Bruce Ohr? Show Him the Door!
Bruce Ohr should be in real trouble. The DOJ attorney has been demoted twice, testified under oath to Congress, and the White House is deliberating the revocation of his security clearance. It is almost certain he will lose his government job, and he will be lucky to escape a felony indictment. This makes him the 27th “partisan” FBI agent or DOJ lawyer to have been fired, demoted or resigned in the post-election draining of the Obama-Clinton swamp. If you keep up with this sort of thing, here are the notable departures.
Sally Yates – fired from her job as acting Attorney General for insubordination.
Preet Bharara – fired from his job as US attorney (Southern District of New York) for refusing to resign his political appointment.
James Comey – fired from his job as FBI Director for exceeding his authority and politicizing the Clinton investigation.
Andrew McCabe – fired from his job as FBI Deputy Director for violating the agency’s code of ethics.
Lisa Page – demoted and resigned from her job as FBI attorney.
Peter Strzok – fired from his job as FBI counterintelligence expert as an example to other would-be partisan insurance policies.
Bruce Ohr was the associate deputy attorney general until the DOJ discovered his relationship with Christopher Steele (purveyor of the infamous Russian dossier) and Fusion GPS in late 2017. Two demotions later, it now looks like Ohr was an all-in conspirator in what Republicans are calling Spygate. The circumstantial evidence begins with two facts: he reported to Obama-era Deputy AG Sally Yates, and his wife (Nellie) was a paid employee of Glen Simpson and Fusion GPS as a Russia expert. Why is this so bad?
You should remember acting-AG Yates refused to enforce Trump’s travel ban: clear insubordination to a Republican president, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the president’s executive order. In short, Yates was partisan and on the wrong side of the constitution. You also probably know federal law (18 U.S.C. Section 208) prohibited Bruce Ohr from a matter in which his spouse had a financial interest: a felony punishable by five years in jail. Here is why it looks really bad for Ohr.
Glenn Simpson disclosed in a sworn declaration that (his company) Fusion GPS paid Nellie Ohr to help research and analyze potential opposition research on Trump, and that this was funded by the DNC and Clinton campaign.
DOJ records prove Bruce Ohr did not disclose that his wife was being paid by Fusion GPS in the mandatory public financial disclosure form.
Peter Strzok admitted under oath the FBI got the Russian Dossier from Mr. Ohr.
Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein admitted under oath that Ohr was not part of the Russia-collusion investigation and did not request a waiver (or disclose) to serve as a conduit between Fusion GPS and the FBI.
Ohr testified to Congress that he had face-to-face dossier discussions with (you guessed it) Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok - as it pertained to candidate Trump.
You have probably heard about the hundreds of previously undisclosed emails and memos that prove his willful and covert involvement to push Fusion GPS and the Russian dossier. After Sally Yates was fired, an incriminating text exchange between ex-British spy Christopher Steele (retained by Fusion GPS) and Bruce Ohr immediately took place:
Steele: “B, doubtless a sad and crazy day for you re-SY. Just want to check you are OK, still in the situ and able to help locally as discussed, along with your Bureau colleagues.”
Ohr: “I’m still here and able to help as discussed. I’ll let you know if that changes.”
Steele: “If you end up out though, I really need another [bureau] contact point/number who is briefed. We can’t allow our guy to be forced out to go back home. It would be disastrous.”
If you still regret Trump’s election, you might be thinking yeah-yeah-yeah and yadda-yadda-yadda, but you would be missing the whole point. One day partisan bureaucrats might come after you or your business, and you're going to feel mighty small and mighty alone against the CIA, FBI and DOJ. This is real Mr. Smith Goes to Washington stuff, but it is happening before our very eyes.
Something else is on my mind. In the private sector, a house-cleaning on this scale would mean only one thing: the institutional culture was so rotten that bad apples must be removed to restore constituent trust. The breadth of this shake-up is unprecedented because we haven't witnessed these levels of political animus in the FBI since J. Edgar Hoover was in charge. Every one of these bureaucrats invited his or her demotion or firing, meaning they pretty much sucked at their jobs. Bottom Line: don’t let your antipathy for Trump cloud your support for truth, justice and the American way.