Real Characters Episode 7 Nellie Ohr and Spygate

Nellie Ohr has just accepted a job at the Open Source Center. it is a branch of the CIA and she's excited to be working for such a reputable organization. At work, she worked closely with a man named Glenn Simpson and John Brennan. John Brennan is the CIA agent tasked with monitoring their group and bringing the information to the higher ups in the CIA. Glenn Simpson formerly worked for the Wall Street Journal and gained notoriority when he wrote an article for his wife last year about how ex-Soviets use lobbyist to woo Washington policy. This interested Nellie especially because she is fluent in Russin and has become an expert in Russian culture and the way they conduct business. It is this expertise that she will be utilizing for Open Source. Nellie's husband, Bruce is also working for open source so it gives her time to spend with him. It will help their marriage because this job demands long hours. Little did everyone here know that soon this same group of people would play an intricate role in the largest spying scandal in American history.

The year is now 2016, Nellie Ohr now works at Fusian GPS, a company owned by her now long term friend Glenn Simpson. The Free Beacon, a right leaning organization, has dropped a dossier they were compiling on Trump. Fusion GPS picks it up and Glenn Simpson calls his friend Christopher Steele, a former MI6 agent, to add information to it. Since it's about Russia, Nellie takes interest and now it's no longer a Republican dossier but a Fusion GPS dossier. This is especially true because Hillary Clinton paid Fusion GPS for it through a lawfirm named Perkin Coie. Basically, the Free Beacon piece has been completely scrapped and this dossier is in no way shape or form what it was under the Republican organization. Glenn Simpson has just walked into her office and what he says is a little strange.

Glenn Simpson has just finished his dossier. It wasn't hard since most of it was written in 2007, he just added some filler information from his friend Christopher Steele. He knows it's all fake so he has to launder it. This is going to be easy. He calls John Brennan of the CIA since he used to work for him. He says, 'Hey John, how are you doing?"

"Been better, Trump has a better chance than people think. I need to stop him from winning"

"I got help with that actually, it's why I'm calling."

"Oh yea, what's that?"

"I'll get it to you but since time is of the essence I need you to rush it through to the big boys at the CIA without going through the rank and file."

"That's fine, I know how good your work is, I've worked with you before."

Glenn Simpson sends the Dossier to Brennan. He then calls Bruce Ohr, he says, "Hey Bruce what's up?"

"Not much"

"You've really done well since we used to work together at open source, number four in the DOJ"

"Yea, things are going well. How's Nellie doing?"

"Very well actually. Listen, I got a dossier I need you to give to the FBI"

"Yea, that's not a problem"

"Thanks Bruce, I'm also going to give Nellie a thumb drive to give to you to get to the FBI"

"Yea, whatever you need."

After the phone call, Glenn Simpson walks into Nellie's office and explains to her what she told her husband. He gives the thumbdrive to Nellie and Nellie says she'll give it to Bruce."

Nellie takes the thumbdrive a little confused. She doens't know why Simpson doesn't just give it to Bruce himself but she thinks it's harmless enough so she does. As the months progress, Lisa Page, former FBI attorney seems surprised that the CIA knew about the Dossier. Nellie knows why. Everyone keeps talking about Steele as being the author of the dossier, but it wasn't. It was Glenn Simpson. Simpson had three crucial friends, John Brennan of the CIA, Christopher Steele, who was a trusted confidential informant for the FBI and Bruce Ohr, 4th highest member of the DOJ. All three delivered their message from the same source, Glenn Simpson but since it looked to the FBI and DOJ that it was coming from multiple sources and it was the same information, they believed it without vetting it.

Nellie saw this day coming. When her husband, Bruce told her that they got a FISA warrant on Carter Page. She asked him how. He mentioned the Dossier and when she looked into it, it said that Steele wrote the Dossier. This Nellie knew was a blatant lie and she wondered what other false information they told a judge to get this warrant. She kept seeing on the news that it had to be true because a judge signed off on it. Judges, however, are not affiants. They don't swear on the informaiton, they don't investigate, they just take the information they are given. It is a problem if you lie but someone has to prove to the judge you lied, he or she won't look into it himself.

A year goes by and the dossier is still a hot topic of conversation. Nellie Ohr came clean about the open source group in 2008, which was a key to unlock just how Glenn Simpson was able to launder the information. She doesn't care, she really doesn't think she did anything wrong. She turns on CNN and sees Chris Cuomo arguing with a Republicans Gates about Manafort sharing poll data with Ukrainians. Cuomo is really grasping at straws. I mean, any newspaper has polls, and any country can just read an American newspaper and get polling data. Cuomo is raising his voice to make it seem like he has a point. Nellie wonders if Cuomo knows that Serhiy Leshchenko, also Ukrainian, was a source for the dossier that he continues to defend. Nellie shakes her head. She's used to double standards by the Democrats but it seems lately they're being more obvious about it. What she hasn't seen before is conservatives are no longer bending over and taking it. Media Matters is currently trying to take down and get Fox to fire Tucker Carlson. Usually this would lead to an apology by Carlson, triggering more yelling and then he gets fired and ostracized from society. That's not what Carlson did though. First he strongly criticized them and said he wouldn't back down. He then exposed Media Matters owner Angelo Carusone who was caught on tape talking about how he's shocked that a Jew looks handsome. Carusone talks about "trannies" attacking a Palestinian. He constantly uses insensitive terms like "Jewry, tranny and Japs" The Japanese story is especially trumbling because a Japanese coach sexually assaulted a couple young girls. Carusone was yelling at them to "get over it." Basically, Carusone went after everyone involved with racial epithets and condoning sexual assault, which is frowned upon in today's Me too movement days. It doesn't look like Media Matters will succeed taking down Carlson.

Nellie goes for a walk. Watching TV makes her conflicted because she knows what Simpson did but Simpson is her friend. She sees TV reports she knows is false but she won't correct it because she needs to help her friend. Still though, it bothers her to watch the American people being lied to so ignoring it seems to be the best course. After all, ignoring Barak Obama, & Donald Trump's huge rallies never amounted to anything. Just how now Ocasio-Cortez is drawing crowds and everyone laughs her off. She'll just ignore it and they'll go away. While walking she sees two college-age kids arguing. She decides to listen. The youth of America talking politics excites her. It's a guy and a girl arguing. The girl says, "We need universal healthcare in this country"

"We are way too big, you'd have to heavily tax the middle class along with the rich. Care would go down too because single payer anything doesn't care about costs or quality."

"Look at Finland"

"One, we have much better healthcare than Finland. Two, the prime minister and his entire cabinet resigned rather than tell the people how they have no money for free healthcare."

The girl just gave him a confused look. She then said, "What about Sweden and the other Scandanivian countries?"

"They are going back to private health insurance and moving away from single payer. They're still heavily taxed but nobody compares to American healthcare."

The conversation ended pretty quickly and Nellie Ohr kept walking. In 2020, John Brennan and Glenn Simpson are arrested for treason and intentionally misleading the public. All the signatories of the FISA warrant are also arrested for witholding evidence and FISA abuse. They lied to the judge, and they were punished for it. Nellie Ohr was worried her husband would be arrested as well since he did what Brennan did. Unlike Brennan though, it seems plausible that Ohr didn't know he was being used. If he was tricked, he'd avoid jail. If they think he's lying about being tricked, he won't be. This is what keeps Nellie up at night now. Really, it should be the guilt of being a party to the biggest scandal in American history and having information to expose the plot but remaining silent.