August 28, 2018 – Ohr didn’t verify information from Simpson or Steele

In Email/Dossier/Govt Corruption Investigations by Katie Weddington

(…) “Ohr testified at multiple points that he simply transmitted information from Steele and from Simpson to the FBI, but did nothing to attempt to verify its accuracy. Ohr knew that Steele held a bias against Trump. He was also fully aware that Fusion GPS was engaged in opposition research—his wife was part of the ongoing effort. Ohr also testified that although he didn’t know Fusion was employed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), he was aware “they were somehow working associated with the Clinton campaign.” From his testimony:

Q: “Who were Steele’s sources?”

Ohr: “I don’t know.”

Q: “How did you vet those—how did he vet those sources? How did Fusion GPS vet those sources?”

Ohr: “I think—I don’t know the specifics. The fact that my wife was looking at some of the same figures, like Sergei Millian, suggests that that was one way they were trying to vet the information.”

Ohr attempted to make clear his concerns—his reason for passing Steele’s information directly to the FBI—but his logic appeared somewhat one-sided:

Ohr: “I think any attempt by a foreign power to gain influence over a Presidential campaign would be troubling.”

Q: “But that does not include Steele relying on Russians to provide dirt on Trump?”

Ohr: “I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question … I think my understanding is that what Steele was finding out was investigating the links, the national-security threat posed by Russian Government officials attempting to gain influence over the Trump campaign.”

Q: “He was relying on foreign nationals for that information?”

Ohr: “I don’t know who he was getting it from.”

A bit later in Ohr’s testimony, an interesting exchange took place, during which Ohr admitted that the information he had provided to the FBI on the behalf of Steel and Simpson wouldn’t be admissible in court:

Q: “So tell me all of the questions, cross-examination-like questions, that you asked Chris Steele about the source of his information.”

Ohr: “I knew—he would not give me the source of his information, so I couldn’t get it.”

Q: “How much of what Chris Steele told you would have ever come out in a courtroom?”

Ohr: “I’m not sure it would have. It was source information. It was hearsay.”

Steele had no direct connections to his sources of information and everything Steele listed in the dossier was provided to him second- or third-hand. Which creates evidentiary problems:

Q: “I’m guessing you never talked to the sources or sub-sources.”

Ohr: “That is correct.”

Q: “Well, Mr. Ohr, that information would never see the inside of a courtroom, because you can’t cross-examine it. You can’t find out who, if anyone, really is the source of that. Do you agree?”

Ohr: “Yes. But this is not evidence in a courtroom. He is providing information from—this is source information.”

Q: “Best-case scenario, it’s double hearsay. Worst-case scenario, we don’t have any—it could be quintuple hearsay, right?”

Ohr: “I think—I don’t know. It definitely is hearsay, and it was source information, which is what I was telling the FBI.”

Q: “I guess what alarms me about this fact pattern is all the way in December of 2016, a guy named Comey was referring to the information as unverified. That’s in December of 2016.”

To this day, the Steele dossier remains unverified.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/14/2019)