WOW! Judicial Watch Reveals Obama Officials Distributed ‘CLASSIFIED RECORDS’ To ‘Undermine’ POTUS Trump
Another day, another scandal Judicial Watch uncovers.
On Wednesday, the conservative watchdog released 42 pages of “redacted State Department documents,” given to Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), for the purpose, as Tom Fitton describes it, of “undermining,” President Trump.
The documents, given to Cardin, a top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and frequent critic of President Trump, detailed Russia’s alleged “political interference in elections and politics in countries across Europe.”
Judicial Watch reports:
According to a March 2017 report in the Baltimore Sun: “Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin received classified information about Russia’s involvement in elections when the Obama administration was attempting to disseminate that material widely across the government in order to aid in future investigations, according to a report Wednesday … Obama officials were concerned, according to the report [in The New York Times, below], that the Trump administration would cover up intelligence once power changed hands.” […]
In a section of the documents provided to Cardin titled “Political Parties” and marked as sensitive, Russia reportedly sought to foster relationships with groups in Germany, Austria, and France, to include paying members to travel to conferences in Crimea and Donbas “where they stoutly defend Russian policy.”
The following section titled “Pro-Kremlin NGOs and Think Tanks,” also marked as sensitive, discusses the Russian government funded Caucasus Research Network, which helped to spread anti-EU and NATO reports throughout the region. Also discussed is the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative, which was founded by Natalia Veselnitskaya. […]
The Magnitsky Act attracted public attention earlier this year when it was reported Veselnitskaya obtained a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. with the purpose of seeking to undermine the act. It was reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to repeal the act at least in part because it targeted top Russian officials who had committed human rights violations and were the beneficiaries of a $230-million tax fraud that Magnitsky exposed.
Judicial Watch obtained the documents in response to a May 9, 2017, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch vs U.S. Department of State (No. 1:17-cv-00852)).
“These documents show the Obama State Department under John Kerry gathered and sent its own dossier of classified information on Russia to Senator Ben Cardin, a political ally in the U.S. Senate, to undermine President Trump,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton in a statement.
“Judicial Watch will pursue information on who pulled this classified information, who authorized its release, and why was it evidently dumped just days before President Trump’s inauguration,” added Fitton.
This is the second dossier that the Obama State Department has been involved with.
As reported by The Gateway Pundit earlier this month, congressional investigators probing the origins of the Steele dossier have set their sights on a brand new target — The Obama State Department.
Were Obama State Department officials responsible for spreading discredited tidbits compiled in the dossier through the media? Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes may soon find out.
Byron York of the Washington Examiner reports the Obama State Department is now being probed as to whether or not they had a hand in the dossier. York notes Steele was viewed inside the Obama State Department as a valuable source for intelligence on all things Russia. Obama State officials made a habit of disseminating reports the former British spy authored for private clients around the Department.