Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska has done The Deal of Deals. Newly released DOJ records show that practically everyone involved in the Russiagate! inquest from Christopher Steele to Robert Mueller and Bruce Ohr at DOJ have been working all along for Oleg. Some of them knew, others who should have -- particularly the Judge of the FISC Court who considered the October 2016 application to wiretap Carter Page and others in Trump's circle -- apparently, not so much.

Meet the new Boss of Bosses:

The only ones who don't know this yet are the American people. Oleg even ended up with a 100% clear title to Rusal. That judgement is worth billions and billions, and its all his, or his proxies . . . . if only that damned Russian state would move out of the way. Not yet a done deal, yet.

Here it is kiddies, the whole case with helpful headers.

First, the latest news:

Emails show 2016 links among Steele, Ohr, Simpson — with Russian oligarch
(Deripaska) in the Background

Emails in 2016 between former British spy Christopher Steele and Justice Department official Bruce Ohr suggest Steele was deeply concerned about the legal status of a Putin-linked Russian oligarch, and at times seemed to be advocating on the oligarch’s behalf, in the same time period Steele worked on collecting the Russia-related allegations against Donald Trump that came to be known as the Trump dossier. The emails show Steele and Ohr were in frequent contact, that they intermingled talk about Steele’s research and the oligarch’s affairs, and that Glenn Simpson, head of the dirt-digging group Fusion GPS that hired Steele to compile the dossier, was also part of the ongoing conversation.

The emails, given to Congress by the Justice Department, began on Jan. 12, 2016, when Steele sent Ohr a New Year’s greeting. Steele brought up the case of Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska (referred to in various emails as both OD and OVD), who was at the time seeking a visa to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in the United States. Years earlier, the U.S. revoked Deripaska’s visa, reportedly on the basis of suspected involvement with Russian organized crime. Deripaska was close to Paul Manafort, the short-term Trump campaign chairman now on trial for financial crimes, and this year was sanctioned in the wake of Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election. “I heard from Adam WALDMAN [a Deripaska lawyer/lobbyist] yesterday that OD is applying for another official US visa ice [sic] APEC business at the end of February,” Steele wrote in the Jan . 12 email. Steele said Deripaska was being “encouraged by the Agency guys who told Adam that the USG [United States Government] stance on [Deripaska] is softening.” Steele concluded: “A positive development it seems.”

[Related: Devin Nunes says ‘pay close attention’: Top Obama DOJ official Bruce Ohr will become ‘more and more important’]

Steele emailed again on Feb . 8 to alert Ohr that “our old friend OD apparently has been granted another official [emphasis in original] visa to come to the US later this month.” Steele wrote, “As far as I’m concerned, this is good news all round although as before, it would be helpful if you could monitor it and let me know if any complications arise.” Ohr replied that he knew about Deripaska’s visa, and “to the extent I can I will keep an eye on the situation.” Steele again asked to meet anytime Ohr was in the U .K . or Western Europe. Steele wrote again on Feb . 21 in an email headlined “Re: OVD – Visit To The US.” Steele told Ohr he had talked to Waldman and to Paul Hauser, who was Deripaska’s London lawyer. Steele reported that there there would be a U.S. government meeting on Deripaska that week — “an inter-agency meeting on him this week which I guess you will be attending.” Steele said he was “circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting” on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a “tool” of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email, “as he has asked, for legal reasons I understand, for all such reporting be filtered through him (to you at DoJ and others).”

Deripaska’s rehabilitation was a good thing, Steele wrote: “We reckon therefore that the forthcoming OVD contact represents a good opportunity for the USG.” Ohr responded by saying, “Thanks Chris! This is extremely interesting. I hope we can follow up in the next few weeks as you suggest.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/emails-show-2016-links-among-ste...

Here are the bottom-line takeaway from these early 2016 emails. Before he wrote the infamous “Dirty Dossier”, Christopher Steele was not only in frequent communication with Bruce Orr, whose wife worked for Glenn Simpson at Fusion GPS, Steele was also advocating for Oleg Deripaska, and he indicates he had worked with Bruce Ohr previously in that role.

Chris Steele: Oleg Derispaska “not a tool of the Kremlin” – whose tool, then?

In Steele’s view, Oleg Deripaska “was not a tool of the Kremlin.” Steele’s email to Ohr says that the Agency (CIA) had indicated to Deripaska’s Washington lobbyist, Adam Waldman, its interest in again allowing Deripaska admission to the United States. Steele states,

“As far as I’m concerned, this is good news all round although as before, it would be helpful if you could monitor it and let me know if any complications arise.”

Private Intelligence and Unregistered Lobbying Services for Deripaska

This inside view of the cheerfully cooperative relationship between Steele, Ohr, Simpson and Deripaska provides an entirely different take on the personalities and cooperative public-private partnership behind the creation of the Dossier than has been until now revealed. Previously, it was assumed by most Americans that Deripaska was nothing but an agent of Putin. In at least that respect, and in the cover-up of the role of ex-MI6 Officer Steele, Assn’t Attorney Gen’l Ohr and Fusion GPS Director Simpson providing intelligence and lobbying services for hire to Oleg Deripaska, has been intentionally obscured and falsified.

It turns out that Steele’s London private spy agency, Orbis Business Intelligence, had been working for Paul Hauser, Deripaska’s London Lawyer, who is also referenced in these newly-released emails. A biography of Steele by Jane Meyer published in the New Yorker in March revealed: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/christopher-steele-the-man...

Orbis promises confidentiality, and releases no information on its clientele. Some of its purported clients, such as a major Western oil company, are conventional corporations. Others are controversial, including a London law firm representing the interests of Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire victor of Russia’s aluminum wars

So, indeed, Steele’s firm was being paid by Oleg Deripaska, who was only last week awarded clear title by a London Court to Rusal, the largest metal concern in Russia, in a multi-billion dollar law suit against other Oligarchs dating back to 2007. Steele has been working for Oleg for years before he took on another client, Glenn Simpson, owner of Fusion GPS, which also employed Nellie Ohr, the wife of former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, who was Steele’s official liaison at DOJ. Private Intelligence and Influence Peddling within the Department of Justice and Unregistered Lobbying for a Russian Oligarch – couldn’t be illegal, could it? Yes, it could be.

Information Withheld From FISA Warrant

Here’s yet another side to this. Steele had told Ohr that he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” Mr. and Mrs. Ohr’s relationship to Steele was not included in the FISA applications for surveillance of Carter Page. Indeed, we now have another piece of it. The FISA Court apparently was also not informed that the author of the Steele Memo, that made up a major part of the warrant application to spy on the Trump Campaign, was also on the payroll of the Russian Oligarch.

Robert Mueller's Peculiar Conflict of Interest

Here’s the kicker line that many may not know, Deripaska had a falling out with Putin in 2009 when Oleg, his fortune then reduced from $50 billion to a mere $5.9 billion, was publicly humiliated after Putin forced Derepaska to sign papers in front of a crowd of cameras ceding control over a number of his shut-down factories to the Russian state. Robert Mueller then came to his aid when the FBI allowed the Oligarch to enter the US for the first time in three years, which allowed Oleg to move his accounts safely into several New York banks. Oleg made some new friends. Neat.

Then there's FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who first worked with Deripaska in the 2009 CIA-related case, after which Deripaska was granted entry to conduct his in-person U.S. banking matters. Recently released FBI records show McCabe met Deripaska early one morning in Oleg's U.S. house two months before the election seeking dirt on Trump. http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/387625-mueller-may-have-a-conflic...

Five years later, after another business loss in the Ukraine, Deripaska sued Paul Manafort for $26 million in a 2014 court case in Cyprus that provided Robert Mueller with a large part of the evidence for his current indictment against Manafort. Payback. Sweet.

But, some serious people are beginning to ask serious questions about the Bureau's relationship with Deripaska and why Deripaska was left out of the warrant applications: https://www.dailywire.com/news/30632/bombshell-muellers-fbi-worked-close...

According to Solomon [in The Hill], Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz thinks Mueller has a serious conflict of interest because his FBI was working with Deripaska, who is a witness in the ongoing probe.

"The real question becomes whether it was proper to leave [Deripaska] out of the Manafort indictment and whether that omission was to avoid the kind of transparency that is really required by the law," Dershowitz told The Hill.

Former Clinton Justice Department lawyer Melanie Sloan told The Hill that an even more significant issue for Mueller is that the FBI operation involving Deripaska might have been illegal.

“It’s possible the bureau’s arrangement with Mr. Deripaska violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the government from accepting voluntary services,” Sloan said.
Solomon also spoke with George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, who said, "If the operation with Deripaska contravened federal law, this figure could be viewed as a potential embarrassment for Mueller. The question is whether he could implicate Mueller in an impropriety."

Oleg Deripaska has some powerful allies in the West, where he has become an expert at manipulating perceptions. Boy, does he have us scoped out. Even with one eye closed.