As we revisit the infamous Russian collusion hoax of 2016 and 2017, the perfect metaphor would be a boomerang. Then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton threw it, aiming for her opponent, Donald Trump, and nine years later, it has come back to hit Clinton right in the face. Newly revealed documents and communications – described by one investigative reporter as “slam-dunk evidence of a conspiracy” – take the whole affair beyond the 2016 Clinton campaign directly to the Obama White House. As a result, the Department of Justice (DOJ) on July 21 confirmed that it had received a criminal referral – the details of which have not been divulged.
It had already been established through an extensive investigation by special counsel John Durham that the Russian collusion story could be traced back to the Clinton campaign – a desperate attempt to, essentially, smear Trump as a traitor to his country.
All the (Former) President’s Men
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who sent the criminal referral to the DOJ, has begun releasing documents that present an even more insidious plot. Once the unthinkable happened, Hillary Clinton losing the election to Trump, then-President Barack Obama and other White House officials began in earnest to promote a fake scandal designed to sabotage the incoming president.
These efforts led to the compilation of the Steele Dossier, the opening of the FBI’s counterintelligence operation, Crossfire Hurricane, and then special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Ultimately, no Russian collusion was found, but Trump’s first two years in the White House were blighted by this hoax.
It all began months before the election, though, which may be why Obama himself on national television very confidently asserted that Donald Trump would never be president. Paul Sperry, a senior reporter at RealClear Investigations, revealed on X, “I'm told there are texts/emails indicating Hillary Clinton campaign aides directly coordinated with the Obama White House, NSC, State Dept and Intelligence Community officials in efforts to dig up dirt tying Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin in July 2016.” NSC is the National Security Council.
If it is indeed true that the outgoing president directed his national security advisers to aid his party’s presidential candidate by painting her opponent as a Russian asset, Watergate fades to insignificance. This will be – or could be, depending on what is finally established – the worst American political scandal in living memory and perhaps well beyond.
They Never Gave Up on Russian Collusion
To this day, many Democrats, their media allies, and a handful of former senior intelligence community (IC) officials maintain Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election. No one would deny that. The Kremlin absolutely sought to sow confusion and to damage Americans’ faith in their electoral system.
Still, the Russians had their own motives, and, when it comes down to it, no rational reason to prefer Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton as the next US president. Meddling they may have been, but Russian collusion was fake news.
It is now coming to light that a number of IC officials were, back in 2016, objecting to the White House’s apparent fixation on Russia because they saw no intelligence suggesting some nefarious Trump-Putin conspiracy. Nor did they see any evidence that Russia had the ability to change the course of the election. Gabbard says individuals are ready to come forward to recount their knowledge of the Obama-Clinton plot.
Appearing on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, Gabbard said the implications of the conspiracy to bring Trump down are “nothing short of historic.” She explained, “Over a hundred documents that we released on [July 18] really detail and provide evidence of how this treasonous conspiracy was directed by President Obama just weeks before he was due to leave office.” The national intelligence director concluded, “So, the effect of what President Obama and his senior national security team did was subvert the will of the American people – undermining our democratic republic – and enacting what would be essentially a years-long coup against President Trump, who was duly elected by the American people.”
Certain individuals persist, to this day, with the entirely debunked claim that President Trump was, at the time, conspiring with Moscow to steal the election. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has never backed off his assertion that he had seen “more than circumstantial evidence” of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. Clearly, Crossfire Hurricane did not uncover that evidence, nor did Mueller’s investigation, and Schiff never did shed any light on the nature of the evidence he had supposedly seen or where it came from.
It is ironic indeed that those who have for years insisted Donald Trump represents a threat to democracy appear to have plotted the greatest assault on America’s hallowed tradition of democratic republicanism. President Trump and a great many of his supporters have waited a long time for some accountability. And this really is a matter beyond partisan politics. Democrats are likely to view any investigation going forward as Trump taking his revenge – but, as he has said himself on multiple occasions, it is important to ensure that what his political enemies did to him should never be allowed to happen to another president.
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