Independent:

Towards the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, a binder holding sensitive classified information regarding Russian election interference disappeared.

The incident, first reported by CNN, spread alarm among intelligence officials that the information could be shared more widely than intended – information including national security secrets from the US and its closest allies.

Senate Intelligence Committee leaders were briefed on the matter last year. But in the more than two years that have passed since the end of the Trump administration, the intelligence doesn’t appear to have been located.

It is hard to tell if this pertains to one of the other dumb stupid butthurt loser Establishment tin foil hat conspiracy theory coup attempts, or if this is a brand new dumb stupid butthurt loser Establishment tin foil hat conspiracy theory coup attempt altogether.

The Washington Post:

Donald Trump appeared in a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday for a moment unprecedented in American history, pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts related to payments to silence an adult film actress during his 2016 presidential campaign — a scheme that prosecutors said amounted to an illegal conspiracy to win the White House.

Fulfilling his campaign promise to persecute a political opponent, Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has finally launched the much-awaited fourth official coup attempt against President Trump.

New York Post:

US Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) — the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, which took Sullivan’s testimony — said, “It seems like a lot of the key Russia hoaxers fell upward and got promotions in the Biden administration.”

The Washington Times:

First came charges against FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty last year to falsifying information presented to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to win permission to spy on the Trump campaign. Second indicted was Washington lawyer Michael Sussmann, who hid his Clinton campaign affiliation when plying the FBI with Trump-Russia collusion allegations contained in a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele and funded by the Clinton campaign.

Third is Mr. Danchenko, a Russian employed in 2016 by the liberal Brookings Institution. The indictment charges him with five counts of lying to the FBI regarding the source of “derogatory information … concerning Trump’s purported ties to Russia (the ‘Company Reports’).” The information became the basis for the so-called Steele dossier.

If three’s the charm, No. 4 along the investigative trail could prove the lodestone, a perfidious power within the Clinton circle. Mr. Danchenko falsely denied having communicated with an individual who was “a long-time participant in Democratic Party politics and was then an executive at a U.S. public relations firm (‘PR Executive-l’),” reads the Danchenko indictment. “In truth and in fact, and as Danchenko well knew, Danchenko sourced one or more specific allegations in the Company Reports anonymously to PR Executive-l.”

News reports identify “PR Executive-l” as Charles H. Dolan Jr., a long-time Democrat and adviser to Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaigns. From the communication links already exposed, it is clear that investigators believe Mr. Dolan trafficked lies about Trump-Russia collusion. Mr. Danchenko passed the falsehoods to Mr. Steele, who incorporated them in his dossier. Mr. Sussmann echoed the lies with his whispers to the FBI. Then, the anti-Trump material served as the investigative basis for FBI lawyer Clinesmith’s deception of the FISA court, which led to the government spying on the Trump campaign and subsequent efforts to destroy a sitting president.

CNN:

Steele reaffirmed his confidence in the most controversial claim in the unverified dossier — that Russia had video of Trump watching prostitutes urinate in a hotel suite, according to BuzzFeed News, which published the dossier in full. In January 2017, CNN reported top intelligence officials presented then-President Trump with claims from the Steele Dossier. There is no evidence the tape exists, and Trump has denied the alleged incident taking place.

Steele said he believes Russia likely retains “kompromat” against Trump, and when pressed by ABC if he believes Russia has a tape of Trump with prostitutes in a Russian hotel, Steele said the tape “probably” exists, but that Russia has assessed “it hasn’t needed to be released.”

“And today, do you still believe that that tape exists?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“I think it probably does, but I wouldn’t put 100% certainty on it,” Steele said.

Although no sane or reasonable person ever put any stock in the Trump-Russia collusion delusion sore loser Democrat Party tin foil hat conspiracy theory, the primary foreign agent-provocateur involved in the plot has suddenly returned to pretend on CNN as if though he believes his lies. Oddly enough, CNN has already reported the fact that “Steele’s primary source on the dossier told the FBI that Steele ‘misstated or exaggerated’ his or her statements in the dossier.”

Steele’s primary source for information in the dossier, for instance, told the FBI he or she may have talked about Trump’s alleged sexual activities in “jest” and couldn’t confirm whether the tape was real, the report states, quoting the source.

“The Primary Sub-source explained that he/she reported to Steele that Trump’s alleged unorthodox sexual activity at the Ritz Carlton hotel was ‘rumor and speculation’ and that he/she had not been able to confirm the story,” the report states.

Christopher Steele wants his image rehabilitated like Andrew McCabe’s ostensibly was last week, yet both of them (and all of their co-plotters) will always be remembered as villains.

Politico:

McCabe was fired in March 2018 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the Justice Department’s inspector general determined he had misled internal investigators about his involvement in a news media leak. His termination came just hours before he entered retirement, leaving him without pension.

CNN:

In seeking additional documents from Sussmann’s former law firm, Perkins Coie, investigators from the special counsel’s office appear to be sharpening their focus on the Democratic political machinery during the 2016 campaign and efforts to tie Trump to Russia.

Perkins Coie’s clients in 2016 included the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The law firm also hired on the campaign’s behalf a research company that commissioned the dossier from ex-British spy Christopher Steele that alleged that Trump was compromised by Russia.

NBC News:

Special counsel John Durham charged lawyer Michael Sussman over a statement during a Sept. 19, 2016 meeting between Sussmann and the then-FBI general counsel, James Baker, at which Sussman told Baker about suspicions relating to alleged secret communications between the Trump campaign and Russia. The suspicions were later determined to be unfounded.

According to the indictment, “During the meeting, Sussmann lied about the capacity in which he was providing the allegations to the FBI. Specifically, Sussmann stated falsely that he was not doing his work on the aforementioned allegations ‘for any client,’ which led the FBI General Counsel to understand that Sussmann was acting as a good citizen merely passing along information, not as a paid advocate or political operative.”