A friend recently asked me to boil down the Russian-Trump investigations. What were the smoking guns? What had he supposedly done wrong? The truth is that no one has articulated clearly and accurately what Trump or his campaign had done wrong. I offered the following analysis:
Incredibly, the educated guess has become a reality due to leaks, likely from Republicans on various Congressional committees, which are exposing the seedy inner workings of the FBI and the special prosecutor’s investigation. One text, in particular, is a damning piece of evidence.Peter StrozkFBI agent Peter Strzok interviewed Clinton and her team about her email servers but didn’t choose to charge them with perjury after it was proven they lied. He went on to change the FBI report on the Clinton email report from “grossly negligent,” which could be criminal, to “extremely careless,” a useless term. (Another member of the Mueller team, Aaron Zebley, served as the lawyer for Justin Cooper, the man who set up the Clinton email server in her home.)
Strzok would then be assigned to the Mueller investigation. He was the FBI agent that Michael Flynn lied to, and Flynn was charged with perjury. He was fired from the team when text messages were revealed between him and his mistress Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer also on the Mueller team. Several of the texts are anti-Trump, but one from August 15, 2016, is very concerning.
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office – that there’s no way he [Trump] gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like a life insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
Andrew McCabe
Andy is Andrew McCabe. He is the Deputy FBI Director. He runs the Washington DC office that oversaw the Clinton investigations.
McCabe is no stranger to controversy. On March 2, 2015, the news broke about the Clinton servers. Five days later, a Clinton close friend and fundraiser, Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) met with McCabe and his wife Jill to recruit her as a candidate for a state Senate seat in Virginia. She announced on March 12, 2015. McAuliffe then donated 40% of her campaign funds to the tune of nearly $700,000. McAuliffe himself would fall under FBI investigation in the spring of 2016 for illegal personal contributions to his campaign. McCabe never recused himself from the Clinton investigations. He allegedly hates Michael Flynn with a passion. He also instructed FBI agents to lie about Benghazi. Expect to see his name in the President’s tweets heavily in the coming weeks.
Personal political bias takes place within the FBI as with any organization. The current FBI director, Christopher Wray, has donated around $50,000 to Republicans. Nine of the 16 attorneys on the Mueller investigation have given to Hillary or the Democrats. Given these numbers, it is clear that some members of the Mueller staff are pro-Clinton. It’s now clear that some are anti-Trump thanks to these texts.
This text message above is the beginning of a government conspiracy. When influential members of a powerful agency with vast abilities to spy on American citizens begin plotting to stop a duly elected President from executing their duties, and it is hard not to start googling the legal standard of treason.
The Christopher Steele Dossier
The 35-page Steele dossier was the beginning of the Russian interference theory. It claimed that Russia had compromising information on Trump that could be blackmailed.
The dossier was put together by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm founded by former Roll Call/WSJ investigative reporter Glenn Simpson and other former Wall Street Journal reporters. The research was initiated by the conservative political website the Washington Free Beacon for oppo research on the 2016 GOP Presidential field. After Trump became the front-runner, they stopped funding it, so a law firm connected to the Clinton campaign began paying for the research.
Former British MI6 Spy Christopher Steele was an expert in Russian matters. Fusion hired him to compile information. The existence of the Steele dossier was an open secret among Washington journalists and the deep state. The file landed in the hands of John McCain on December 9th, 2016, who sent it to James Comey, then-FBI Director. On January 10th, 2017, Obama and Trump were briefed on its contents. Many of the elements of this document have now been shown to be false.
Bruce and Nellie Ohr
Fox News reported this week that Fusion GPShired Nellie Ohr to investigate Trump. Her husband, Bruce Ohr, was fourth in command at the Department of Justice, and had previously met with Christopher Steele (pre-2016 Election) and Glenn Simpson (post-2016 Election) for a briefing on the dossier. Nellie Ohr also works for the CIA.
Steele leaked the documents to Mother Jones in October of 2016. They distill down the essence of the Russian theory:
The “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance”. It maintained that Trump “and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals”. It claimed that Russian intelligence had “compromised” Trump during his visits to Moscow and could “blackmail him”.
What is the Mission of the Mueller Investigation?
Is it possible the Steele dossier became the “insurance policy” that members of the FBI and the deep state used to create a narrative to push to journalists and politicians to set up the Mueller investigation which became the dragnet to begin entrapping Trump and his associates in obstruction and perjury charges?
One cannot quantify the harm done to the Trump presidency by this false narrative. I am not someone who is pro-Trump. I find him morally abhorrent and unfit for the office. These threads concern me because of the precedent this sets within our Constitutional Republic.
This Presidential candidate is despised by permanent Washington and the opposing political party. Did members of our highest law enforcement agency conspire to manipulate the media and public into neutering a duly elected head of one of our three branches of government?
This example should be used by libertarians when we argue for the end of mass government surveillance by the FBI, CIA, and NSA. This power threatens to end our republic by eroding what few norms and trust we have left in our political system. Congressmen are openly questioning if FISA warrants were used to spy on Trump. They were.
The smearing of these truths as “conspiracy theories” or “fake news” will begin any day now. Why? Mainstream journalists at the large news outlets need to keep good relations with members of these federal agencies. An anonymous quote from someone in the FBI or the Justice Department adds credibility to a story. Bylines on big breaking stories, like the circulation of a salacious dossier, are necessary for career advancement. Reporters are now texting or calling their sources in these agencies getting their opinion on the matter. Printing an opposite view reduces the ability to have that source pass on a scoop.The mainstream press ran with unverified claims from an unknown spy in a vague research document on a shaky conspiracy theory. If they fail to dig into actual text messages from government officials, which wield real power, conspiring to take active measures against one Presidential candidate while helping another, it will further diminish their credibility.
