A GOP Congressman Just Stole Devin Nunes's Favorite Love Cow
Doug Collins thought he was gonna OWN THE LIBS when he released the transcript of the House's interview with Bruce Ohr. That is not what happened.
You guys, a Republican hick congressman from Georgia who looks like he smells like a corn nut tried to do a big GOTCHA, but instead failed spectacularly and stepped on his dick, which is exactly what we expect from Republican hick congressmen in the year of our lord 2019.
The violent and unforced own-dick-stepping was committed by Rep. Doug Collins, and the vehicle he chose for his failure was unilaterally releasing the transcript of Bruce Ohr testimony before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees last year, back when former GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy was still the sheriff on duty at Oversight.
Who the fuck is Bruce Ohr? We 'splained that right here, so take a refresher course if you need to. In short, he is a DOJ official whose name such brain wizards as Jim Jordan and Louie Gohmert write over and over inside their Trapper Keepers, to remind them he is DEVIL and he is SMOKING GUN that proves HILLARY started COLLUSION WITCH HOAX against poor innocent Donald Trump, when she slipped British spy Christopher Steele a one-million dollar bill and ordered him to create a FAKE DOSSIER. Ohr and Steele -- a longtime FBI source -- have had contacts over the years, including during the early days of the Trump-Russia investigation and also after the FBI officially terminated Steele as a source, and you can see the evidence for that in Devin Nunes's COW SEXXX MEMO!
Now Doug Collins is moving in on Nunes's sex cow, releasing GOTCHA House transcripts that very much do not prove his point, exactly like when Devin Nunes released his "memo" about "intel" that very much did not prove his point either! But at least it gives us all a good chortle about what is wrong with Republican congressmen's brains, which are apparently in the sad dicks upon which they are stepping!
Also Bruce Ohr's wife -- the lady! he sleeps next to! and presumably does collusion with! in the sex way! -- used to do contract work for Fusion GPS, the intel company that commissioned Steele's work. And Republicans are pretty sure Ohr gave the FBI the dossier in the first place! ( Nope. And he's not even really involved with the Russia investigations. Though he is an expert on taking down the Russian mob, and we can see why Trump and Republicans might not be into that sort of thing.)
Anyway, GOP congressmen are just pretty sure all of this means
GET IT? IT IS A SMOKING GUN!
In actuality, of course, it is more like
Ohr told questioners like Trey Gowdy very simple answers about why people would bring him information on Russian oligarchs and whatnot, because as we mentioned above, he is the EXPERT OF THAT. Also, when people come across bad and possibly incriminating info about folks -- even folks associated with President Babyshits! -- they often give it to the FBI. This, dears, is the "scandal" Republicans want you to be mad about. (But, but, but! He gave it to the FBI SEXTERS Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who SEXTED MEAN WORDS ABOUT TRUMP! Unfair! And Chris Steele was hired by the Democrats! Which doesn't change one iota of whether his intel was true! MORE UNFAIR!)
When Republicans left the closed-door meeting with Ohr -- that congressional testimony we mentioned above -- they started yapping to Trump TV that they sure heard some bad stuff, except for they pretended like they heard stuff that bolstered their Republican conspiracy theories about the FBI. In actuality, they heard stuff like this, when Ohr told them either Glenn Simpson (head of Fusion GPS) or Chris Steele had told him someone on the Trump campaign had criminal knowledge of the Russian hacking of the Democrats and their plans to release that information to hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign:
Funny, Michael Cohen says the same thing.
He told them about that time in late July of 2016, when Christopher Steele told him he had intel from "a former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR," who had told somebody the Russians "had Trump over a barrel."
Clearly Trey Gowdy didn't want to talk about that, because he didn't even react to that revelation and instead moved on to other matters.
Ohr told them about intel he had learned from Steele about Trump foreign policy idiot/dumbest Russian "intelligence" asset ever Carter Page, and about Paul Manafort's money woes with Putin's favorite oligarch Oleg Deripaska, his former boss. You know, just STUFF.
Oh yeah, and Ohr shared more details on exactly who this "Oleg Deripaska" really is, for those who haven't been paying attention and don't know why it's significant that Paul Manafort gave his old Russian spy buddy Konstantin Kilimnik internal Trump campaign polling data on August 2, 2016, and probably almost certainly intended that data to be delivered unto Deripaska:
Boy oh boy, Doug Collins! You sure did OWN THE LIBS when you decided to release this transcript, BOY HOWDY FIDDLESTICKS!
Gowdy also confirmed that Steele said at one point to the FBI that he was "desperate" for Trump not to win, which you can either view as BIASSSSSSS (if you're an idiot), or as one of the most respected spies in the world, a Russia expert, being so alarmed by what he was learning about Russian influence on one of the American candidates' campaigns that he just really did not want that guy to win.
Another major theme of the hearing is that North Carolina GOP Rep. Mark Meadows is a total fucking asshole, but the transcript doesn't say anything about him racistly using any black women as props this time, so we'll assume he didn't. (Don't ever say Wonkette isn't fair.) Marcy Wheeler live tweeted the transcript and shared many instances of Meadows having a problem with the idea of a DoJ official giving the FBI possibly incriminating evidence; suggesting there was something nefarious about how Ohr's wife Nellie (a Russia analyst) got her job with Fusion GPS; and this charmer, where Meadows is just OUTRAGED that Christopher Steele, a British person, would be worried about the Russian federation installing an American president:
Oh yeah, and Jim Jordan was a fucking moron the entire time, but you knew that already. Why did Fusion GPS hire Nellie Ohr, a Russia expert, to do Russia research? IT IS A CONSPIRACY!
Jordan asks over and over again why 'they' picked Russian organized crime experts Bruce and Nellie Ohr to work on R… https: //t.co/XYlNSgqJci
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) 1552230324.0
And they are all complete fucking idiots who can't comprehend that Nellie Ohr, a Russia expert, wasn't actually working with Chris Steele, a British spy, on his compilation of the intelligence that became THE DOSSIER. Indeed, this comes up a lot .
When Jordan asks this question, it is maybe nine months after it became public that the dossier was walled off from… https: //t.co/Cf9zpXhbIT
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) 1552231769.0
And now we are bored by reading #transcript, and if you want to read the whole thing all by yourself like a dork who reads transcripts all by yourself, you are free to do so.
[ Transcript ]
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He sounds nice.
A lot of men stubbornly determined not to understand something because their paychecks depend on their inability to understand a thing.