar lists of questions went to the French Foreign Ministry and to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

These are questions which can and must be taken up by all interested parties -- and it can be definitively stated that every person on Earth is an interested party when the British are provoking a conflict between nuclear powers.

President Trump has continued to say nothing against Russia since the scam was launched, including in his rally in Ohio last week, while he held a long productive phone call with Putin without mentioning the phony charges against Russia. Although he did allow his administration to take the drastic measures against Russian diplomats and to close Russia's consular facility in Seattle, the war-party spokesmen in both political parties and in the press are furious that he won't personally join in the hysteria against Russia.

The Chinese took note of Trump's personal silence, while Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang called on Russia and the U.S. to resolve the issue: "Russia and the U.S. are influential countries in the world, who share big responsibility for the world's peace and security. We hope they will appropriately solve the dispute via dialogue based on equality and mutual respect."

The absurdity of the British accusations, claiming certainty with absolutely no evidence, in a manner which pushes the world into an existential crisis, comes at a time that President Trump is emphasizing the destructive results of an earlier British scam -- Tony Blair's launching of the Iraq war based on similar lies, provoking destruction across Southwest Asia and the mass exodus from the multiple war zones, leaving millions homeless and aggravating the economic crisis in Europe with a mass refugee crisis. George W. Bush and Barack Obama swallowed the British lies gladly, willing to commit crimes against humanity to prove their allegiance to the Mother Country.

Not so President Trump, who repeatedly points to the $7 trillion wasted in these illegal and unjustified regime-change wars, killing thousands while the U.S. physical economy was rotting. He could (and should) add that speculators in London and on Wall Street were simultaneously looting additional trillions from the real economies of the western nations.

India is increasingly working directly with China and Russia on productive investment projects, both among themselves and in third countries, especially in Africa. The work is being integrating through the international New Silk Road project initiated by Xi Jinping, and long promoted by Lyndon LaRouche.

On October 10, 2009, Lyndon LaRouche delivered an address to the Seventh Annual Session of the Rhodes "Dialogue of Civilizations" Forum in Greece, defining an agreement of the "Four Powers" -- Russia, the United States, China, and India -- as the necessary combination required to end the global economic destruction unfolding across the West. These four great nations, he said, must "agree, as a group of countries, to initiate and force a reorganization of the world financial and credit system -- under those conditions, with long-term agreements, of the same type that Franklin Roosevelt had uttered before his death, in 1944, under key nations, the intention of Roosevelt all these years later, could have been realized, and we could do that, today."

This insight, and this program, is even more urgent today, but it is also more possible, due to the New Silk Road paradigm sweeping the world, and the potential that President Trump will carry out his intention to work with Putin and Xi Jinping to achieve this new paradigm. All patriots, and all citizens of the world, must act to this end.

[roguenewsdao]

GOP Led House Panel Votes to #ReleasetheMemo, Grassley Tightens Noose Around Steele and the British Putschists

We now know, as the spotlight turns to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, that Rosenstein approved a reauthorization of FISA surveillance against Page after the 2016 election. Today Page remains a free man, after lots of leaks smearing his character and portraying him as a Russian intelligence asset, but with no proof or indictments presented to the public ever justifying the intense surveillance directed his way. Democrats and their allies hide behind protecting 'sources and methods' excuses, claiming other intelligence behind the curtain justified the FISA abuse. Thank God, the ultimate declassification authority lies with the Congress and the President, not with the career bureaucrats. Within five days or less, the public will be reading the memo that so disturbed GOP members of Congress. 

As for the supposed integrity of those the Dems and Fusion GPS payola'd fan boys and girls with press passes are defending, it's telling that Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe resigned, or was told to resign, ahead of his designated retirement date, almost immediately after current director Christopher Wray viewed the Nunes memo in a designated classified viewing room on Capitol Hill. The weasely McCabe told then White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, that a CNN story about Trump campaign was false, only to later leak that Priebus had pressured the FBI into releasing a statement based on McCabe's words.

The following extended quote from the longest serving western correspondent in Moscow, John Helmer, may be of interest regarding whether the Steele Dossier was used to launder fakeint manufactured by CIA and MI6 into the FBI and use it to justify surveillance of the Trump campaign. We know that one of the lines of inquiry Sens. Grassley and Graham have pursued is whether Steele lied to the FBI about the origins of his oppo research and its distribution to (likely Fusion GPS paid off) members of the press. Among the likely reasons why the Obama politicized FBI let Steele get away with lying to its agents are, 1) Comey, McCabe and others put agents sympathetic to Steele like Peter Strzok in charge of handling the Steele contacts 2) CIA thanks to its 5Eyes intel sharing partnership with the British overrode or overawed any voices at the FBI who may have objected to the use of Steele's material without adequate vetting including its inclusion in briefs to the secret FISA court. -- JWS

"How did Simpson know with such confidence what the “Intelligence Community” was “saying”, and who were Simpson’s and Steele’s sources in the “Intelligence Community”? Rooney failed to inquire. Instead, he and Simpson exchanged question and answer regarding the approach Simpson and Steele made to the FBI when they delivered their dossier. In the details of that, Simpson repeated what he had already told the Senate Judiciary Committee. Rooney then asked what contact had been made with the CIA or “any other intelligence officials”. Simpson claimed he didn’t understand the question at first, then he stumbled. Source: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180118/106796/HMTG-115-IG00-20180118-SD002.pdf -- page 61. What Simpson was concealing in the two pauses, reported in the transcript as hyphens, Rooney did not realize. Simpson was implying that noone from Fusion GPS, his consulting company, had been in contact with the CIA, nor him personally. But Simpson left open that Steele had been in contact with the CIA. Rooney followed with a question about “anyone”, but that was so imprecise, Simpson recovered his confidence to say “No”. That was a cover-up – and the House Intelligence Committee let it drop noiselessly. Intelligence community sources and colleagues who know Simpson and Steele say Simpson was notorious at the Wall Street Journal for coming up with conspiracy theories for which the evidence was missing or unreliable. He told the Committee that disbelief on the part of his editors and management had been one of his reasons for leaving the newspaper. “One of the reasons why I left the Wall Street Journal was because I wanted to write more stories about Russian influence in Washington, D.C., on both the Democrats and the Republicans… eventually the Journal lost interest in that subject. And I was frustrated…that was where I left my journalism career.” Left: Glenn Simpson reporter for the Wall Street Journal in 1996, promoting his book, Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics. Right: Simpson in Washington in August 2017. When Simpson was asked “do you – did you find anything to — that you verified as false in the dossier, since or during?” Simpson replied: “I have not seen anything – “. Note the hypthen, the stenographer’s signal that Simpson was pausing. “[Question]. So everything in that dossier, as far as you’re concerned, is true or could be true?” “MR. SIMPSON: I didn’t say that. What I said was it was credible at the time it came in. We were able to corroborate various things that supported its credibility.” Sources in London are divided on the question of where Steele’s sources came from – CIA, MI6, or elsewhere. What has been clear for the year in which the dossier’s contents have been in public circulation is that the sources the dossier referred to as “Russian” were not. For details of the sourcing. The subsequent identification of the Maltese source Joseph Mifsud, and the Greek-American George Papadopoulos, corroborates their lack of direct Russian sources. Instead, the sources identified in the dossier were either Americans, Americans of Russian ethnic origin, or Russians with no direct knowledge repeating hearsay three or four times removed from source. So were the allegations of the dossier manufactured by a CIA disinformation unit, and fed back to the US through the British agent, Steele? Or were they a Simpson conspiracy theory of the type that failed to pass veracity testing when Simpson was at the Wall Street Journal? The House Intelligence Committee failed to inquire."  -- http://johnhelmer.net/the-cia-bull-in-glenn-simpsons-russia-shop/

Jan. 28, 2018 (EIRNS)—Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) sent a letter Jan. 25 to four former high-ranking officials in the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, and at least one current DNC leader. The letter asks 12 sharply framed questions centering on the individuals’ knowledge of or collaboration with Christopher Steele, and on their and others’ communication or distribution of Steele’s dossier. The four are John Podesta, former chair of the Hillary Clinton campaign; Joel Benenson, who worked with the Obama 2008 and 2012 campaigns, and was chief strategist for the Clinton campaign in 2016; former DNC Chairwomen Donna Brazile and Debbie Wasserman Schultz; and current DNC Chairman Tom Perez. A deadline of Feb. 8 was set for the individuals to respond.

Grassley and Graham state in their letter, that they are seeking to find out

"the extent to which the FBI may have relied on information relayed by Mr. Steele in seeking judicial authorization [from the FISA court] for surveillance of individuals associated with Mr. Trump."

Grassley and Graham’s questions include:

"Prior to the Washington Post’s article in October of 2017, were you or anyone else at Hillary for America aware of Mr. Steele’s efforts on behalf of the Clinton campaign to compile and distribute allegations about Mr. Trump and the Russian government?... Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America receive copies of any memoranda comprising Mr. Steele’s dossier prior to its publication by BuzzFeed in January of 2017? Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America receive other memoranda written or forwarded by Mr. Steele regarding Mr. Trump and his associates that were not published as part of the BuzzFeed dossier? Did you or anyone else at Hillary for America distribute outside of the organization any of the dossier memoranda, information contained therein, or other information obtained by Mr. Steele? Were you or anyone else at Hillary for America aware of Mr. Steele’s contacts with the FBI or other government agencies prior to the 2016 election?..."

The letter demands specifics.

The final question demands all communications to or from any in a group of 40 named individuals, including John Brennan, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Bruce Ohr, Fusion GPS, and James Baker, and includes former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who had used Steele’s memos in the coup against the Ukraine government in 2014 which brought pro-Nazi Bandera elements to power.

On Jan. 6, Grassley referred Steele to the U.S. Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution.