More Details On NYC Terror Suspect Emerge: Here’s What You Need To Know

According to law enforcement officials, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, the 29-year-old Uzbekistan national suspected of mowing down pedestrians and cyclists in Manhattan on Tuesday, was interviewed by Homeland Security agents two years ago about possible ties to suspected terrorists, but the agents could not find enough to open a case on him.

Officials say that the interview was conducted in 2015 by the Department of Homeland Security Investigations Unit, who were looking into Saipov’s possible terror connections. “Saipov’s name and address was listed as a ‘point of contact’ for two different men whose names were entered into the Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit’s list after they came to the United States from ‘threat countries,'” ABC News reports, citing an unnamed federal official.

ABC reports that one of the two men has disappeared and is now being sought as a “suspected terrorist.”

NBC News presented similar information earlier in the day, citing a senior government official who indicated that Saipov “was not on government investigators’ radar, though his name did surface several steps removed from another person who was on their radar.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Saipov allegedly drove a rented Home Depot truck onto a bike path, mowing down pedestrians and cyclists for nearly a mile, before ramming into a school bus near the World Trade Center. He was shot in the abdomen by a NYPD officer and currently remains in critical care. His rampage left at least 8 dead and 11 wounded.

Police say that Saipov was yelling “Allahu Akbar” as he exited his vehicle and that they found images of ISIS flags and a handwritten note declaring “ISIS lives forever” in the truck.

After Saipov underwent surgery for his wounds, investigators spoke with him in the hospital. A senior official said that he showed no remorse for his murderous act, and in fact seemed “almost boastful about it,” according to NBC. Though Saipov was not himself on the government’s radar, said an official, his name was connected to another suspect who was:

A senior official with direct knowledge of the investigation tells NBC News Saipov himself was not on government investigators’ radar, though his name did surface several steps removed from another person who was on their radar.

Saipov’s social media activity showed that he actively sought and engaged with radical Islamic propaganda and sympathized with ISIS. Officials believe Saipov may have planned the attack; his role as an Uber driver for the last six months allowed him to be familiar with the area.

Saipov gained entry into the country in 2010 under that controversial “diversity visa lottery” program, which offers visas to immigrants from countries that send relatively few immigrants to the U.S., as opposed to a merit-based system. On Wednesday, President Trump called for an end to the program and condemned Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer for his role in developing it.

Trump also announced via Twitter that he has “ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program,” adding, “Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!”

This article has been updated as new details have emerged.

via Daily Wire

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NBC News Writes First Muslim ‘Backlash’ Story Just 6 Hours After Deadly New York Terror Attack…

More to follow. Via Daily Caller: NBC News began constructing a favorite media narrative in the hours following Tuesday’s terror attack in New York City, posting a story about potential “backlash” against Muslims just six hours after a Muslim man mowed down tourists on a bike path in Manhattan. Shortly after police identified the suspect […]

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CBS Accused of Photoshopping NYC Terrorist’s Picture to Make Him Look White

On Tuesday Islamist Sayfullo Saipov, a 29=year-old immigrant from Uzbekistan, murdered eight people in a truck attack in New York City.

Saipov entered the US under the “Diversity Visa program” in 2010.


Sayfullo Saipov was shot in the butt by police before his arrest.

CBS released a photo of the killer after his arrest. It appears to be an image from his Florida driver’s license.

Sayfullo looks like a bearded caucasian in the CBS photo.

But now CBS is being accused of photoshopping Saipov’s photo.

On the left is the actual picture of 29-year-old Saipov; on the right is the version of the picture that CBS broadcast, used in newscasts and also put on their website.

Notice anything different?
Via Conservative Treehouse:

The post CBS Accused of Photoshopping NYC Terrorist’s Picture to Make Him Look White appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Hah-Hah! Man Trolls Anderson Cooper Shouting “CNN Is Fake News!” On Live TV (VIDEO)

Hah-Hah! Man Trolls Anderson Cooper Shouting “CNN Is Fake News!” On Live TV (VIDEO)

On Tuesday evening, CNN host Anderson Cooper was reporting live from Lower Manhattan on the terror attack, when a man interrupted the broadcast yelling “CNN is fake news!” and “Anderson Cooper is fake news!” Ever since President Trump labeled the news outlet “fake news,” the term has stuck to CNN like glue. 

Video credit: Mark F

Daily Caller reports:

A random person walked into the frame during a live broadcast on the streets of New York on CNN Tuesday, yelling “CNN is fake news!”

Cooper was asking, “How likely is it that there could be a video, kind of a martyrdom video so-called, which is what we saw in, I think when the Charlie Hebdo attacks, if memory serves me, there were some, and some of the attacks in Europe that we’ve seen…”

A pedestrian walked into the camera feed and said, “CNN is fake news! CNN is fake news! Anderson Cooper is fake news!”

A CNN crew was on the ground in New York due to a suspected Islamist terror attack in Manhattan Tuesday.

Earlier in the broadcast, a man held up a sign that read “CNN is ISIS.”

Photo credit: Daily Mail UK

CNN would be taken more seriously if it focused on reporting the truth, rather than its left-leaning narrative. Not only was Anderson Cooper’s coverage marred by trolls, but the network suffered some self-inflicted wounds as well. Despite having a physical description of the terrorist Sayfullo Saipov, CNN’s Crime and Justice reporter Shimon Prokupecz declined to reveal it, as The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft reported yesterday.

Prokupecz: “Police know who he is. They have a description of him. I’m not going to share that at the moment.”

Video Credit: Washington Free Beacon:

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Obama Re-Emerges To Pitch Insurance

And yet, he took away mine, as he did to thousands if not millions of others who had plans they liked and doctors they liked.

Yes, I could pay hundreds for another plan. That doesn’t include my doctor or the things my prior plan did. But it wouldn’t cover me until my 6500 deductible is satisfied. So basically it’s him forcing me to give up my money while getting nothing back for it unless I have a catastrophic event.

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Terror Suspect Sayfullo Saipov Passed Uber Background Check, Drove for 6 Months

NEW YORK (AP) — The man who police say transformed a New York City bike path into a terror scene was an Uzbekistan native who made 1,400 trips as an Uber driver and formed two commercial truck businesses.

A family friend called Sayfullo Saipov hard-working and neighbors said he would play with the children in a Florida apartment complex. President Trump derided the suspect as “sick and deranged.”

Details of the life of the suspect — who had connections to many places across the U.S. but no known social media accounts — have begun to emerge after Tuesday’s attack that killed eight people and injured at least 11.

Here’s what is known so far:

___

A YOUNG IMMIGRANT

Officials who were not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity identified Saipov as the attacker and said he is 29 and originally from Uzbekistan.

He came to the U.S. legally in 2010, the officials said, and acquaintances said he lived first in Ohio after his arrival.

Dilnoza Abdusamatova, said Saipov briefly stayed with his family in a Cincinnati suburb upon immigrating.

“He always used to work,” Abdusamatova told The Cincinnati Enquirer. “He wouldn’t go to parties or anything. He only used to come home and rest and leave and go back to work.”

A man in a rented pickup truck mowed down pedestrians and cyclists along a busy bike path near the World Trade Center memorial on Tuesday, killing at least eight and seriously injuring 11 in what the mayor called “a particularly cowardly act of terror”. (Nov. 1)

A marriage license filed in Summit County, Ohio, lists a man by the name of Sayfulloh Saipov marrying Nozima Odilova on April 12, 2013. It said the couple were living in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, at the time.

The license listed Saipov as a truck driver. His wife is about six years younger. Both listed Tashkent, Uzbekistan, as their hometown.

___

FLORIDA

Authorities said Saipov had a Florida driver’s license and some public records showed an address for him at a Tampa apartment complex.

Residents at that complex said FBI agents came by Tuesday evening and conducted interviews.

Michael Roberts, 30, an overnight shift worker, said he was asleep when the agents showed up at about 5:30 p.m. but that they interviewed his cousin. He said both he and his cousin had moved in only a week ago and had never heard of Saipov.

A friend who met Saipov in Florida, Kobiljon Matkarov, told The New York Times and the New York Post that he seemed like a “very good guy.”

“My kids like him too. He is always playing with them,” Matkarov told the Post.

___

NEW JERSEY

Officials said Saipov was living recently in New Jersey, where he allegedly rented a Home Depot pickup truck an hour before driving it onto the bike path.

On Tuesday night, police investigating the deadly rampage surrounded a white Toyota minivan with Florida plates parked in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Passaic, New Jersey.

The van was parked near the company’s rental trucks

A police officer stands near a vehicle, left, inside a perimeter in the parking lot of a Home Depot store, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017, in Passaic, N.J. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Law enforcement cordoned off an apartment building in Paterson, New Jersey, early Wednesday. Officers also searched a garage. The building’s manager told The Record newspaper that Saipov lived with his wife and two children in a two-bedroom apartment.

___

UBER DRIVER

The ride-hailing company Uber said Saipov passed its background check and drove for the service for six months, making more than 1,400 trips.

The company said it was in touch with the FBI and offered its assistance and that it was reviewing Saipov’s driving history but found no related safety reports.

___

COMMERCIAL TRUCK DRIVER

Records show Saipov was a commercial truck driver who formed a pair of businesses in Ohio.

The first business, Sayf Motors Inc., used the address of a family friend near Cincinnati with whom Saipov had stayed for a couple of weeks after his arrival in the country.

The second, Bright Auto LLC, used an address near Cleveland.

A trucking industry website listed Saipov at a Paterson, New Jersey, address that authorities were searching Tuesday night. Court records related to trucking-related infractions list Saipov with addresses in Paterson and the Cleveland suburbs.

According to the records, Saipov was ticketed for not having the right brakes on his vehicle in Platte County, Missouri, near Kansas City in late 2015. A warrant was issued for Saipov’s arrest in April 2016 when he missed a hearing on the case. He resolved it in November 2016 by pleading guilty and paying $200 in fines and court costs.

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Exclusive – Rep. Steve King: Protecting the Unborn Reaffirms Jefferson’s Truths

Exclusive – Rep. Steve King: Protecting the Unborn Reaffirms Jefferson’s Truths



In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson articulated fundamental truths upon which the United States of America was founded. These truths included that each of us possesses a set of unalienable rights granted by God. Included among these God-given prioritized rights are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Recognition of these inherent rights once helped propel our people into revolt against a tyrant. Respect for our God-given rights is an essential component of our American Civilization. Congress has a responsibility to ensure the Jeffersonian Truths of the Declaration of Independence are protected for current and future generations of Americans.

Of these rights, the right to life received primacy in Jefferson’s list for a reason: without the right to life, how would an individual’s rights become vested? How could any other rights be realized if one’s very life could be taken away by another who is exercising their right to liberty or pursuit of happiness? Jefferson articulated a prioritized set of rights; first the right to life, then the right to liberty, then the pursuit of happiness. Each right was carefully prioritized in sequential order because the right to life trumps all other rights. No one can take a human life in exercising their liberties and no one can take a life or take away the liberty of another in their pursuit of happiness. If the right to life can be taken by another, then no right of anyone is protected.

Regrettably, our nation has seemingly forgotten the importance of adhering to Jefferson’s vision. Instead, we have allowed a new tyranny composed of nine unelected Justices on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to erase our foundational truths. We have traded off the brilliance of Thomas Jefferson’s specificity for a vague and inherently meaningless set of legalistic “emanations” and “penumbras” seemingly conjured out of thin air whenever activists on the Court want to replace Jefferson’s self-evident truths with SCOTUS’s black-robed judicial activism.

It’s time that Americans reclaimed our birthright, including the right to life, from the bloody hands of those who have betrayed Jefferson’s vision, resulting in the abortions of 60 million unique gifts from God. To this end, I have introduced H.R. 490, the Heartbeat Protection Act. H.R. 490 cuts through the obscuring haze of illogical judicial rhetoric and returns the right to life to the primacy our Founding Fathers intended. Under this legislation, abortionists who end the life of an unborn child whose heart is beating will be subject to imprisonment and/or a significant financial penalty. As a matter of law, the bill will ensure that if a heartbeat can be detected, the baby is protected.

By listening for a child’s detectable heartbeat, we can save the lives of over 95% of aborted babies in this country, and we will extend protection to the unborn to as early as 6-8 weeks from conception. What better way to recognize the unalienable right to life than to ensure that all babies with a beating heart are protected in the womb where all our lives began?

Currently, there are 170 members of Congress signed on to the Heartbeat Protection Act because the bill speaks to the conscience of the American people, and because these members understand we may get only one opportunity in our lifetimes to save the lives of the next 60 million babies who will otherwise be tossed onto the ghastly heap of the sins of our nation. There is not a better time than now or a more urgent time than the present to extend protections to unborn children. We have a President who would sign the bill and who is forming a conservative majority on the Supreme Court with one or two appointments imminent. No doubt pro-abortion forces will litigate the Heartbeat Bill to the Supreme Court. The court they go before now is likely to have one or two more Constitutionalists.

Let’s uproot and end the death and destruction of abortion now before millions more children are forced to suffer because we lost sight of our nation’s core principles and turned a blind eye to their God-given, unalienable right to life. Congress should follow the lead of Thomas Jefferson and take this opportunity to declare its own independence from a deadly edict issued by judicial tyrants in Roe v. Wade. Congress can do so by passing the Heartbeat Protection Act immediately and sending it to President Trump for his signature.

Congressman Steve King represents Iowa’s 4th District. He is a member of the House Judiciary, House Agriculture, and House Small Business committees.

The Heartbeat Protection Act will receive a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday before the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice.

The hearing, which begins at 11:30 am eastern, can be watched here:

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The Good Guy Who Used a Gun to Stop NYC Terrorist Sayfullo Saipov

The Good Guy Who Used a Gun to Stop NYC Terrorist Sayfullo Saipov



The New York City terror attack ended when terrorist Sayfullo Saipov was shot by a good guy with a gun, NYPD officer Ryan Nash.

Nash was in the area of the attack on October 31 because he was responding to earlier reports of a suicidal teenage girl at Stuyvesant High School.

According to the Daily Mail, it turns out the girl was not suicidal but Nash’s presence was fortuitous, as it allowed him to be face to face with Saipov after the terrorist exited his truck. Nash saw the two weapons in Saipov’s hand–now known to be a BB gun and paint ball gun–and ordered him to drop them. When Saipov refused orders Nash shot him, ending the terror threat.

NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill praised Nash, saying, “‘I want to commend the response of our NYPD officer that was on post near the location who stopped the carnage moments after it began.”

The New York Daily News reports that 28-year-old Nash is “a Long Island resident [wh0] joined the NYPD in July 2012.” He arrived at Stuyvesant High School, outside of which the terror attack occurred, about 30 minutes before Saipov began running over innocents with his rental truck.

“Nash rushed to the terror scene” after Saipov crashed into a school bus and used his gun to stop Saipov in his tracks.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com

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WATCH: Congress Holds Hearing on Banning Abortions of Babies with Heartbeats

WATCH: Congress Holds Hearing on Banning Abortions of Babies with Heartbeats



Congress will hold a hearing Wednesday on a bill that prevents abortions on babies with heartbeats, which are usually detectable after six weeks.

Introduced by Congressman Steve KingH.R. 490, also known as the Heartbeat Protection Act, will receive a hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice.

The hearing begins at 11:30 a.m. eastern.

“Since Roe v. Wade was unconstitutionally decided in 1973, nearly 60 million innocent babies’ lives have been ended by the abortion industry, all with a rubber stamp by the federal government,” King said in a press release.

“Human life, beginning at the moment of conception, is sacred in all of its forms and we must protect the lives of voiceless innocents. The Heartbeat Protection Act, H.R. 490, will require all physicians, before conducting an abortion, to detect the heartbeat of the unborn child and if a heartbeat is detected, the baby is protected. I welcome this opportunity to have my legislation given in depth consideration by Congress and to bring attention to the importance of preserving each of these precious lives.”

The following witnesses are expected to testify, according to the release:

1. Dr. Kathi Aultman– Dr. Aultman is a board certified Ob/Gyn, a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and an Associate Scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. The Charlotte Lozier Institute is the 501(c)(3) research and education institute of the Susan B. Anthony List, an organization dedicated to pursuing policies that will reduce and ultimately end abortion.

2. Star Parker– Parker is the Founder and President of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), a public policy think tank that promotes market-based solutions to fight poverty. Parker has a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and International Business from Woodbury University, has regularly testified before Congress, and has received numerous awards and commendations for her work on public policy issues.

3. David Forte, Professor of Law at Cleveland State University.  Forte holds degrees from Harvard College, Manchester University, England, the University of Toronto, and Columbia University. Professor Forte was the inaugural holder of the Charles R. Emrick, Jr.- Calfee Halter & Griswold Endowed Chair at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University.

Amanda House is Breitbart News’ Deputy Political Editor. You can follow her on Twitter at @AmandaLeeHouse.

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Day Seven: John McCain Continues to Dodge Questions on Role in Trump Hoax Dossier

(New York) Sen. John McCain has still not responded to questions raised in light of the disclosure last Tuesday that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) helped fund research utilized in the infamous, largely discredited 35-page dossier on President Donald Trump.

In December, it was McCain who notoriously passed the controversial dossier produced by the Washington firm Fusion GPS to then FBI Director James Comey, whose agency reportedly utilized the dossier as a partial basis for its probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

McCain’s office did not respond to repeated Breitbart News phone and email requests over the course of last week and this week seeking comment on whether the Arizona senator was aware that the material he passed to the FBI was paid for by the DNC and Clinton’s campaign.

McCain’s office also did not respond to requests for information on how he first obtained the dossier, which is filled with discredited charges.

A spokesperson for McCain confirmed by telephone that the Breitbart News requests were received.

The Washington Post last Tuesday reported that in April 2016, attorney Marc E. Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained Fusion GPS to conduct the questionable research on behalf of both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Through Perkins Coie, Clinton’s campaign and the DNC continued to fund Fusion GPS until October 2016, days before Election Day, the Post reported.

Fusion GPS went on to hire former intelligence agent Christopher Steele to do the purported research. Steele later conceded in court documents that part of his work still needed to be verified.

Last week, the Washington Free Beacon confirmed it originally retained Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on numerous GOP candidates, including Trump. Free Beacon Chairman Michael Goldfarb served as deputy communications director on McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.

The Free Beacon denied any involvement with the dossier or Steele. “During the 2016 election cycle we retained Fusion GPS to provide research on multiple candidates in the Republican presidential primary, just as we retained other firms to assist in our research into Hillary Clinton,” wrote Goldfarb in a joint statement with the site’s editor-in-chief, Matthew Continetti.

They continued: “The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele.”

On January 10, CNN was first to report, based on leaked information, that the contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings one week earlier to then-President Obama and President-elect Trump.

Just after CNN’s January 10 report on the classified briefings about the dossier, BuzzFeed published the dossier’s full unverified contents.

Earlier this month, McCain denied providing the dossier to BuzzFeed and said that he only gave the material to the FBI. “I gave it to no one except for the director of the FBI. I don’t know why you’re digging this up now,” McCain told the Daily Caller during what the news website described as a testy exchange.

It is not immediately clear how McCain obtained the dossier in the first place.

A January 11 statement from McCain attempted to explain why he provided the documents to the FBI but did not mention how he came to possess the dossier or whether he knew who funded it.

“Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the director of the FBI,” McCain said at the time. “That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue.”

Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow, said McCain first consulted him about the claims inside the dossier at a security conference in Canada shortly after last November’s presidential election. Wood stated that McCain had obtained the documents from the senator’s own sources. “I told him I was aware of what was in the report but I had not read it myself, that it might be true, it might be untrue. I had no means of judging really,” Wood further told BBC Radio 4 in January.

In March, Vanity Fair raised questions about the alleged involvement of David J. Kramer, a former State Department official, in helping to obtain the dossier directly from Steele. The issue was also raised in a lawsuit filed against Steele by one of the individuals named in the dossier.

Meanwhile, CNN reported that in private interviews with Congressional investigators prior to the Post’s report revealing Perkins Coie’s reported payment to Fusion GPS, former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and former DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz both denied that they were aware of any arrangement to fund Fusion GPS’s opposition research. CNN reported that Elias was seated next to Podesta during the private interview.

That report prompted former CIA Director Leon Panetta to advocate for a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation of both the Clinton campaign and the DNC regarding whether they had any knowledge of the payment to Fusion GPS to produce the dossier.

“Well, it certainly makes the situation very awkward,” Panetta said of Elias’s alleged involvement. “If you’re testifying and saying you have no knowledge, and the attorney sitting next to you is one of those that knew what was involved here, I think it does raise an issue that the committee is going to have to look at and determine just exactly who knew what.”

The dossier contains wild and unproven claims that the Russians had information regarding Trump and sordid sexual acts, including the widely mocked claim that Trump hired prostitutes and had them urinate on a hotel room bed. It also claimed there was an exchange of information between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.

Those allegations remain unsubstantiated following numerous public hearings. Indeed, former CIA Director John Brennan made clear in testimony last May that after viewing all of the evidence that was available to him on the Russia probe he was not aware of any collusion between Russia and members of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Dossier was reportedly basis for Obama administration moves

According to the BBC, the dossier served as a “roadmap” for the FBI’s investigation into claims of coordination between Moscow and members of Trump’s presidential campaign during the Obama administration.

In April, CNN reported that the dossier served as part of the FBI’s justification for seeking the FISA court’s reported approval to clandestinely monitor the communications of Carter Page, the American oil industry investor who was tangentially and briefly associated with Trump’s presidential campaign.

Senior Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have reportedly requested that the FBI and Department of Justice turn over applications for any warrants to monitor the communications of U.S. citizens associated with the investigation into alleged Russia interference in the 2016 presidential election.

In testimony last month, Comey repeatedly refused to answer questions about his agency’s ties to the dossier.

In testimony last month to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Comey admitted he pushed back against a request from President Donald Trump to possibly investigate the origins of “salacious material” that the agency possessed in the course of its investigation into alleged Russian interference.

Dossier discredited

Major questions have been raised as to the veracity of the dossier, large sections of which have been discredited.

Citing a “Kremlin insider,” the dossier, which misspelled the name of a Russian diplomat, claimed that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen held “secret meetings” with Kremlin officials in Prague in August 2016.

That charge unraveled after Cohen revealed he had never traveled to Prague, calling the story “totally fake, totally inaccurate.” The Atlantic confirmed Cohen’s whereabouts in New York and California during the period the dossier claimed that Cohen was in Prague. Cohen reportedly produced his passport showing he had not traveled to Prague.

During testimony in May, the FBI’s Comey confirmed that the basis for the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia allegedly wanted Trump in office was not because the billionaire was, as Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) claimed during a hearing, “ensnared in” Russia’s “web of patronage” – just as the dossier alleged. Instead, the FBI chief provided two primary reasons for Russia’s alleged favoring of Trump over Clinton during the 2016 presidential race.

One reason, according to Comey, was that Putin “hated” Clinton and would have favored any Republican opponent. The second reason, Comey explained, was that Putin made an assessment that it would be easier to make a deal with a businessman than someone from the political class.

Comey’s statements are a far cry from the conspiracies fueled by the dossier alleging Putin held blackmail information over the billionaire.

Citing current and former government officials, the New Yorker reported the dossier prompted skepticism among intelligence community members, with the publication quoting one member saying it was a “nutty” piece of evidence to submit to a U.S. president.

Steele’s work has been questioned by former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, who currently works at the Hillary Clinton-tied Beacon Global Strategies LLC.

NBC News reported on Morell’s questions about Steele’s credibility:

Morell, who was in line to become CIA director if Clinton won, said he had seen no evidence that Trump associates cooperated with Russians. He also raised questions about the dossier written by a former British intelligence officer, which alleged a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. …

Morell pointed out that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said on Meet the Press on March 5 that he had seen no evidence of a conspiracy when he left office January 20.

“That’s a pretty strong statement by General Clapper,” Morell said.

Regarding Steele’s dossier, Morell stated, “Unless you know the sources, and unless you know how a particular source acquired a particular piece of information, you can’t judge the information — you just can’t.”

Morell charged the dossier “doesn’t take you anywhere, I don’t think.”

“I had two questions when I first read it. One was, How did Chris talk to these sources? I have subsequently learned that he used intermediaries.”

Morell continued:

And then I asked myself, why did these guys provide this information, what was their motivation? And I subsequently learned that he paid them. That the intermediaries paid the sources and the intermediaries got the money from Chris. And that kind of worries me a little bit because if you’re paying somebody, particularly former FSB [Russian intelligence] officers, they are going to tell you truth and innuendo and rumor, and they’re going to call you up and say, “Hey, let’s have another meeting, I have more information for you,” because they want to get paid some more.

I think you’ve got to take all that into consideration when you consider the dossier.

Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

Written with additional research by Joshua Klein.

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