RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
July 19 to July 25, 2020 In a RealClearInvestigations exclusive, Paul Sperry reports that former Brookings Institution analyst Igor "Iggy" Danchenko is the mysterious "Primary Subsource" for Christopher Steele's discredited Trump-Russia dossier. Despite an array of red flags about Danchenko - including a past rap sheet and his own skepticism about the information he provided Steele - the FBI used his information to continue its probe. The identification of the Russian-born Danchenko also opens a window into the pivotal role played by leaders at one of Washington's premier think tanks, the Brooking Institution, in disseminating the false and salacious dossier. Sperry also reports: - Danchenko was arrested, jailed and convicted on multiple public drunkenness and disorderly conduct charges in the Washington area.
- A 2013 drunkenness case against Danchenko was prosecuted by then-U.S Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who ended up signing one of the FBI's dossier-based wiretap warrants as deputy attorney general in 2017.
- Interview notes from a 2017 FBI interview with Danchenko report that he confessed he had no inside line to the Kremlin and was "clueless" when Steele hired him in March 2016 to investigate ties between Russia and Trump and his campaign manager.
- Desperate for leads, he told the FBI, he turned to a ragtag group of Russian and American journalists, drinking buddies, including one who'd been arrested on pornography charges)
- Before working for Steele, Danchenko was employed by the Brookings Institution, where he was a protégé of Fiona Hill, the scholar and diplomat who testified at Trump's impeachment hearings.
- Hill was friends with Steele, whom she met with in 2016.
- So was Brookings' president at the time, Strobe Talbott, a former Clinton administration official who passed along a copy of his anti-Trump dossier to Hill.
- Talbott's brother-in-law is Cody Shearer, another old Clinton hand who disseminated his own dossier in 2016, which echoed many of the same lurid and unsubstantiated claims against Trump.
- In August 2016, Talbott personally called Steele, based in London, to offer his own input on the dossier he was compiling from Danchenko's feeds.
- After Trump's surprise win, Talbott and Steele strategized about how they should "handle" the dossier going forward.
Sperry also reports some veteran FBI officials worry Moscow's foreign intelligence service may have planted disinformation with Danchenko and his network of sources in Russia. At least one of them, identified only as "Source 5" in the FBI memo, was described as having a Russian "kurator," or handler. Last week was a big one for exposing in a blinding glare of infamy the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Donald Trump. Aside from Paul Sperry's revelations above, there were newly declassifiedinternal documents showing the bureau used a so-called defensive briefing of the Trump campaign early on -- in August 2016 -- to spy on and collect information about the future president. Then there were the FBI's notes of early 2017 interviews with the "Primary Subsource." Eric Felten unpacks revelations in the latter documents for RealClearInvestigations: - The Primary Subsource was in reality Steele's sole source, a long-time Russian-speaking contractor for the former British spy's company, Orbis Business Intelligence.
- In turn, the Primary Subsource had a group of friends in Russia, "sources" who peddled warmed-over rumors and laughable gossip that Steele dressed up as formal intelligence memos.
- The dossier's infamous "pee tape" rumor about Trump and prostitutes at a Moscow hotel was fantastically conjured from this thin gruel: The Primary Subsource's "Source 2" checked the rumor with someone who supposedly then asked a hotel manager, who said that with celebrities, "one never knows what they're doing." We kid you not: That was enough to get the rumor into the dossier.
- This same Source 2, according to the FBI notes, "often tries to monetize his relationship" with the Primary Subsource.
- Then there was Source 3, a woman "helped out financially" by the Primary Subsource and who stayed with him when visiting the United States.
- She seems to have been the source of the debunked story of intrigue in Prague starring Trump fixer Michael Cohen. The Primary Subsource told the FBI that he was "not sure if Source 3 was brainstorming here" when she told him the tale.
- The Primary Subsource admitted to the FBI that he was "clueless" about Trump campaign adviser Paul Manafort. So was the Primary Subsource's old drinking buddy Source 4. So the Primary Subsource scrounged up a few old news clippings about Manafort and fed them back to Steele.
Trump-Russia/2020 Election News Files: FBI Used 'Defensive' '16 Briefing to Spy On Trump, Federalist
FBI Notes Highlight Media Role in Russia Hoax, Federalist
Trump Campaign Cash to His Business, Forbes
Delaware Beer Dealer: I Wore Wire to Probe Biden Bundling, Politico
Trump Sought to Get British Open for His Scotland Club, New York Times
Excerpt: How Putin Bested Obama, Biden, Clinton on Energy, Just the News Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Math Profs Shun Predictive Policing as Racist
Popular Mechanics
The left keeps banging on about its allegiance to science, unlike science "deniers." Yet several prominent academic mathematicians are urging fellow researchers to stop all work related to predictive policing software, citing "systemic racism" and "police brutality." The offending tech broadly includes any data analytics tools that use historical data to help forecast future crime, potential offenders, and victims. It is supposed to use probability to help police departments tailor their neighborhood coverage so it puts officers in the right place at the right time. The academics letter arrived has inspired over 1,500 other researchers to join the boycott. This Company Is Selling Bizarre, Costly Spy Gear to Police
Vice
A common complaint is that the police are turning into Rambo but what about James Bond? This article examines the 2020 catalog produced by an outfit called Advanced Covert Technology which is filled with expensive, Hollywood-style gadgets aimed at law enforcement agencies. For $2,250, ACT offered a fake Monster energy drink can—"fully functional as an energy drink"— equipped with a hidden high-gain microphone. The company also sells a bugged $1 bill with 16 gigabytes of audio storage for $1,875, and a chewing tobacco container—also fully functional—equipped with both a microphone and a high-quality camera, for $1,650. Other items include fake vape pens, sports caps, gift cards, and car keys equipped with cameras or microphones, as well as band T-shirts from artists ranging from Johnny Cash to Jane's Addiction designed to hold spy cameras. It is unclear whether any police departments or private companies have purchased the specific items in the catalog, but ACT has previously sold more than $60,000 of audio and video equipment to federal agencies, including the Department of Justice and U.S. Army, according to spending records. The company has also provided equipment to local police in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and other states, according to readily available purchase reports and check registers. BLM, Yes. Hong Kong, No: How NBA Stifles Custom Fan Jerseys
Washington Free Beacon
The NBA's official online store doesn't appear to have many filters regarding how fans can customize player jerseys. Not only can they add "Black Lives Matter" to their LeBron James Lakers jersey but, this article reports, they can also include such phrases as "Beware of Jews," "Pence is Gay" and "End Taiwan." Slam dunk! But there is at least one phrase fans cannot have printed. Typing "Free Hong Kong" into the text box on the NBA store's custom jersey page returns the following message: "We are unable to customize this item with the text you have entered. Please try a different entry." Coronavirus Investigations The Stranded Surrogate Babies of the Pandemic
New Yorker
COVID-19 may have shut down much of the world in March but it didn't stop the hundreds of babies gestating in the wombs of surrogate mothers. This fascinating article reports that "as the virus spread, and travel froze, parents around the world suddenly found themselves separated, by thousands of miles, from newborns who were, in fact, their biological children." It notes that better technology, the rise of gay rights and the fact many women are putting off childbearing is making commercial surrogacy more popular. But it's also illegal in most of the world, including in almost all of mainland Europe. As a result, every year, thousands of would-be parents travel abroad, to the handful of countries where surrogacy is legal. One of the biggest destinations is the United States. But the price tag is out of reach for many people, and, in the past decade, Ukraine has emerged as a cheaper alternative. COVID-19 has thrown that option into chaos. The country's problems made headlines when its largest reproductive agency, BioTexCom, released a video showing 45 screaming newborns lined up in trolleys under the chandeliers of a hotel ballroom. The company had transformed the hotel, which it owns, into a giant nursery for babies who were awaiting their parents. Rookie Middlemen Cash In Brokering Covid Supplies to Feds
USA Today
Middlemen seeking to profit from the coronavirus pandemic have sprung up overnight to score billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 contracts, their stake as small as a mailbox rental or virtual office subscription. With traditional manufacturers still backlogged - and another surge of cases well underway - federal agencies cited critical need as they reason they must turn to unproven middlemen for lifesaving supplies. One in 10 federal COVID-19 vendors is a government contracting newcomer. Brokers who spoke with USA Today also said that they're just trying to help fill gaps in the supply chain. But the companies that manufacture these products point to the potential for counterfeits, which swells greatly with unauthorized third-party resellers. This Hospital Cost $52 Million. It Treated 79 Virus Patients.
New York Times
Even as scores of patients lay on stretchers in New York City last April, a temporary hospital built at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center to relieve the city's overwhelmed hospitals had hundreds of unused beds and scores of idle medical professionals trained to treat virus patients. In the entire month that the site remained open, the field hospital cost more than $52 million and served only 79 patients. This article reports that "the story of this facility illustrates the missteps made at every level of government in the race to create more hospital capacity in New York." Covid Vitamin C Craze Spurs FBI Narc-Style Response
USA Today
Orange man bad, indeed -- except not that Orange Man. In the absence of readily available treatments for COVID-19, "clinics" are sprouting up promising a familiar treatment: Vitamin C. We're not talking about the everyday tablet, whose sales soared 76 percent during the first half of the year. At issue are high-dose vitamin C intravenous infusions that authorities say were "fraudulently represented as COVID-19 treatments and preventative measures." Since April, the Federal Trade Commission has issued at least 37 warning letters to health clinics and wellness centers across the nation, accusing them of overhyping high-dose IV infusions of vitamin C. This article opens with a raid on a Detroit-area medical building by FBI investigators "wearing face masks and protective Tyvek suits with yellow boots … to gather evidence about … a suspected scheme involving an essential nutrient found in orange juice, broccoli and strawberries: Vitamin C." |
