NEWSLINK: “A GOP spin on the Russia probe reads like a noir thriller – but doesn’t add up; All of the Steele dossier can’t be discredited just because the contacts between private investigators and government officials were sometimes incestuous” – Washington Post/ David Ignatius

“…The GOP’s evidence does reveal some puzzling interconnections among major players in the Russia probe. The FBI and the Justice Department were sometimes conducting negotiations with the same people they were also investigating for possible wrongdoing. The contacts between private investigators and government officials were occasionally incestuous. The most intriguing example of overlapping relationships involves three key players who were represented by a little-known but ubiquitous American lawyer named Adam Waldman. This unlikely trio includes Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who once did business with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort; Christopher Steele, a British former MI6 officer who wrote the famous dossier alleging connections between Trump and Russia; and Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, which released Clinton campaign and other Democratic emails that U.S. intelligence agencies say were hacked by Russia. …”