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From: Edward Epstein Sent: 8/18/2017 1:23:10 PM To: Jeff Epstein [jeevacation@gmail.com] Subject: FYI Importance: — High Hi Jeff I thought this might interest you Edward Jay Epstein The 2016 presidential campaign was marked by three disclosure operations, all of which appear to have had a single author. “Oppo research” is the euphemism commonly used in elections for such operations. The mechanism is fairly simple: dirt is obtained from wherever it can be found to discredit an opponent. It is then “leaked,” usually either anonymously or on background, to targeted media channels. What makes the 2016 campaign particularly interesting from a counterintelligence perspective is not that both sides had their own disclosure operations, but that both sides were offered the dirt for them by a common source: Russian intelligence. As we now know from the emails of Donald Trump Jr., a thinly veiled intermediary, Natalya Veselnitskaya, offered the Trump campaign documents that putatively would show that Hillary Clinton had received illegal donations from Russian financiers; in the event, no such documents were proffered. But it is a reasonable assumption that Veselnitskaya could not have made such an offer, especially in a meeting attended by three other Russians, unless the move was approved by the FSB, the Russian security service. A second disclosure operation, this one involving supporters of the Clinton campaign, was more layered. The proximate intermediary was Fusion GPS, a research firm used by the law firm Baker Hostetler, and the secondary “cut-out” was the British firm Orbis, co-founded by former MI-6 officer Christopher Steele. We know something about this sub-contractor from the depositions Steele gave in defending a libel suit in London. According to Steele, Fusion GPS not only had him prepare the so-called “dossier” on Trump but also directed Steele to “leak” it to specified reporters at Mother Jones, Yahoo, the New York Times, the Washington Post, The New Yorker, and CNN. In some cases, Steele was directed to brief the selected journalists personally. The dirt in these “leaks” relied heavily on information supplied by two Russian government sources: Source A, whom Steele calls “a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure”; and Source B, “a former top-level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin.” Sources A and B provided information supposedly exposing a long-time Russian FSB operation to get compromising information that could be used to control Trump. The idea that two Russian intelligence sources would reveal a long-time Kremlin-backed FSB operation bears further examination. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025548