Watch Washington Post correspondent Philip Bump explain that the reason Donald Trump is threatening the security clearance of midlevel Department of Justice employee Bruce Ohr, who may lose his job as a result, is because Trump is relying on Fox News conspiracy theories over facts or DOJ procedures.
Guest hosting for Brian Williams last night, Steve Kornacki played a clip of Trump calling Ohr “a disgrace” and saying “I suspect I’ll be taking [his security clearance] away very quickly.”
“Who is he and why does the president care so much about him?” Kornacki asked Bump about Ohr.
Bump did not come right out and say that Trump prioritizes Fox über alles but it was implicit in the explanation:
BUMP: He has the president’s attention because Fox News and Sean Hannity have been talking about Bruce Ohr nonstop for the past week or so. That’s why he has the president’s attention.
Why he is important in this drama is that his wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS which was the firm that was hired by this law firm working for the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign which hired Christopher Steele who cobbled together this dossier of reports which alleged various interactions between Trump campaign and Russian nationals.
And so Ohr had had repeated conversations with Steele over the course of 2016 – I forget the exact timeline but this has been something that because there have been repeated efforts to try and find potential weak spots within the Russia investigation – we saw this memo from Rep. Devin Nunes of California which tried to draw attention to the FISA application of Carter Page, we’ve seen other allegations of unmasking, so and so forth. They’re constantly looking for weak spots. This is the new weak spot on which people are focused. And that’s why – because Fox News has been so adamant about reports this week, I think that’s why President Trump has drawn so much attention to it.
The other guest, Mieke Eoyang, a former House Intelligence Committee staffer, noted that Trump is trying to punish Ohr because of his wife, not for anything Ohr did. Punishing people “for actions that are not even their own, that is really problematic," she said.
Yes, and what’s at least as problematic is Trump’s elevation of Hannity – a man without a college degree, much less any expertise in national security – and other television hosts over the Department of Justice. The New York Times has more information about Ohr's situation, including the fact that Ohr could lose his job if he loses his security clearance, that Trump seems to have brushed aside, assuming he bothered to learn it in the first place:
Mr. Ohr was in touch with Mr. Steele, a professional acquaintance whom he had known before Mr. Steele began working for Fusion GPS, through summer and fall 2016, including one conversation in which Mr. Steele said that he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.”
Mr. Ohr eventually told the F.B.I. about his wife’s work and about his conversations with Mr. Steele, passing along information given to him by Mr. Steele that the F.B.I. had already received directly from the former spy. Mr. Steele had worked with the bureau on past cases.
And no evidence has emerged showing that Mr. Ohr or his wife played a role in starting the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation. Rather, it was contacts between a former Trump foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, and Russian intermediaries that prompted the bureau to open the inquiry in late July 2016.
[…]
Former Justice Department officials said that it should be up to the department and its inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, to determine whether Mr. Ohr’s contact with Mr. Steele was improper. It is “not a matter to be judged by the president without Justice Department and inspector general input,” said Eugene Casey, the former chief of the F.B.I.’s Eurasian Organized Crime Unit.
[…]
A largely anonymous part of the 113,000-person Justice Department work force, Mr. Ohr, who did not work on counterintelligence, has not been found to violate the terms of his security clearance. He was given a title demotion this year from his role leading the counternarcotics unit and works in the criminal division on smaller legal matters. A Justice Department spokeswoman would not comment on Mr. Ohr, including on why he lost his more senior title.
Whatever the reason Ohr was demoted, it’s very clear the DOJ has not found he deserves to have his security clearance revoked. More importantly, it’s pretty darned clear Ohr has little to nothing to do with the Mueller investigation and probably never did.
Yet because Trump’s BFFs at Fox News have found Ohr another scapegoat for Operation Collusion Cover-Up, Trump seems ready and willing to ruin the man's career as collateral damage.
Watch Bump's concise summary of Trump's beef against Ohr below, via the link to the August 17, 2018 The 11th Hour with Brian Williams.
Who is Bruce Ohr & why is Trump suddenly talking about him?
Trump is threatening to take away the security clearance of Bruce Ohr, a current DOJ official. Ohr is facing scrutiny from some in the GOP for perceived ties to the Stelle dossier. Jonathan Allen, Mieke Eoyang, & Philip Bump break it all down.
“Has anyone looked at the mistakes that [Trump] made while serving as [President]? He will go down as easily the WORST in history and since being [elected], he has become nothing less than a loudmouth, partisan, political hack who cannot be trusted with the secrets to our country.”