Victoria Nuland
More information slowly is spilling out about the apparent weaponization of United States intelligence agencies by Obama officials worked to undermine the Trump campaign in 2016.
Government watchdog Judicial Watch on Thursday announced the release of more than 80 pages of documents showing senior Obama State Department officials advancing the now debunked Russia-collusion claim just before the 2016 presidential election.
Documents also showed then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Special Coordinator for Libya Jonathan Winer coordinating with then-House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer’s national security adviser Daniel Silverberg to work on Russia dossier materials provided by Christopher Steele.
Nuland, the documents show, according to Judicial Watch, “was involved in the Obama State Department’s urgent gathering of classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Donald Trump taking office.”
The dossier of wild and unsubstantiated claims about Trump, funded partly by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, was used as evidence to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.
Among the documents a September 2016 email exchange between Nuland and Winer discussing a “face-to-face” meeting on a “Russian matter.”
An op-ed Winer wrote for the Washington Post in 2018 said that in 2016, “Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the ‘dossier.'”
Winer said he prepared a two-page summary “and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.”
The documents, Judicial Watch noted, “also show that State Department officials continued to use unsecure BlackBerry devices for the transmission of classified material more than a year after Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecure, non-government email system was revealed.”
Nuland responded to Winer’s email asking for a meeting to discuss “a Russian matter.”
“In ny face to face?” she asked.
“Yes that was (sic) be good,” Winer replied.
“The Obama State Department was central to the effort to target President Trump with the Russia smear,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These new emails further show that senior Obama State Department advanced the Russiagate hoax just before the 2016 presidential election.”
The documents also revealed Nuland “was involved in the Obama State Department’s urgent gathering of classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Donald Trump taking office.”
In June, Judicial Watch revealed it was demanding insider information about fired former assistant FBI director Andrew McCabe and his new book.
He was a central figure, Judicial Watch said, in “the Deep State’s effort to spy upon and undermine President Trump. We aim to find out if McCabe’s book was properly vetted or simply rubberstamped by anti-Trump bureaucrats before being published.”
Members of the United States intelligence community, while they are allowed to write books after their service, must obtain the approval of relevant agencies to ensure ongoing work is not compromised.
The post Emails show Obama officials called meeting over 'Russian matter' appeared first on WND.
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