**Steele's claim that Carter Page met with Russian intel in July 2016 can be independently verified

[Tommy_Carcetti]

In short, on July 19, 2016, Christopher Steele wrote a memo which he forwarded to the FBI which states that Carter Page--while giving a speech to a Russian think tank in early July 2016--met with a Russian intelligence officer named Igor Diveykin. Specifically:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/25/what-the-trump-dossier-says-and-what-it-doesnt/?utm_term=.6042f3c7c061

Report 94. Dated July 19, 2016.

Claims: Trump campaign aide Carter Page met with the chief executive of fossil-fuel giant Rosneft, Igor Sechin, and Kremlin official Igor Diveykin, who American officials believe was in charge of collecting intelligence about the campaign. Diveykin again raised the compromising material about Clinton with Page.

Analysis: Page was in Moscow in early July, a trip that was reported at the time. He denied meeting Sechin or Diveykin last year.

This report suggests that Diveykin offered to release the compromising information on Clinton to Trump’s campaign team — an offer that we now know was made before that June meeting in Trump Tower, as well. It’s not clear why Diveykin would make this offer after having already had the opportunity to release that information to Donald Trump Jr. a month earlier.

Page's speech in Moscow was on July 7, 2016.

That very same day, Konstantin Rykov posted the following on his Facebook page:





The focus here is on Rykov's comments in his post that his NES speech was a "cover" and his further comment, "He also came to the intelligence service (FSB) to understand the reaction to Donald."

The original Facebook link in Russian:

https://www.facebook.com/konstantin.rykov/posts/10209422386386902

In case you don't know who Konstantin Rykov is, he's sort of a big deal:

https://medium.com/@ScottMStedman/kremlin-propagandist-boasted-of-his-hacking-efforts-strongly-implied-colluding-with-trump-team-in-a905104965a1

(In short, he's a former member of the Russian parliament for Putin's party and was actually named by Putin as a "trusted confidant" of the Kremlin. He's heavily involved in online activities and just days after the election posted a confession on Facebook bragging that he ran a social media influence campaign for Trump from Russia using Wikileaks and Cambridge Analaytica data.)

Note that Rykov goes as far to tag former US Ambassador Michael McFaul in his message. McFaul who has been harshly critical of Putin and Kremlin policy has been routinely harassed and mocked by Kremlin trolls, including Rykov.

So just to sum up:

July 7, 2016--Carter Page gives speech in Moscow
July 7, 2016--Konstantin Rykov writes Facebook post claiming that Page's speech is a "cover" and that the real reason Page was in Moscow was to meet with members of Russian intelligence
July 19, 2016--Christopher Steele writes memo stating that while Carter Page was in Moscow, he met with Igor Diveykin regarding information that supposedly could be used against Hillary Clinton for campaign purposes
October 19, 2016--FBI gets FISA warrant to surveil Carter Page
November 6, 2017--Carter Page testifies before the House Intelligence Committee, denies having met with Diveykin


The FISA warrant was issued three months after Steele had communicated to the FBI details regarding Page's Moscow visit. Before Steele could even write that memo, we have easily verifiable information showing that Russians connected with the Kremlin were already bragging that Page's speech was a cover for him meeting Russian intelligence officials. Not only that, they were bragging in front of the former US Ambassador to Russia, who could have easily reported the claims to US Intelligence, or alternatively, US intelligence who could possibly have been already monitoring Rykov could have picked up on the claims on their own.

No matter what way you cut it, however, the notion put forward by the Nunes Memo that the Steele Dossier was the only basis to get the FISA memo on Carter Page is--in the words of Vice President Biden--a bunch of malarkey.

[Sanity Claws]

1. Why would Rykov have his FB page public like that?

A trusted confidant of the Kremlin posted on FB? Maybe they are just as stupid as Trump.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. Rykov's mindset is more Al Qaeda than it is Anonymous.

He's not stupid. He just knows he can act with impunity with little to no recourse against him.

He's a Kremlin agent working from Russia doing the bidding of the Kremlin. As long as he stays in Russia, he knows there's no chance he'll ever be arrested for any interference with the US election.

And it's been said before that Trump getting elected was just one of the goals of Russian interference. Even if Trump lost, the disinformation campaign against Hillary could still be used to damage public opinion against her as President. So the mere fact that any of this gets out is considered a win for Russia, regardless if it ultimately affects the election or not. Trump winning is merely the proverbial cherry on top.

But why does Rykov boast? Because Rykov--and people associated with him--are bitter against the US, because they think they've punished and embarrassed Russia in front of the whole world, especially when it comes to the matter of Ukraine and sanctions. They've played up the (bogus) claim that somehow the US meddled in Ukrainian affairs to Russia's detriment, and thus they want their retaliation.

And they want to especially rub it in the face of the people they view as most responsible for all of this, and that means members of the US State Department for the Obama Administration.

That includes Hillary Clinton. And it includes the former US Ambassador, Michael McFaul, who has long been heavily critical of Putin and Kremlin actions. McFaul was heavily harassed online by Russian trolls, stalked by Russian state media, and even had members of his family threatened while he was living in Russia.

You'll see that Rykov particularly goats McFaul by tagging him on a lot of his social media posts. He does this because he wants him to know that you (supposedly) messed with us, so we're messing with you.

An anecdote from a Political article regarding McFaul and Hillary might explain why Rykov in turn did things as openly as he did:

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/clinton-putin-226153

But Clinton knew how to play tough with the Russian officials, some of whom referred to her with both derision and respect as “a lady with balls.” When McFaul arrived in Moscow in January 2012, he faced harassment, including the reporter with a Kremlin-controlled TV channel who followed him everywhere and the Russian secret services that followed his children to school.

One day, Clinton called an exasperated McFaul at the ambassador’s residence in Moscow to express her anger at the Russian violation of diplomatic protocol. McFaul was stunned that Clinton had called on an unsecure line, especially when the two had plans to meet soon anyway. “Oh, I want them to know that I know,” Clinton said, in McFaul’s recollection.

So I think Rykov wanted people like McFaul to know what he was doing, even if it could have come back to derail his plans. He wanted to send a message that this was payback for what Russia claimed the US had done in the past.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

9. Very interesting. Thanks TC ! Mentioning Ukraine - have often thought that people

forget about the GOP platform event when Trump surrogates made them change the language on US protection for Ukraine. That action has GOT to be quid pro quo for something since we know Trump is so ignorant (remember he didn't even know about Crimea?) that he wouldn't have orchestrate the language change in a vacuum of knowledge. Yet, unless someone finds a link, he can always defend the action in some "OK" way, I suppose.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

11. I think we'll hear a lot more about it when the name J.D. Gordon surfaces.....

....in the Mueller investigation.

He pretty much confirmed the quid pro quo regarding the GOP platform.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

15. This is a Facebook post from Rykov's key partner, Mikhail Kovalev, regarding the platform change.

I love the awkward translation of the comment. I'm assuming the person meant "Trump ours", but "Tramp ours" is so, so, so, so much more fitting.

(Kovalev was a key partner with Rykov, attended his Election Night and Inauguration Day parties, was credited by Rykov in his Facebook confession as playing a key role in the social media campaign, and actually gives his own Facebook post which corroborates Rykov's claims. He's also far too obsessed with a foreign leader in Trump than you would ever expect any foreign citizen to be.)

[Tommy_Carcetti]

13. Rykov at a 2011 Kremlin sponsored meeting for "Internet Community Representatives"

From the Kremlin website:

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/11115/photos#

In attendance was then President Medvedev (during Putin's proxy presidency years).

[Squinch]

3. Great information! I think maybe we should start listing the items in Steele's report that

are NOT verifiable. Seems like there are far fewer of them.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

4. Yeah, that would be good.

The notion that the Steele Dossier was nothing but a self-serving rumor mill created by the Democrats can easily be discredited. Many of the claims can be independently verified via other means not connected with the Dossier.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

10. Seems that someone had been doing that - recall reporting about how pieces

had been confirmed. Yet, whenever the dossier is mentioned, the GOP is allowed to say "fake, salacious, untrue, Democratic-engineered and paid-for dossier" no rebuttal, as usual.

BTW - wasn't it Jeb Bush who started the ball rolling? Never hear that mentioned - it has now become Hillary's only.

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. Excellent work! n/t

[Tommy_Carcetti]

7. Thanks! nt

[poboy2]

6. r'd

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Thanks. nt

[Arazi]

12. Nice!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

14. Yep. nt