Documents Reveal Obama State Department Advanced Russian Collusion Hoax Before 2016 Election

On Thursday, Judicial Watch and The Daily Caller News Foundation released 84 pages of documents revealing that the Obama State Department was central to advancing the Russian collusion hoax narrative prior to the 2016 presidential election. Included in the documents is “a September 2016 email exchange between then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Special Coordinator for Libya Jonathan Winer, a close associate of dossier author Christopher Steele, discussing a ‘face-to-face’ meeting on a ‘Russian matter.’”

According to an op-ed Winer wrote for The Washington Post in 2018, also in September 2016, “Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the “dossier… I 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 obtained by Judicial Watch 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.

Last month, The Daily Caller also reported that Jonathan Winer “facilitated meetings between Christopher Steele and private consulting firms,” and “had contact with Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that hired Steele on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.”

“These documents show that Fusion GPS and Clinton spy Christopher Steele had a close relationship with the Obama State Department,” says Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton.”The State Department under John Kerry is emerging as another center of the Spygate conspiracy against President Trump.”

Winer’s involvement in advancing the Russia collusion hoax also includes disseminating information that would end up in the dossier to the State Department and to the media prior to the election.

Winer has said that during a meeting in Summer 2016, Steele provided him with information that would end up in the dossier. Winer wrote a two-page summary of the information and shared it with others at State.

Winer also helped with news stories about Steele’s findings. He served as a background source for reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn, who were the only two journalists to write stories about Steele’s claims prior to the election. Isikoff published a story for Yahoo! on Sept. 23, 2016 that laid out Steele’s allegations about Carter Page.

Corn published a story on Oct. 31, 2016 that quoted Steele anonymously claiming that the Russian government has compromised Trump.

Both reporters used Winer to vouch for Steele’s credibility. Other emails obtained through the Judicial Watch lawsuit earlier this year showed that Glenn Simpson reached out to Winer days before Isikoff published his story on Sept. 23, 2016.

Winer “is also linked to a second dossier on Trump, this one authored by Cody Shearer, a controversial political operative who is closely allied to the Clintons.” Winer reportedly obtained the “Shearer dossier” from longtime Clinton associate Sidney Blumenthal, and then gave it to Steele, who provided it to the FBI.

“It’s amazing how hard our government tries to keep the truth from the American people,” said Neil Patel, the president of The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Thankfully, with Judicial Watch filing a lawsuit on our behalf, we have been able to uncover phony dossier author Christopher Steele’s previously hidden contacts with the Obama State Department.”