Anonymous ID: bfd118 May 16, 2022, 8:18 a.m. No.16285002   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>5025 >>5203 >>5428 >>5525

 

British judge orders Christopher Steele to pay damages to Russian bankers named in dossier

by Jerry Dunleavy, Justice Department Reporter | | July 08, 2020 02:16 PM

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/british-judge-orders-christopher-steele-to-pay-damages-to-russian-bankers-named-in-dossier

 

A court in the United Kingdom ordered British ex-spy Christopher Steele to pay thousands in damages to two Russian bankers named in the former MI6 agentā€™s dossier as having ā€œillicitā€ financial ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

Justice Warby of the Queenā€™s Bench Division of the British High Court of Justice presided over a weeklong March hearing in the defamation lawsuit brought by the owners of Russiaā€™s Alfa Bank, Petr Aven, Mikhail Fridman, and German Khan, against Orbis Business Intelligence, Steeleā€™s private intelligence firm through which he conducted research in 2016 for Fusion GPS through the Perkins Coie law firm on behalf of Hillary Clintonā€™s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

 

Steele made a series of allegations related to the Russians and their connection to Putin in "Memorandum 112" of his dossier which was used in the FBI's Russia investigation, and Sir Mark David John Warby ruled Wednesday that one of the assertions, that former Alfa executive and current Russian government official Oleg Govorun was used by Aven and Fridman to deliver ā€œlarge amounts of illicit cashā€ to Putin when he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, was demonstrably false and worthy of fines of more than $22,000 that will be paid to Aven and Fridman.

 

ā€œI have found that the 'illicit cash' allegation was inaccurate,ā€ Justice Warby ruled, saying its disclosure to Fusion GPS and to government officials violated the U.K.ā€™s Fourth Data Protection Principle, which states that personal data processed for law enforcement purposes must be accurate. ā€œThe personal data about the delivery of ā€˜illicit cashā€™ to Mr. Putin did amount to sensitive personal data about alleged criminality ā€¦ My conclusion is that I should award each of the first and second claimants compensation in the sum of Ā£18,000.ā€

 

The judge ruled that Steeleā€™s claims about Govorun were demonstrably ā€œuntrueā€ because ā€œthere is documentary evidence that Mr. Putin ceased to be Deputy Mayor in June 1996, and that Mr. Govorun was first employed by Alfa Bank on 3 March 1997.ā€ The judge said Steele ā€œadmitted in cross-examination that Govorun was not working for Alfa before 1997, and that his source had erred in that respect,ā€ and yet ā€œhe refused to accept that this meant that Memorandum 112 was inaccurate.ā€ The judge said Steele ā€œcavilledā€ by ā€œsuggesting that it might be the case that Govorun was used to deliver illicit cash to Mr. Putin in the late 1990s, after his stint as Deputy Mayor.ā€ The judge said: ā€œThere is no evidence to support that. Even if there were, the Memorandum would remain inaccurate and misleading.ā€

Anonymous ID: bfd118 May 16, 2022, 8:23 a.m. No.16285025   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>5203 >>5428 >>5525

>>16285002

The British judge reached other conclusions in his 57-page ruling.

 

ā€œMr. Steeleā€™s evidence is that he now believes the Ultimate Client was the Democratic National Committee,ā€ Justice Warby said. ā€œ[Steeleā€™s lawyer] Mr. Millar submits that the Ultimate Client was the Clinton election campaign, ā€˜Hillary for America.ā€™ This is in line with the FBI Note of 5 July 2016, which records Mr. Steele telling the FBI that Orbis had been instructed by Mr. Simpson of Fusion and ā€˜Democratic Party Associatesā€™ but that ā€˜the ultimate client were (sic) the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign.ā€™ The FBI Note also indicates that Mr. Steele had been told by that stage that Mrs. Clinton herself was aware of what Orbis had been commissioned to do.ā€

 

The judge added that Steele knew his dossier might be used to "challenge the eventual outcome of the Presidential Election.ā€

 

Steele testified in March that he met with Michael Sussman and Marc Elias, two top lawyers for the Perkins Coie law firm which represented the Clinton campaign and the DNC, in 2016.

 

He testified Sussman provided him with the claims about Alfa Bankā€™s purported ties to Putin during a late July meeting. These allegations made their way into a mid-September 2016 memo that became part of Steeleā€™s dossier, although Steele repeatedly misspells ā€œAlfaā€ as ā€œAlpha.ā€ Shortly after writing that memo, Steele met with Elias, who was the general counsel for Clintonā€™s campaign and personally hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS in April 2016. Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson hired Steele in June 2016.

 

ā€œIā€™m very clear that the first person that ever mentioned the Trump server issue, Alfa server issue, was Mr. Sussman," Steele told Alfa Bank's lawyers in March. Steele also said, ā€œI was given the instruction sometime after that meeting by Mr. Simpson."

 

Horowitz said the FBI dismissed the Alfa Bank Trump-Russia cyber collusion claims. Recently declassified footnotes also show the bureau was aware Steeleā€™s source network might have been compromised by Russian disinformation.

 

Former FBI General Counsel James Baker testified in 2018 that Sussman, a former DOJ colleague of his, separately shared the Alfa Bank claims with him during a September 2016 meeting. And notes from Ohrā€™s December 2016 meeting with Simpson show Simpson said the New York Times was wrong to doubt the Alfa Bank server story.

 

Elias told House Intelligence Committee investigators that he was aware of Fusion GPS's plans to have Steele brief reporters about his anti-Trump research in 2016. Elias said he was "aware that he talked to media outlets in that time period" and knew about the meetings before they happened.

 

Robby Mook, Clintonā€™s presidential campaign manager, said in 2017 he authorized Elias to hire an outside firm to dig up dirt on Trump and Russia. Mook said Elias was receiving information from Fusion GPS in 2016, and Elias periodically briefed the Clinton campaign.

 

The FBI told Steele in October 2016 it was looking into a variety of Trump associates, and Steele passed along at least some of this to Fusion GPS.

 

Perkins Coie was paid more than $12 million between 2016 and 2017 for representing Clinton and the DNC. According to Simpson, Fusion GPS was paid $50,000 per month from Perkins Coie, and Fusion GPS paid Steele roughly $168,000.

 

Source Doc from UK Court

Ruling in Aven, Fridman, & Khan vs. Orbis Business Intelligence

https://www.scribd.com/document/468449255/Ruling-in-Aven-Fridman-Khan-vs-Orbis-Business-Intelligence

 

https://casetext.com/case/fridman-v-orbis-bus-intelligence-ltd

Anonymous ID: bfd118 May 16, 2022, 9:21 a.m. No.16285355   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>5366

Alana Goodman

@alanagoodman

What I found when I went to visit the "small non-profit" activist group that's been attacking

@elonmusk

 

Turns out it doesn't actually exist.

 

https://twitter.com/alanagoodman/status/1526203999929700352

 

LATEST NEWS

The Shape-Shifting DC Dark Money Group Disguising Liberal Campaigns Across the Country

 

In May, a group called Accountable Tech, which calls itself a "small nonprofit taking on Big Tech companies," organized a corporate boycott to protest Elon Musk's bid to buy Twitter. In the midwest, a group called Opportunity Wisconsin, which bills itself as a "coalition of Wisconsin residents," ran a deluge of TV ads slamming Republican senator Ron Johnson for his tax policies. And in Arizona, an organization of "grassroots racial justice" activists called Just Democracy released a video blasting Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema for failing to support the Biden administration's legislative agenda.

 

None of these groups actually exist. They are all registered trade names for the North Fund, a shape-shifting nonprofit group that uses aliases to push an array of left-wing causes from a shell office in Washington, D.C., according to corporate records.

 

Political watchdogs say the fund, which isn't required to disclose the donors behind its $66 million budget, is gearing up to be one of the most consequential dark-money players of the midterm elections. And while "astroturf" groups are nothing new in politics, critics say the North Fund is part of a new breedā€”moving away from specific policy advocacy and delving into electoral politics.

 

"North Fund has said screw it," said Hayden Ludwig, a senior investigator with the Capital Research Center. "They've just decided to be as partisan as they can."

 

"Their money has been pretty much exclusively focused on Senate races, on ballot initiatives, and a few things kind of related to that," Ludwig added. "The general theme there is cementing permanent Democratic majorities in Congress."

 

 

http://archive.today/h7UCx

 

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/the-shape-shifting-dc-dark-money-group-disguising-liberal-campaigns-across-country/