OOPS: Ivanka Trump Has Been "Personal Friends" with Christopher Steele for Years.

[mia]

On Monday, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his long-awaited report on the FBI's investigation into possible collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, and for anyone hoping the findings would show there was some sort of conspiracy to take the president down, or that it would end with the line “Donald Trump is the greatest president, nay, human to have ever lived and it’s our recommendation that anyone who’s ever expressed a negative sentiment about him should be sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor Photoshopping his face onto an assortment of ripped bodies without eye roll or heavy sigh,” the report likely came as a real buzzkill. Instead, the IG found, the FBI had an “authorized purpose” when it launched its investigation into the Trump campaign, and rejected the claim that the case was initiated as some kind of political takedown or that informants were used in violation of government rules. Another fun finding? That Ivanka Trump has been buddies with Christopher Steele—the author of the dossier that her father has blasted as “phony and corrupt,” and the basis of the F.B.I. “witch hunt” against him—for years.

Rather than harbor a bias against Trump that led him to produce a negative, highly embarrassing file on the then-presidential candidate, the report found that, if anything, Steele was “favorably disposed” toward the Trump family, given his friendship with Ivanka, which @realDonaldTrump failed to mention at any point while slandering the former British spy as “dopey,” a “Trump hater,” and a “lowlife” on Twitter. While the apple of Trump’s creepy eye is not mentioned by name, the “family member” referenced is said to be his eldest daughter, according to ABC News. Per the report, Steele told investigators that the allegation he was biased against Trump was “ridiculous,” considering well before he started his research, he visited “a Trump family member” at Trump Tower and had “been friendly” with [the family member] for a number of years. Steele described his relationship with said family member as “personal” and told investigators that he’d once gifted them a family tartan from Scotland to.

According to ABC News’s Julia Macfarlane, Steele and Ivanka initially met at a dinner in 2007 and subsequently met up at Trump Tower. Emails suggest they stayed in touch over the next several years, with mentions of other dinners coming up. And not only were the two personal friends, Princess Purses reportedly invited the former spy to her office in 2010, after he’d gone into private practice, to “discuss the possibility of him working for the Trump Organization doing due diligence abroad as part of his work for Orbis [Business Intelligence],” the firm he founded. Strangely, however, none of this came up while the president was maligning Steele as an associate of “Crooked Hillary.” (It is not clear if Trump the elder was aware of his daughter’s relationship with Steele prior to the release of the IG report, or if he called her to wail “You just broke my heard into a thousands pieces!” this afternoon.)

...Meanwhile Trump’s chief footstool, aka Attorney General William Barr, is already hard at work trying to discredit the findings of his own organization. In a statement issued Monday, Barr said that “The inspector general’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.” Barr has tasked John H. Durham, the United States attorney in Connecticut, with conducting his own investigation into the Russia investigation, and while it would be fairly unusual for a government document to say something along the lines of “Donald Trump is a beautiful, selfless, tender yet macho man who should be appointed president for life and a personal apology from every American for the crime perpetrated against him,” we’re sure he’ll rise to the occasion.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/12/ivanka-trump-christopher-steele-inspector-general

[5X]

1. it was a counter-spy op on steele by ivank. n/t

[jberryhill]

2. She was probably a source for some of his material

[getagrip_already]

3. interesting term "personal" relationship.....

Could be a culture difference thing, but it's interesting he didn't say "friendly" instead. I guess he is really saying intimate without using the word.

Maybe that's why trump hates him.

[Hortensis]

4. What oops, tho? Connections are stock in trade for people in

Steele's line of work, and they make more with every job. It's quite possible the anti-Trump Republicans who hired his firm did so because they saw connection to the Trump family as an asset, which of course it was.

I'm curious to know just what jobs might have put him in the way of the Trumps in the first place, was he investigating something related to them, did Trump corp hire him, or were the first connections social?

I'm going to have to buy the new book by the founders of Fusion GPS, who hired Steele, Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump. They're making the rounds promoting it, and it sounds fascinating.

[2naSalit]

5. The connection is curious after all this time and

inquiry that this should finally come to light. I wonder at the nature of maintaining such a relationship.

And that book is on my wish/waiting list. When I can get hold of a copy, I'll be busy for a few days.

[Hortensis]

10. Me too. Jane Mayer and Rachel Maddow think we should. :)

A close personal connection between a British spy and a billionaire's daughter -- in real life, not a novel, is curious; and, though I wouldn't be interested in the novel, I am curious.

Some readers of “Crime in Progress” may begin to wonder if the special counsel Robert Mueller didn’t miss the mark. The authors praise Mueller for documenting more than a hundred and forty suspicious contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russians, and for criminally indicting thirty-four individuals, including six in Trump’s inner circle and a dozen Russian agents behind the hack of the Democrats’ e-mails and thirteen individuals and three companies tied to Russia’s Internet Research Agency.

But they criticize Mueller’s probe for failing to heed the main lesson of Watergate: to “follow the money.” Simpson and Fritsch note that “there is no indication in his report that the investigation looked at Trump’s taxes, his outstanding debts, his curious relationship with Deutsche Bank, or his long history of financing real estate projects with foreign cash of unknown origin—precisely the places where Russian influence efforts were most likely to surface.” Jane Mayer

[mia]

11. Looking forward to reading the book, too.

At the link there's a video of Glenn Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS, speaking at the 2016 Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival and Symposium.

Journalism for rent’: Inside the secretive firm behind the Trump dossier

Fusion GPS bills itself as a corporate research firm, but in many ways it operates with the secrecy of a spy agency. No sign marks its headquarters above a coffee shop in Northwest Washington. Its website consists of two sentences and an email address. Its client list is closely held....

But hundreds of internal company documents obtained by The Washington Post reveal how Fusion, a firm led by former journalists, has used investigative reporting techniques and media connections to advance the interests of an eclectic range of clients on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley and in the nation’s capital. The firm has played an unseen role in stories that dominated headlines in recent years....

Fusion declined to comment on specific cases or identify clients, but said in a statement that it is “proud of our methodology and the rigor of our research, amply demonstrated by the records cited by The Washington Post. They show what we’ve always stated: Our secret sauce is diligent and exhaustive analysis of public information.”

It continued: “The reason we are so effective is that we unearth facts that stand up to scrutiny — presumably why we are still talking about our work detailing the connections between the Trump campaign and Russia more than a year later.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/journalism-for-rent-inside-the-secretive-firm-behind-the-trump-dossier/2017/12/11/8d5428d4-bd89-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html

[Hortensis]

13. We take the WaPo, but I don't recall seeing this, or

maybe just wasn't interested at the time. Thanks.

For anyone who reads down this far and doesn't know Jane Mayer, if she says it, and she is careful and responsible in her statements, I'll believe it.

[rickford66]

6. So, here's a theory

Ivanka has possible affair with a spy (Chris). Hires him to generate the dossier so when Dad becomes president, he can complain about Obama and Clinton spying on his campaign. Good reason to fire all the Deep State moles and install toadies.

[mia]

12. Maybe so, but....

Did Horniness Drive Christopher Steele to Gift the Family Tartan to Ivanka Trump? [UPDATED]

Christopher Steele, former British intelligence agent and author of the controversial intelligence report alleging a conspiracy between President Trump and the Russian government leading up to the 2016 presidential election, knew Ivanka Trump for years prior to penning his “Steele dossier.” ABC News reports that Trump met Steele at a dinner in London in 2007; he was still working for MI6 while she was already in the family business and kind of sort of dating now-husband Jared Kushner. The two corresponded for years via email and even met at Trump Tower....

Steele called the allegation that he was biased against Trump from the start “ridiculous.” He stated that if anything he was “favorably disposed” toward the Trump family before he began his research because he had visited a Trump family member at Trump Tower and “been friendly” with [the family member] for some years. He described their relationship as “personal” and said that he once gifted a family tartan from Scotland to the family member.

But let’s back up a minute here: A family tartan? According to some light research and British friends, Tartans tend to hold some sentimental significance, usually gifted to family members for important birthdays, graduations, and ceremonies like weddings. Perhaps in the ye olde tartan days, giving someone a tartan would perhaps be a formal indicator that someone wanted to ye olde fuck (or, you know, wed). So what’s up with Steele giving Ivanka Trump a family tartan?

...Update, 5:40 p.m.: I received an important message from my Very Real British Friend™ Tiegan, who relayed my question of Steele’s horniness to her gran, described by Tiegan as, “so Scottish nobody can understand her”: “Yes, it could be an indication [that Steele was horny], but [a] family tartan in terms of relationships is normally given to the other at their actual wedding ceremony.”

Hmmm!

https://theslot.jezebel.com/did-horniness-drive-christopher-steele-to-gift-the-fami-1840321496

[H2O Man]

7. Recommended.

It's a small world, sometimes.

[gab13by13]

8. What a 2 timer,

I thought he was in bed with Hillary?

[SayItLoud]

9. When oh when will the sucker "gopers" learn?

They are all being conned and humiliated by this POS traitor and daily surprised by revelations. I guess the overwhelming flow of stuff from him keeps everyone off balance and tomorrow there will be something else just as evil revealed. We Dems, need to stick with a couple of messages. Do research, find the points that will move voters in key electoral states and target them, forget the national polls, vote. Just lock up the electoral. Just sayin..

[VOX]

14. So 45 KNEW all about Steele, and Steele's probable interest in "Daddy's special girl"...

Steele sounds like a flake, but his interest in Ivanka no doubt set 45’s acrylic “hair” ablaze. This is the weirdest story of the week. For now, that is.

The more you know...

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

16. The "flake" had been MI6's top man on Russia... so no, I don't think that's accurate.

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

15. I'm sure the beautiful and glamorous socialite fancied herself a Bond Girl

while being a Steeled Girl.

All the names are so perfect, even. This whole weird and seamy thing is so Austin Powers-ready.