Judicial Watch has tirelessly pursued government documents relating to the Russia hoax, and has made them public as they have been wrested from the grasp of Washington bureaucrats. Today Judicial Watch released three emails exchanged between Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, a Hillary Clinton donor, and Bruce Ohr. Ohr was one of the most senior officials in the Department of Justice. His wife Nellie worked for Fusion GPS, which was hired by the Clinton campaign to fabricate dirt on Donald Trump. Fusion GPS ultimately came up with the Christopher Steele “dossier.” Ohr and his wife were in the middle of the Democratic Party’s effort to bring down candidate, President-Elect and President Donald Trump.
The emails are embedded below. They are all dated November 21, 2016, just 13 days after the presidential election. But it is significant that the emails post-date the election. These Democratic Party bureaucrats were no longer trying to help Hillary Clinton win the election; rather, they were trying to undermine the President-Elect.
The first email is from Kavalec to Ohr, following up on a meeting they had just had. Kavalec refers to “the person I mentioned,” a Russian named Simon Kukes. She refers to “this campaign donation story” and forwards links to an article in Mother Jones and an Open Secrets entry. The story relates to Kukes, an American citizen who was born in Russia and who donated to Trump’s campaign. There is no evident reason why a Russian-born American’s contribution to Trump’s campaign would be noteworthy to Ohr and Kavalec, or would have anything to do with relations between the Department of Justice and the State Department, other than the fact that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was trying to blame her dismal performance on “meddling” by Russia.
Ohr’s response begins with: “Thank you for taking the time to meet with us. I really hope we can get something going here.” Judicial Watch interprets “get something going here” as referring to efforts to smear Trump with bogus Russian connections. That could be right, but the ostensible subject of the meeting between Ohr and Kavalec was the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, which I believe Ohr was in charge of. So he could have been referring to that.
But Ohr’s interest, like Kavalec’s, was principally in how they could disable the incoming Trump administration. Ohr quickly pivoted to that topic: “This is very interesting–I may have heard about him [Kukes] from Tom Firestone as well, but I can’t recall for certain. We will take another look at this.”