McCain Associate Provided Steele Dossier to BuzzFeed, Other Reporters, Lawsuit Reveals

Fucken Paul Ryan…….I want his head on a platter…..

Paul Ryan’s chief of staff; Illinois Rep. Kinzinger; an Obama White House official; and a British intelligence officer received final memo via Steele

A federal judge ruled in favor of BuzzFeed on Dec. 19 after the news website was sued for defamation following its publication of the so-called Steele dossier on Jan. 10, 2017.

Contained within this ruling were a significant number of details related to the dossier and its dissemination, including some previously unknown information relating to activities on the part of David Kramer, a longtime associate of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), along with the disclosure of a number of individuals who received copies of Steele’s final report.

The Steele dossier is actually a collection of 17 reports that former MI6 agent Christopher Steele wrote between June 20, 2016, and Dec. 13, 2016. Steele’s final memo is also known as Report 166.

According to the Dec. 19 court ruling, Steele provided Report 166 to Kramer, an unidentified British security official, Senior Director for Russian Affairs at the National Security Council Celeste Wallander (spelled incorrectly as Wallender in the court document), Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), and House Speaker Paul Ryan’s chief of staff, Jonathan Burks.

The ruling states that “the record does not reveal what, if anything, these people did with the report.”

The disclosure that Steele provided copies of his final memo to Wallander, Kinzinger, and Burks appears to be new information.

Burks was appointed as the Wisconsin Republican’s chief of staff on Dec. 14, 2016, succeeding David Hoppe, who was leaving to “pursue other interests.” Steele’s Report 166 must have come into Burks’s possession almost immediately after he assumed his new post.

The Daily Caller received a response from AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s office, who said, “Burks has never met Christopher Steele nor received any document directly from him. However, he was aware of and had read the dossier prior to its publication.”

It’s unclear exactly how Burks was provided the document and to what degree, if any, he then disseminated it to others—possibly including his boss, Ryan.

Kinzinger, who stated in August 2016 that he couldn’t support Trump’s nomination, has been a frequent critic of the Trump administration.

The identity of the unidentified UK security official remains unknown, although former Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) chief Robert Hannigan and current MI6 head Alex Younger have been suggested as possibilities. In early fall of 2016, Steele and his business partner, Christopher Burrows, met with former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove at the Garrick Club in London. According to reporting by the Washington Post, Dearlove “advised Steele and Burrows to work discreetly with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI.”

According to reporting from Luke Harding of The Guardian, in the summer of 2016, GCHQ’s Hannigan traveled to Washington to meet with then-CIA Director John Brennan regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

More https://www.theepochtimes.com/lawsuit-reveals-mccain-associate-provided-steele-dossier-to-buzzfeed-other-reporters_2744696.html

You've got to be kidding me! CNN Zucker wins a First Amendment Award

So let me start by thanking the Radio TV Digital News Foundation for this wonderful honor. I’m here tonight representing nearly 4000 CNN journalists around the world who are the real recipients of this award. As we sit here tonight they’re in Venezuela, they’re in eastern Syria, they’re in Sudan, they’re in Ethiopia and they’re a mile down the block at the White House. And in every one of those places their mandate is the same: to hold those in power accountable and to tell the truth. I could not be prouder of the work that they do. So while I am thrilled to be here to accept this honor on their behalf, this recognition belongs to them. Let me also pay tribute to the other recipients here tonight. It is a very special group. We salute those whose lives have been lost and commend those who everyday honor their memories by continuing to fight for answers and the truth. To each of the recipients here tonight: congratulations. And I especially want to congratulate Shep, who I admire greatly.

We are here tonight to celebrate the First Amendment and oh how do we love that First Amendment. If we could we’d kiss it like Donald Trump kissed that flag. But did you ever stop and realize that if our founding fathers had their way, we’d be here tonight celebrating the third amendment? That’s right. This would be the Third Amendment Dinner if Madison had his way. Now what am I talking about? Go down the street sometime to the National Archives and look at the Constitution in all its glory and you’ll see that the men who understood how important it was to protect a free press actually had the First Amendment as the third amendment to the Constitution. Go look at the document. The first two amendments to the United States Constitution dealt with first, what the size of the Congress would be, and, second, how much Congress would be paid. I know, what a shock, they were worried first and foremost about their packed paychecks even back then.

More below…

http://www.firstamendmentawards.org/first-amendment-award/

Mom ensnared in college admissions scam hosted Gillibrand fundraiser last week

Here’s a political endorsement Dems don’t want. Alleged college scammer Jane Buckingham — the marketing CEO accused of paying $50,000 for her son to get into the University of Southern California — was a co-host of a Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand fund-raiser days before the indictments hit.

Buckingham is listed as a co-host for a high-end Beverly Hills, Calif., event at the home of Los Angeles FC owner Larry Berg and his wife, Allison, last Saturday to fund Gillibrand’s exploratory 2020 presidential run.

Co-hosts also included Will Ferrell, “Scandal” creator Shonda Rhimes and her über agent Chris Silbermann, plus Harvard MBA and author Samantha Ettus. It cost donors $2,800 to be a co-host of the event.

Meanwhile, Buckingham’s scandalized son Jack came clean in the Hollywood Reporter by telling the magazine: “I know there are millions of kids out there both wealthy and less fortunate who grind their ass off just to have a shot at the college of their dreams. I am upset that I was unknowingly involved in a large scheme that helps give kids who may not work as hard as others an advantage over those who truly deserve those spots.”

Buckingham allegedly explored the same scam for her daughter Lilia.

https://pagesix.com/2019/03/14/mom-ensnared-in-college-admissions-scam-hosted-gillibrand-fundraiser-last-week/