About that NYT Opinion piece by Fusion GPS

[MelissaB]

Link to tweet

THREAD. This is an important read by Fusion GPS about the genesis of the so-called Steele dossier and its role in the FBI investigation. A few subtle points that may be missed:

2. The authors note that the conservative Washington Free Beacon – a.k.a. "Free Pass" Beacon, since no one is interested in questioning their role very much – as well as Democrat sources, funded the research into Trump's business dealings.

3. In particular, the authors note that the investigation was a "year long" one, "of which the Steele dossier is but one chapter." In fact, the task given to Steele was a "basic one," which was to look deeper into particular Trump deals.

4. This is consistent with @DavidCornDC's reporting, which indicates that originally, the task given to Steele was a fairly "general inquiry."

A veteran spy has given the FBI information alleging a Russian operation to cultivate Donald Trump
Has the bureau investigated this material?
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/#

5. This tells me that this was essentially one ongoing "investigation" – dropped off by one party and picked up by another – of which the Steele assignment was what is in investigative terms is called a "lead."

6. When I was in the FBI I took over investigations that had been worked on for a while by other agents. I can tell you that when you pick up an investigation midstream, you *always* benefit and are informed by all the progress that has been made until that point.

7. So if you decide to follow a "lead" – meaning a line of inquiry that warrants further investigation – you're already looking at enough information that raises the question, "Huh. I wonder what more is behind that."

8. My point is that at the point where Dems picked up the research, there was *something* there that suggested they dig further. And that "something" had been uncovered by Free Pass Beacon over the preceding nine months.

9. It's interesting to me that no one has asked to see the "report" that Fusion GPS provided to Free Pass Beacon in exchange for their funding. What did it say?

10. Free Pass Beacon says that it was all open source info, nothing to see here. Well, OK, if they paid tens, or hundreds of thousands of $$$ for 9 mos of Google searches then there is nothing damning that they would be revealed if they showed the report, right?

Asha Rangappa Verified account
@AshaRangappa_

Fmr FBI Special Agent, Counterintelligence Division. Tiger(ish) mom. @CNN analyst. Editor @just_security. Karaoke, golf, and Shakespeare aficionado. Views mine.

[triron]

1. Rachel did an excellent discussion of this tonite.

[iluvtennis]

2. Thanks for this post. I follow Asha Rangappa on Twitter...love her insights as ex FBI agent.