Nellie Ohr transcript reveals details from Steele meeting one day before Trump-Russia investigation began
A newly released congressional transcript from Nellie Ohr — Justice Department official Bruce Ohr’s wife — details her meetings with Trump dossier author Christopher Steele, including one the day before former FBI agent Peter Strzok opened the Trump-Russia investigation at the FBI. The transcript also reveals her research on any connections between Russia and President Trump, the Trump family, and Trump associates while she worked at Fusion GPS. She also declined to answer most questions related to her husband, who served as an unofficial backchannel between Steele and the FBI.
Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, went to the House floor to put the 137-page transcript from her October testimony in front of a joint session of the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees into the record. "Thus far, I have released four transcripts of interviews related to apparent wrongdoing at the FBI and Justice Department. Today, I release the fifth. The American people deserve transparency. They deserve to know what transpired at the highest levels of the FBI and the origin of the probe into President Trump's campaign," Collins said.
The testimony focused heavily on her time with Fusion GPS and its relationship with the DOJ. Nellie Ohr met with Steele three times, the last of which was on July 30, 2016, one day before the FBI initiated a counterintelligence investigation into possible links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. It is believed that Peter Strzok signed the order that launched the inquiry.
Taking place at the Mayflower Hotel, Nellie Ohr said her husband Bruce Ohr was in attendance along with an unknown associate for Steele. Bruce Ohr was formerly the associate deputy attorney general and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. He was demoted after it came to light he met with Steele and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. At this meeting, Nellie Ohr said she learned for the first time Steele also worked at Fusion GPS. Ohr said she understood Steele was trying to convey to her husband his "concern" about his information regarding Trump, believed she saw at least one page of the so-called Trump dossier, and was hoping it would make its way to the FBI. "My understanding was that Chris Steele was hoping that Bruce would put in a word with the FBI to follow-up on the information in some way," she said when asked if words like "investigation" or "inquiry" was brought up during the discussion.
Fusion GPS is an opposition research firm, and in 2016 it had been hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm. Besides hiring Nellie Ohr, Fusion GPS had also hired Steele, whose unverified dossier would form a large basis the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications used to obtain surveillance warrants against Trump associate Carter Page. Its co-founder, Simpson, met extensively with Bruce Ohr, as well as numerous journalists to whom he provided Fusion GPS’s anti-Trump research. When Ohr was hired by Fusion GPS, Simpson knew her husband was working at DOJ. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, asked Nellie Ohr: “Did he know at the time that he hired you that your husband worked for the Department of Justice?” Ohr replied: “Yes.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/nellie-ohr-transcript-reveals-details-from-steele-meeting-one-day-before-trump-russia-investigation-began