FBI chief declassifies more info on Russia collusion hoax (04-21-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content, like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:29] Yes, the Pope, Pope Francis, passed away. We'll talk at 1 o'clock with Bill Cruz from redstate.com about that topic at 1 o'clock. But there was newly, let me say it this way, the FBI chief, Kash Patel, has now declassified more information on the Russia collusion hoax.

[00:00:57] And there is a massive write-up by Jerry Dunleavy at justthenews.com. I read it, so you don't have to. And according to, well, I don't know, I guess it's the Brave browser. When you turn it on to reader mode, it tells you how long it's going to take you to read the article.

[00:01:18] And it says 42 to 53 minutes. And that's about right. That is about how long it took me to read it. So I read it, so you don't have to. I've got some of the highlights here. Here's how Dunleavy begins the piece. Newly declassified FBI documents shine new light on the FBI's mishandling of its relationship with anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steele on the FBI's double standards on defensive briefings.

[00:01:47] Right. When they would go and let people know, hey, we got some information that maybe you're getting targeted by a foreign government. Right. In the way that they did that for Hillary Clinton, Eric Swalwell versus the way the FBI did it for Donald Trump. Also. Topic of these declassified documents. Key elements of the debunked collusion saga.

[00:02:14] Just the News reports that the declassified documents show that Stefan Halper. Remember that guy? H-A-L-P-E-R. Stefan Halper. A key FBI informant in the widely debunked Russia collusion case was paid nearly $1.2 million over the course of 30 years. And was motivated in part by monetary compensation.

[00:02:39] Also, that he continued snitching for the Bureau even after agents had concluded that he told them an inaccurate story about Mike Flynn. The future Trump National Security Advisor, Mike Flynn. So they knew he lied to them. Told them an inaccurate story. But they still kept using him and paying him.

[00:03:04] Just the News also reveals that the newly released documents showed that then NSA director Mike Rogers shot down a Pulitzer Prize award winning Washington Post article about the baseless Russian collusion investigation. By the way, has the Washington Post ever? No, they haven't. They have not returned that Pulitzer, which they should. Because the story was not true.

[00:03:35] But they'll keep the award. A new review of hundreds of pages of declassified documents provides new information about the politicized Russiagate scandal. Although significant redactions do still remain in these documents. Now, Pete, why are you going over this? We all know this. Well, not everybody knows it. There are a lot of people. Like, I think a majority still of Democrats believe this stuff is still true. Number one.

[00:04:06] And number two. This is why you have to look at... Think of it in these terms. October 7th. The attack on Israel. And what do you hear from the Hamas holes? It didn't start on October 7th. There was a whole history before then. Right. Okay. By that same logic.

[00:04:29] This is why you see people who support Trump completely immune and dismissive of virtually everything that legacy media outlets and Democrats, but I repeat myself, say about Trump. They don't believe you because of this, among other stories. But this is a primary driver of the animus and the disbelief in you.

[00:04:58] Much like the J6 riot. Right? The left says that's only because Donald Trump told them it was rigged. Right. But remember, the two years leading up to J6, right? We saw the Black Lives Matter riots all over the country. And we saw the left not do... And Obama, right? They did not do anything to stop the destruction of the cities.

[00:05:26] The lawlessness, rampant lawlessness that was permitted. Right? Those things lead up to the atmosphere of the event that you want to focus on. So while you're focused right now on why are these Trump people, why are they all so still, you know, pro-Trump? He could do anything and all this.

[00:05:47] Like, this is a major driver because of the way the government was weaponized against Trump and his campaign and really everybody in his orbit. So the FBI Director, Kash Patel, transmitted to Congress hundreds of pages of declassified documents from the Crossfire Hurricane investigation that was related to false claims about Trump-Russia collusion. Following a declassification executive order from Trump last month.

[00:06:17] Justthenews.com made all 700 pages from the declassified binder available on their website. An investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller did not establish any criminal Trump-Russia collusion. The DOJ Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, found huge flaws with the FBI's investigation.

[00:06:42] He criticized the central and essential role of the Steele dossier in the FBI's politicized surveillance of former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Carter Page went to Russia. And that was enough for the FBI investigators. That was enough for Democrats and the media. But I repeat myself, like, that was enough.

[00:07:08] But what we found out later was that while the FBI used that as the premise to surveil Page and others he was talking to in the Trump campaign, when the FBI asked the CIA, which is protocol, they're supposed to go and ask other intel agencies and such, they're supposed to say, hey, is this guy working with you? And the CIA said, yes, he is. He's one of our guys.

[00:07:38] He's not an agent, but he comes back and he tells us stuff that he learns while he's over there. And the FBI lawyer omitted that from the FISA court application, which allowed for the wiretapping to occur.

[00:07:55] Special counsel John Durham's report concluded that neither U.S. law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the crossfire hurricane investigation. There was no predicate, basically. They didn't have a reason to launch it. So first, there's Mike Rogers, Admiral Mike Rogers, who read he retired in 2018.

[00:08:24] He was the National Security Agency chief and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command for four years. And in early January 2017, so just as Trump is taking office. Four principals meet.

[00:08:43] And this would be Rogers, Jim Comey, chief of the FBI, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, and the CIA director, the communist John Brennan. Right. So they meet. And Rogers tells the group that he is unclear why the ICA, which is the intelligence community assessment, the ICA. He's like, why? I'm not clear. Why does the ICA need to focus on the dossier?

[00:09:12] Because it's basically uncorroborated. And Comey responds that the information was relevant. Rogers said the information could be included maybe like in an appendix or something. Stick it at the end rather than prominently featuring this thing in the nearly one page summary that he had read.

[00:09:30] So that's when Comey, Clapper and Brennan brief Trump about their election meddling findings by the Russians that they had bought some Facebook ads. Right. They go to Trump Tower. They have this this meeting to warn him about this.

[00:09:49] And then that's when Jim Comey stays behind and tells Trump about the dossier's salacious allegations about the peeing on the beds and such at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow, which were complete nonsense. Then Comey. Comey. My belief is Comey then leaks that that the that the the briefing occurred and that gave BuzzFeed the opportunity to publish the Steele dossier because that was their window in.

[00:10:19] Because you couldn't you couldn't leak it out and report that this was true, but you could report that I told the president that these rumors are out there and that's how they got it into the into the public domain. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina? Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection.

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[00:11:34] And they have pet-friendly accommodations. Call or text 828-367-7068. Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. All right, so among the declassified documents from the... Oh, hang on a second. Let me read some tweets. These are Pete tweets. This is from Stovetop Hits. That's the handle. That's the person's name.

[00:12:03] At least all of the corrupt agents, judges, lawyers, and Hillary Clinton have been arrested, tried, and sentenced accordingly, right? No, that hasn't happened. Well, that one guy, the one lawyer who changed the FISA application to lie about Carter Page's involvement with the CIA, he did get some. Though, actually, no. He had his law license suspended, and then he got it back a couple months later.

[00:12:31] So, it really was about the friends we met along the way, you know? Eric says, The purpose of the Steele dossier briefing from Comey to Trump was to give it legitimacy and make salacious slop cooked up by the Clintons newsworthy. Yeah. That was it. That was the entire intention of that defensive briefing, or whatever they call them. I think that's what they call them.

[00:13:01] Like, hey, be on the lookout. There's a spy from China named Fang Fang, and she... Oh, no, wait. That was Swalwell. Mike Rogers was surprised when Jim Comey told a congressional committee in open session on March 20th, 2017, that the FBI was investigating potential links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian interference.

[00:13:27] Comey did not tell him in advance about the ongoing set of investigations. So, they kept Rogers out of the loop. A host of top Obama officials received information in response to the unmasking requests targeting retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn in the final weeks of the Obama administration, according to a memo that was declassified some years ago.

[00:13:53] Republicans have alleged since 2017 that Obama-era officials improperly unmasked associates of then-candidate Trump's presidential campaign during the Russia collusion investigation. Now, look, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Republicans have alleged this. Because Obama-era officials did it. Like, that's why they're alleging it. It's because it's obvious that there was like this flurry of unmasking requests,

[00:14:21] which means when the NSA, the intelligence agencies, are scooping up everybody's phone calls and emails and everything else, I mean, just, you know, targeting the foreign bad actors, only, right, that sometimes those foreign people are talking with American citizens. And so we have special protections, constitutional protections.

[00:14:50] The government's not allowed to do that kind of an illegal search on you. And so you're in a conversation with somebody from overseas. They're listening in on that person. And then now you get caught up in that. So they mask your identity. But you can ask to have the identities unmasked.

[00:15:15] And then, you know, if you're in the Trump campaign, then the Obama administration will say, yeah, totally here. Here's here's who it actually is. And so that's how they got Mike Flynn. That's how they got his his connection. The records. The records. This is now on the State Department awareness of the FBI's relationship with a person identified as Crown,

[00:15:43] which is Christopher Steele, former MI6 officer who worked with Clinton allies at the State Department. And the records draw out the links between Steele and Hillary Clinton and how he passed to the FBI investigators the unfounded Russia allegations during an election year. He met with Kathy Kavalik, deputy assistant secretary, Bureau of European Affairs,

[00:16:09] 10 days prior to the very first FISA warrant application that targeted Carter Page, after which she forwarded her notes to the FBI during the meeting that she had with Steele. Steele admitted that he was encouraged by his client to get his research out before the 2016 election. Kavalik's notes also show she found flaws with Steele's allegations and, like others, cast doubt on his credibility.

[00:16:39] So people were saying, I'm not so sure about this guy. They were saying it from the very beginning and he gave her the motive, which was got to get this out before the election. Got to undermine Trump. Got to got to make sure Hillary wins. Talk about collusion. Oh, by the way, apparently the Steele information may have been funneled to him from Russia. Yeah. Talk about Russia collusion. All right.

[00:17:06] If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do, too. And you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place. So you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check.ground.news slash Pete.

[00:17:34] I put the link in the podcast description, too. I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check.ground.news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15% off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

[00:18:03] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Key elements of the Christopher Steele interview with the FBI in 2017 still remain hidden behind redactions.

[00:18:25] But newly declassified notes from the interview now include alleged Maine Steele dossier source. Guy's name was Igor, not kidding, Danchenko. Igor Danchenko. His name is now no longer redacted. The notes also lifted the redaction on Steele.

[00:18:49] Saying that Danchenko had worked with Fiona Hill at the Brookings Institution. And the notes now show Steele told the FBI that Igor Danchenko was a U.S. resident. Steele outlined Danchenko's motivations to the FBI that he's a U.S. resident. His daughter was born in the United States and Steele was also motivated himself by finances.

[00:19:18] The FBI notes now reveal Steele said that Danchenko, quote, had someone over at the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C., asked Danchenko about where they could buy furniture or something like that. And Steele said it was strange but not alarming. Okay. I don't know why Danchenko would say that unless furniture is some sort of a code word for something else.

[00:19:44] While the dossier was being compiled, Steele said that Danchenko traveled to Russia three times in 2016. The FBI had previously redacted that Steele told the FBI that Danchenko's trip to Moscow in 2016, quote, was paid for by an organization funded by the Russian government. That was his third trip to Moscow that was funded by some group funded by the Russian government.

[00:20:12] That's now been, that redaction has been lifted. So now we know that. So what does that tell us? Steele is relying on Danchenko for information that he puts into this dossier. And Danchenko is going back and forth to Russia three times that year in the election year. And the last time he goes, he has his trip paid for by some Russian government funded outfit.

[00:20:43] Steele admitted to the FBI that he leaked the Russia collusion story during the height of the 2016 election to help Hillary Clinton overcome her lingering email scandal. He also said he believed Donald Trump's election would be bad for U.S. relations with his home country of Britain. What else do we learn? Oh, I mentioned Fiona Hill. The FBI documents also showed that Steele, the Steele dossier's alleged main source, Danchenko,

[00:21:13] was introduced to Steele by Fiona Hill. Hill had worked at the Brookings Institution, liberal think tank, with Danchenko. She then went on to serve on the Trump National Security Council and was a witness in his first impeachment.

[00:21:35] The FBI report revealed that Steele said Fiona Hill knows that the primary sub source was involved in the dossier. She knew Danchenko was involved in the Steele dossier. But that contradicts Fiona Hill's sworn testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in October 2019 when she said, I have no knowledge whatsoever of how he developed that dossier. None. That was a lie or perjury, you could call it.

[00:22:05] She also told House lawmakers a month later, November 2019, that it was Brookings Institution president, Strobe Talbot, who showed her the dossier. She was critical of Steele's dossier when she spoke to Congress, who is Strobe Talbot. You usually find him dangling from the center of the ceiling at 1970s era discotheques. But Talbot, Strobe Talbot, is an Ohio Democrat.

[00:22:35] He was also a Moscow correspondent for Time magazine and then U.S. Deputy Secretary of State under Bill Clinton between 1994 to 2001. Guys, there's a reason why this looks as bad as it does. It's because it is as bad as it looks.

[00:22:57] The inspector general report on the Russia investigation criticized the DOJ and the FBI for at least 17 significant errors and omissions related to the FISA warrants against Carter Page and for the FBI's reliance on the Democratic-funded dossier compiled by Steele.

[00:23:20] Steele was hired by Fusion GPS in June of 2016, and the opposition research firm had been hired by the Perkins Coie law firm. Perkins Coie law firm also working for Hillary Clinton's campaign. My goodness, there are so many connections. We may never be able to trace the... Oh, no, actually, yeah, we did. They did. It's all traced. The FBI has all of the documentation in these hundreds of pages. They had all these charts and stuff about where things went.

[00:23:49] They built like this matrix of who told who what and when. FBI notes of a January 2017 interview with Igor Denchenko showed that he told the Bureau he did not know the origins of some Steele dossier claims, and he did not recall other dossier information. Denchenko also noted much of what he gave to Steele was word of mouth and hearsay,

[00:24:14] some of which stemmed from a conversation he had had with friends over beers, and that the most salacious allegations may have been made in jest. Newly declassified records from the FBI also showed the Bureau's Validation Management Unit, or the VMU,

[00:24:37] assessed in 2017 that Steele had received $127,000 plus in payments from the FBI, and that the FBI had offered him an incentive of up to $1 million if he could prove the allegations in his discredited anti-Trump dossier. That was in October of 2016.

[00:24:59] They offered him payment to confirm the dossier's contents right before the election. But, shockingly, he was not able to back up his claims because they weren't true. Then there was the Durham report. In 2023, it concluded that the investigation was also launched without conducting any interviews of witnesses,

[00:25:27] essential to understand the raw information that the FBI had received. They did not interview witnesses. Also, they did not use any of the standard analytical tools typically employed by the FBI when evaluating raw intelligence. The report asserted that if the Bureau had taken these basic steps, the FBI would have learned that their own experienced Russia analysts

[00:25:55] had no information about Trump being involved with Russian leadership officials, nor were others in sensitive positions at the CIA, the NSA, the Department of State. None of them were aware of such evidence concerning the subject. It was just Christopher Steele. But that was enough for them. That was enough for Crossfire Hurricane and the FBI. All right, so spring is here. A time of renewal and celebrations.

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[00:27:17] Get all the details at createavideo.com. Justthenews.com, piece by Jerry Dunleavy, going over what has been now newly declassified by Kash Patel on the orders of Donald Trump regarding the Russia collusion hoax of 2016.

[00:27:38] Declassified footnotes from the Inspector General report showed that a 2015 report concerning oligarchs written by the FBI's Transnational Organized Crime Intelligence Unit, or the TOCIU, or the TACU, as I call it, noted that from January 2015 through May of 2015, 10 Eurasian oligarchs sought meetings with the FBI,

[00:28:08] and five of these had their intermediaries contact Christopher Steele. So the TOCIU report noted that Steele's contact with five Russian oligarchs in a short period of time was unusual. Also declassified footnotes from the Horowitz report, the Inspector General report,

[00:28:33] said some of the Steele dossier claims about now-former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen were, quote, part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations. The footnote also added that a U.S. intelligence community report concluded that the Steele dossier's baseless and salacious claims about Trump and the peeing on the bed at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel were the result of a Russian intelligence infiltration.

[00:29:01] They had infiltrated a source into the network managed by Steele. So the Russian government put that into Steele's orbit. Steele and his company, Orbis Business Intelligence, worked for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Oleg Deripaska.

[00:29:26] Allegedly helping recover millions of dollars, the Russian oligarch claimed Paul Manafort had stolen from him. Hmm. Another interesting connection. Steele sought help in this anti-Trump research effort from Fusion GPS, the founders of the company wrote, and Fusion GPS hired Steele soon thereafter. So that's how they hooked up. Steele was trying to do the research, And so he asked Fusion for help,

[00:29:56] and then Fusion hires him. The Senate Intelligence Committee's 2020 report assessed that, The Russian government coordinates with and directs Oleg Deripaska on many of his influence operations. The report found multiple links between Steele and Deripaska, and indications that Deripaska had early knowledge of Steele's work,

[00:30:19] and said Steele's relationship with Deripaska provided a potential direct channel for Russian influence on the dossier. Steele himself admitted in an ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos, Quote, I think there's a chance that Russia fed him disinformation, but he tried to downplay the possibility during that interview. What else?

[00:30:44] Oh, there's a whole big section in the piece here about how the Steele dossier circulated inside the FBI, right? Just the News has the internal FBI emails discussing the Steele dossier, they were sent among FBI agents like Peter Strzok, FBI leader Jonathan Maffa, and 13 FBI officials whose names are redacted.

[00:31:09] The newly declassified version lifts redactions on many of these FBI officials who are sending and receiving updates to the dossier. Here's a name, Bruce Orr. Remember that guy? Former DOJ official? The email includes a tracking matrix on the receipt of Steele dossier reports. Also included, Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson. Also,

[00:31:39] Mark Elias, a former Perkins Coie lawyer who served as general counsel for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and who played a key role in the funding and the spreading of Steele's discredited dossier. He hired the opposition firm Fusion GPS, which in turn hired Steele. The FBI documents also include a spreadsheet laying out how the dossier reports had been injected into the FBI,

[00:32:10] including left-wing journalist David Korn from Mother Jones, Glenn Simpson, former Republican Senator John McCain. Yeah. Also, a FGI, which is a foreign government information, indicating that there are some yet unrevealed foreign government that was involved. Yeah, there's a reason why Trump supporters

[00:32:39] believe what they believe. And this is it. This is why. When you see this kind of stuff, because most of this information, Trump people, like, know this. I've known this stuff. It's good to get more redactions and to have this stuff buttoned down or nailed down. But we knew where all of these signs were, were pointing years ago. And we were told that we were making stuff up. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:33:08] I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalendershow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.