Atty Gen. Jeff Sessions confirms to Howie Carr: DOJ investigating Bruce Ohr’s Steele Dossier ties
The U.S. attorney general told Boston talk show host Howie Carr the Justice Department is investigating career government attorney Bruce G. Ohr regarding his professional conduct, which already cost him his position as associate deputy attorney general with an office at “Main Justice” and could lead to his termination.
“I hate to second guess you, Mr. Attorney General, but why isn’t he just fired,” asked Howie Carr, who hosts the syndicated program, which is the top-rated talk show in Boston and New England.
“It now turns out that he was meeting with the people who did this dirty dossier–I mean these people, who were paid and during the campaign last year, he was meeting with people, who were basically taking money from Hillary Clinton to produce this fake dossier–shouldn’t that be a firing offense?” he asked.
The “dossier” is the collection of negative stories about Donald J. Trump that purport to document his personal and business dealings with Russians. The dossier was produced by GPS Fusion, a Washington-based opposition research firm, and supplemented by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
Attorney General Jefferson B. “Jeff” Sessions, the country’s top law enforcement officer, told Carr he knows Ohr and has worked with him in his capacity leading the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, a position he continues to hold.
The former Alabama senator said he did not know for certain if Ohr’s interactions with political opponents of the president were a firing office.
“We’re going to look at that,” he said. “It is being looked at and if it requires discipline it will be carried out.”
As a career employee of the federal government, Ohr has rights that must be respected, he said.
“But, he has been removed from a key, sensitive spot and–I guess that’s all I can tell you at this time now,” he said. “It is not a little matter and we’re going to look at it, I can guarantee you that.”
Next, Carr moved onto the subject of leaks damaging to the president. “Do you understand how frustrated we are about this?” he asked. “There are never any pro-Trump leaks–these people in the Deep State, they seem to be running amok, when are you guys going to get a handle on this?”
“Well, I do, I do feel the frustration and I do think people have a right to be concerned, but often we are not able to do something the very day something hits the newspapers–we’ve got to work at it a little bit to make sure we know what we are doing.”
Carr asked the attorney general why the president or the administration release the records of the FBI and Justice Department’s surveillance of members of the Trump campaign and his transition team. “Why are they stonewalling these congressional committees?”are tey
“Things involving FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, do have strict laws involving security and not making those things public,” he said.
“Some of the problems that Congress is complaining about is leaking or revealing information that shouldn’t’ve been revealed–we need to do the right thing,” he said.
“We need to go as far as we possibly can in cooperating with Congress and we are going to do that–Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein is working on that–we’re going to go as far as we can,” he said.”
Sessions said he is very much in control of the Justice Departement but Rosenstein is the “attorney general,” when it comes to dealing with Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
“Can you un-recuse yourself at some point to reign these people in–the Deep State people, the Clinton people, the Obama people–people like Strzok and his girlfriend Lisa Page?” Carr asked.
Peter P. Strzok Jr., one of the FBI’s most senior counter-intelligence experts, was Mueller’s second-in-command until his dismissal during the summer. His paramour Page is a Justice Department attorney, who was also dismissed from the Mueller team. Page returned to her staff position working for FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Strzok is currently assigned to the FBI’s human resources section.
Sessions said he had to recuse himself from the probe of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government because he was a member of the Trump campaign team and the recusal was in keeping with the DOJ’s code of professional conduct.
As for Strzok, the attorney general said Mueller made the decision to remove him from the probe. “He did remove Strzok and hopefully, anything else that deserves action–will be taken.”
Listen to the entire segment with Howie Carr and Attorney General Jefferson B. “Jeff” Sessions here:
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