Common
03-15-2019, 05:36 PM
John McCain associate behind dossier leak urged BuzzFeed to retract its story: 'You are gonna get people killed!'
When BuzzFeed published the so-called Trump dossier (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/john-mccain-associate-shared-steele-dossier-with-buzzfeed) authored by Christopher Steele on the evening of Jan. 10, 2017, David Kramer, a longtime associate of the late Sen. John McCain, called BuzzFeed reporter Ken Bensinger in a panic.
“The first words out of my mouth were, ‘You are gonna get people killed!'” Kramer recalled telling Bensinger over the phone.
“Why? How?” Bensinger replied.
“By posting this, you will put people's lives in danger … Please take it down," Kramer said.
The dramatic phone call between Kramer and Bensinger was revealed when a federal court unsealed the December 2017 deposition given by Kramer — a former State Department official who met with British ex-spy Christopher Steele and shared the memos that comprised the dossier with Bensinger, first reported by the Daily Caller on Thursday (https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/14/john-mccain-dossier-steele-reporters/).
Steele, who would author the series of memos that would come to be known as the "Trump Dossier," was hired by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the summer of 2016 to provide them with information on then-candidate Donald Trump.
Kramer testified that he originally met Bensinger for 45 minutes to an hour on Dec. 29 at the McCain Institute Office in Washington, D.C., where Kramer was a fellow. He spoke to Bensinger at the behest of Steele, who had worked with Bensinger during a FIFA corruption investigation with which he’d assisted the FBI.
Kramer said he had already briefed a number of journalists on the compilation of unverified investigative memos put together by Steele.
When they met, Kramer said Bensinger already seemed to have some idea of what was in the Steele dossier memos: “He said that they were very interested in this, that they had heard about it, they had not heard about it from me initially, and were interested in looking at it and doing some investigative reporting on it.”
During the meeting, Kramer emphasized the unverified nature of the information in the memos and said: “I’m not in a position to verify or refute this, but that it seemed to me to be serious enough to be looked at in a professional way, and that professional journalists were arguably in a position to look into the matter.”
Kramer testified it was his understanding from Steele that “this was only supposed to have been released or posted and published if it had been verified.” Kramer "stressed to him the sensitivity of it … that it had to be handled very carefully. And he agreed.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/john-mccain-associate-behind-dossier-leak-urged-buzzfeed-to-retract-its-story-you-are-gonna-get-people-killed
When BuzzFeed published the so-called Trump dossier (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/john-mccain-associate-shared-steele-dossier-with-buzzfeed) authored by Christopher Steele on the evening of Jan. 10, 2017, David Kramer, a longtime associate of the late Sen. John McCain, called BuzzFeed reporter Ken Bensinger in a panic.
“The first words out of my mouth were, ‘You are gonna get people killed!'” Kramer recalled telling Bensinger over the phone.
“Why? How?” Bensinger replied.
“By posting this, you will put people's lives in danger … Please take it down," Kramer said.
The dramatic phone call between Kramer and Bensinger was revealed when a federal court unsealed the December 2017 deposition given by Kramer — a former State Department official who met with British ex-spy Christopher Steele and shared the memos that comprised the dossier with Bensinger, first reported by the Daily Caller on Thursday (https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/14/john-mccain-dossier-steele-reporters/).
Steele, who would author the series of memos that would come to be known as the "Trump Dossier," was hired by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the summer of 2016 to provide them with information on then-candidate Donald Trump.
Kramer testified that he originally met Bensinger for 45 minutes to an hour on Dec. 29 at the McCain Institute Office in Washington, D.C., where Kramer was a fellow. He spoke to Bensinger at the behest of Steele, who had worked with Bensinger during a FIFA corruption investigation with which he’d assisted the FBI.
Kramer said he had already briefed a number of journalists on the compilation of unverified investigative memos put together by Steele.
When they met, Kramer said Bensinger already seemed to have some idea of what was in the Steele dossier memos: “He said that they were very interested in this, that they had heard about it, they had not heard about it from me initially, and were interested in looking at it and doing some investigative reporting on it.”
During the meeting, Kramer emphasized the unverified nature of the information in the memos and said: “I’m not in a position to verify or refute this, but that it seemed to me to be serious enough to be looked at in a professional way, and that professional journalists were arguably in a position to look into the matter.”
Kramer testified it was his understanding from Steele that “this was only supposed to have been released or posted and published if it had been verified.” Kramer "stressed to him the sensitivity of it … that it had to be handled very carefully. And he agreed.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/john-mccain-associate-behind-dossier-leak-urged-buzzfeed-to-retract-its-story-you-are-gonna-get-people-killed