were going to show this all got started because of the steele dossier. the reason i m intrigued by it, every time they have declassified documents, it turns out that the truth, the actual documents completely rebut their point. when we got a look at the fisa affidavit, it turns out that lo and behold, it was really all about george papadopoulos who you were talking about earlier, bragging about meeting russians who were talking about having e-mails. so i m intrigued by it because documents and the truth are not the republicans friends on this issue. so i worry, quite frankly, that if they do declassify, and when i say they, it would be the president, of course, it would be done in a way that slams the truth. the truth is not their friend. who do you make of the targeting of bruce ohr in particular? obviously what axios is reporting is that there are two sets of documents coming out, one that relates to this surveillance application on carter page. we ve already had a bunch of that
from coming to the u.s. 2006. around the time that oleg deripaska was doing lots of business with trump campaign chair paul manafort overseas, was right around the time the ap reports that paul manafort entered into a $10 million a year contract with oleg deripaska to promote the interests of russian president vladimir putin and his government. well we have since learned from further new york times reporting that almost a decade later, almost a decade after bruce ohr as the senior justice department official working on russian organized crime, nearly a decade after he participated in this u.s. effort to ban oleg deripaska from being allowed to come to the united states by denying him a visa, nine years down the road, nine years after that in 2015, that same justice department official, bruce ohr was instrumental in bringing deripaska to the united states on purpose. they d been blocking him from setting foot in this country since 2006. in 2015 they decide they would
to try to destroy that justice department official by name. we are told to expect a leak of classified information or the declassification of information related to bruce ohr s work. and they will presumably use that declassified information selectively to try to make him look terrible somehow. all indications are that they will try to use bruce ohr in wh whatever they re about to declassify on him as a means of declassing the russia investigation. the top expert on russian organized crime who has been pushing all these uncomfortable questions about putin and organized crime and the russian government. imagine how happy they will be when trump declassifies all of bruce ohr s investigative activities. imagine how happy they will be when they blow his sources in the process. imagine how happy they will be to blow up the career of the top russian organized crime expert at the u.s. justice department who has been intensely and
his past work in the justice department, are you at all concerned? i certainly am intrigued myself as to why they re singling him out in way that i m expecting to be designed to destroy his career. well, you know, a couple things. number one, there is a reason why police and public officials don t typically talk about what s happening inside an investigation, because inside an investigation, you have law enforcement people, policemen, fbi agents doing things like following hunches and getting to dead ends. until you re actually ready to go to court, nothing s ready so that s why if you just sort of start pell-mell releasing papers you could create an impression that is not true. but i got to tell you, rachel, this is infuriating, right? bruce ohr, by all accounts, and by the way, at some point i hope they release his testimony, because i heard that his testimony last week actually completely rebutted the notion that he was doing anything untoward. but bruce ohr is just the latest guy
give him a visa and invite him over. why? according to dramatic reporting from ken vogel and matt rosenberg, the reason they allowed deripaska to come here after all those years of banning him is because they wanted to have is a little talk with him. they wanted to try to flip him. they wanted to try to persuade him to start working for u.s. law enforcement and intelligence. they wanted him to start informing against vladimir putin and russian organized crime. quote, u.s. justice department official bruce ohr attended the meeting with deripaska in 2015, during which time the americans pressed deripaska on connections between russian organized crime and mr. putin s government. they were trying to flip him. it did not work. deripaska refused another meeting and reportedly told the kremlin about that failed approach from u.s. law enforcement that was in 2015. they apparently went back at him again in 2016 and trying again and again. but now this president and his republican supporters in