Ruling Reveals John McCain Associate Gave Buzzfeed the Steele Dossier
“a former State Department official who was an executive at the McCain Institute”
Whether you call it the swamp, the deep state or the Washington, DC establishment, it was definitely out to get Trump following the 2016 election. He wasn’t supposed to win and he had angered some of the wrong people.
How else can this be explained? The Russian collusion conspiracy that Democrats and their media allies have obsessed over for the last two years was fueled in large part by the Steele dossier. It’s sad to learn that someone associated with John McCain played a role in this.
A businessman named in the dossier filed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed for being named in the initial report, but a judge ruled in BuzzFeed’s favor.
Chuck Ross reports at the Daily Caller:
Breaking: John McCain Associate Gave Dossier to BuzzFeed
A longtime associate of late Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain provided a copy of the infamous Steele dossier to BuzzFeed News, according to an explosive court filing released Wednesday.
David Kramer, a former State Department official who was an executive at the McCain Institute, met on Dec. 29, 2016 with BuzzFeed reporter Ken Bensinger, according to a filing submitted Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro.
BuzzFeed published the dossier, which was authored by former British spy Christopher Steele, on Jan. 10, 2017.
The disclosure was made as part of a final report ahead of Ungaro’s ruling in favor of BuzzFeed in a defamation lawsuit.
The revelation that Kramer was BuzzFeed’s source settles one of the main mysteries of the dossier, which alleges a vast conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian government to influence the 2016 election…
McCain dispatched Kramer to London to meet with Steele. After that Nov. 28, 2016 encounter, Kramer obtained a copy of the dossier from Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Steele on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.
Kramer met Nov. 30, 2016, with McCain and McCain’s chief of staff, Christopher Brose, to review Steele’s reports.
Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed has more on the lawsuit and the judge’s ruling:
BuzzFeed News Has Won A Lawsuit Over Its Decision To Publish The Trump Dossier
A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed News over the publication of a dossier in January 2017 that alleged several years of links between Russia and then–president-elect Donald Trump.
A Cypriot businessman, Aleksej Gubarev, was named in the dossier, and his name wasn’t redacted in the version originally published by BuzzFeed. Gubarev sued shortly after the article came out, claiming he was defamed by having his name included.
US District Judge Ursula Ungaro in Florida found that BuzzFeed News was shielded against defamation claims because the dossier was the subject of official proceedings — both Trump and then-president Barack Obama had been briefed on it, according to reporting at the time, and the FBI investigated allegations in the documents. The judge concluded that BuzzFeed News was protected by what’s known as the “fair report” privilege.
Ungaro also found that the BuzzFeed News article was “fair and true” because it just reproduced the dossier — it didn’t express any opinions about it.
Here’s a statement from BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith:
My statement: pic.twitter.com/apt7j3BToX
— Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) December 19, 2018
This entire Russian affair was so obviously a set-up from the beginning. I can’t believe it’s still a subject of inquiry in our government and a nightly topic on cable news.
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Comments
No wonder the Democrats or so gushing with praise at his funeral. As usual, thete was a something more to the story than they let on.
I certainly don’t miss him, he was vile and vindictive small man. When history deals with him, when his secrets are laid bare, I think his legacy will be that of a liar, a thief, a traitor to his party, and one who only worked for one interest, himself.
I have found very little honorable about him. Voting for him was the most difficult vote I ever cast. I wish I could take that vote back.
Bradley manning and that ‘Bo’ deserter obama pardoned: do we thank them for their military service?
Enough of mccains military service. He used up that cache long ago.
Can we dig him up and move his body to a landfill? He doesn’t deserve to share soil with heroes.
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