they wanted to try to flip him. they wanted to try to persuade him to start working for u.s. intelligence and law enforcement. 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, trying again and again. he gave them the hand. but now this president and his republican supporters in congress are apparently poised 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.
campaign was colluding with prussia. we do not know why he is doing that, and he is doing it with this weird i don t recall thing. we don t know why he is doing it. but here is a hunch as to how we are going to find out why he is doing this. and that is the other thing i said to watch for today and in coming days. axios.com is reporting today that as early as this week, the president is going to order the declassification of more documents about the start of the fbi s russia investigation. quote, president trump is expected to declassify as early as this week documents covering the u.s. government surveillance of trump campaign adviser carter page and the investigative activities of senior justice department lawyer bruce ohr. carter page, you remember him, we now know he was the subject of court-ordered surveillance after he left his role as an adviser to the trump campaign. and carter page really is someone who was caught up in a russian spy ring. court records from a federal prosec
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 whose career the president is intent on ending. this a 30-year professional, an expert on the russian mob. a guy that we could actually use having his career ended. and i say that tonight, rachel, with particular passion, because tomorrow morning between 8:00 and 9:00, we re going to remember 17 years to the minute of the attack by terrorists on 9/11 and thousands of lives lost. why have we not had another event like 9/11 in this country? i speak with some authority with six years on the intelligence committee when i say the reason we have not had an attack like the one that struck us 17 years ago is because of bruce ohr and thousands and thousands of people like him in doj and fbi and cia and everywhere else, all of whom are fair game for this president to spin his lies and
by it. i m intrigued by it because of course they ve declassified other stuff that had no business being out there in the public realm. you remember the fisa affidavits that they assured us 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 that. it would be the president,f 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 particu
hang your hat on, bruce ohr being a bad guy when it comes to the russia scandal is an even weirder peg to try to hang your proverbial hat on. bruce ohr, you see him drinking coffee on the right. he was one of the top experts on russian organized crime is head of the organized crime and racketeering session for the whole doj. his specialty was international organized crime. one of the things he pulled off in the justice department was bringing a u.s. criminal indictment against the godfather of all godfathers, the head of the russian mob. bruce ohr was one of the u.s. officials in 2006 who figured out a way to ban a powerful putin-linked oligarch named oleg deripaska from entering the united states. they banned him from getting a visa based on his alleged ties to russian organized crime, and based on fears that deripaska might be coming to the u.s. specifically to launder russian mob money into u.s. real estate. that was 2006. that s when they blocked him