Et af de større mysterier i Russiagate skandalen ser ud til endeligt at være blevet løst med en uafhængig og tilsyneladende veldokumenteret
artikel i
Washington Post, der bekræfter, hvad mange længe har mistænkt: at det var Democratic National Committee (DNC) og Hillary Clinton kampagnen som financierede "forskningen" som resulterede i Trump rapporten, og som derfor var de egentlige klienter for Christopher Steele, den britiske eskspion, som sammenstykkede den.
Det lader til at DNC i April 2016 overtog betalingen for "forskningen" der ledte til Trump rapporten fra en tidligere ikke nævnt republikaner. (Washingtons rygtemølle siger at denne republikaner var Senator John McCain).
Here is how the
Washington Post reports the story
The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about President Trump's connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said.
Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.
After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the firm in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS's research into Trump was funded by a still unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.
The Clinton campaign and the DNC, through the law firm, continued to fund Fusion GPS's research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day.
Fusion GPS gave Steele's reports and other research documents to Elias, the people familiar with the matter said. It is unclear how or how much of that information was shared with the campaign and DNC, and who in those organizations was aware of the roles of Fusion GPS and Steele. One person close to the matter said the campaign and the DNC were not informed of Fusion GPS's role by the law firm.
I have already made known my view that it was the Trump Dossier which was the
original source for the whole Russiagate scandal. As to my views of its utter falsity and indeed absurdity, see
here and
here. See also this comprehensive fact-check - and utter refutation - of the Trump Dossier by The Russian Explainer
here.
It seems that the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign circulated the Trump Dossier to their friends in the media and in the US intelligence community, triggering the start of the FBI investigation in July 2016 and the decision in August 2016 by the CIA to report its contents to President Obama.
It was those two actions taken together which were the starting point of the Russiagate scandal.To those who doubt this, I would point out that we know that the Trump Dossier eventually ended up in the hands of the US intelligence community and
was given credence by them because they included it in an appendix to the classified version of the now infamous intelligence report which they gave to President Obama and President elect Trump in January.
The most interesting question about this new information is not its content. After all many people have long suspected that the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign had some role in the Trump Dossier.
Rather it is
why has this information been leaked now?I am going to make a guess, which is that it is being leaked now
because Mueller's investigation is finally asking the hard questions about the Trump Dossier which ought to have been asked a year ago. There were for example reports that his team
interviewed Christopher Steele - the Trump Dossier's compiler - earlier this month.
There are also signs that Mueller is starting to home in on the Democrats who have been driving the Russiagate scandal, with
reports that John and Tony Podesta have been questioned by his team. I will here express my view that it was the Trump Dossier rather than the Podesta brothers' lobbying for Sberbank which was the main subject of this questioning.
News of the questioning of John and Tony Podesta comes following the refusal of Peter Fritsch and Thomas Catan, the two co-founders of Fusion GPS - the intermediary between the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign and Christopher Steele - to answer questions to the House Intelligence Committee, pleading their Fifth Amendment rights.
I will here express my further view that it was unethical - to put it mildly - for the Democrats to give public credence to the Trump Dossier for so long without disclosing that they had paid for it.
That some of the individuals involved are now invoking their Fifth Amendment rights - the first witnesses to have done so to my knowledge during the whole course of the Russiagate scandal -
may suggest that more of a much more serious nature is coming.
Kommentar: In other words, the DNC used dodgy Russian sources (compiled by Steel in his dodgy dossier) to try to swing the election. Precisely what they accused the Trump campaign of doing.
Zero Hedge summarizes the situation so far:
- Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid to uncover and package dirt, whether factual or not, on Trump which eventually found its way in the Trump dossier
- In doing so, the Clintons and the DNC were effectively collaborating with "deep" sources, both among the UK spy apparatus and inside Russia
- Once Trump won, the FBI was instrumental in "leaking" the dossier to the mainstream media and select still unknown recipients (the same way Comey "leaked" his personal notebooks just a few months later, following his termination, to launch a probe of Trump).
- The former head of the FBI who was supposed to probe Clinton's State Department - and the Clinton Foundation - for a bribery and kickback scheme involving Russia's U.S. nuclear business, is now investigating Trump for Russia collusion instead
But wait, it gets better: as Ken Vogel, formerly the chief investigative reporter at Politico and currently at the NY Times just reported, "When I tried to report this story, Clinton campaign lawyer @marceelias pushed back vigorously, saying "You (or your sources) are wrong."
Another NYT reporter, Maggie Haberman, confirmed as much saying "Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year", and by folks she ultimately means Hillary Clinton herself.
Which in light of the latest news suggests that Clinton was lying, which is not surprising, especially when considering the recent "revelations" that the Clintons may themselves have been involved in collusion with Russia over the infamous uranium deal.
Then there's the FBI angle in all of this. As the Post pointed out: "After the election, the FBI agreed to pay Steele to continue gathering intelligence about Trump and Russia, but the bureau pulled out of the arrangement after Steele was publicly identified in news reports."
From the
WSJ (with commentary by Zero Hedge):
Let's give plausible accounts of the known facts, then explain why demands that Robert Mueller recuse himself from the Russia investigation may not be the fanciful partisan grandstanding you imagine.
Here's a story consistent with what has been reported in the press - how reliably reported is uncertain. Democratic political opponents of Donald Trump financed a British former spook who spread money among contacts in Russia, who in turn over drinks solicited stories from their supposedly "connected" sources in Moscow. If these people were really connected in any meaningful sense, then they made sure the stories they spun were consistent with the interests of the regime, if not actually scripted by the regime. The resulting Trump dossier then became a factor in Obama administration decisions to launch an FBI counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign, and after the election to trumpet suspicions of Trump collusion with Russia.
We know of a second, possibly even more consequential way the FBI was effectively a vehicle for Russian meddling in U.S. politics. Authoritative news reports say FBI chief James Comey's intervention in the Hillary Clinton email matter was prompted by a Russian intelligence document that his colleagues suspected was a Russian plant.
OK, Mr. Mueller was a former close colleague and leader but no longer part of the FBI when these events occurred. This may or may not make him a questionable person to lead a Russia-meddling investigation in which the FBI's own actions are necessarily a concern. But now we come to the Rosatom disclosures last week in The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress.
Here's another story as plausible as we can make it based on credible reporting. After the Cold War, in its own interest, the U.S. wanted to build bridges to the Russian nuclear establishment. The Putin government, for national or commercial purposes, agreed and sought to expand its nuclear business in the U.S.
Ah yes, the Clinton's own Russia collusion narrative which recently emerged to the surface and which as of today is being investigated by the House ... As the WSJ correctly notes, "for anyone who cares to look, the real problem here is that the FBI itself is so thoroughly implicated in the Russia meddling story."
Which then shifts the focus to the person who was, and again is, in charge of it all: former FBI director, and current special prosecutor Robert Mueller:
The agency, when Mr. Mueller headed it, soft-pedaled an investigation highly embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton as well as the Obama Russia reset policy. More recently, if just one of two things is true - Russia sponsored the Trump Dossier, or Russian fake intelligence prompted Mr. Comey's email intervention - then Russian operations, via their impact on the FBI, influenced and continue to influence our politics in a way far more consequential than any Facebook ad, the preoccupation of John McCain, who apparently cannot behold a mountain if there's a molehill anywhere nearby.
Which means that Mr. Mueller has the means, motive and opportunity to obfuscate and distract from matters embarrassing to the FBI, while pleasing a large part of the political spectrum. He need only confine his focus to the flimsy, disingenuous but popular (with the media) accusation that the shambolic Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin.
Mr. Mueller's tenure may not have bridged the two investigations, but James Comey's, Rod Rosenstein's , Andrew Weissmann's , and Andrew McCabe's did. Mr. Rosenstein appointed Mr. Mueller as special counsel. Mr. Weissmann now serves on Mr. Mueller's team. Mr. McCabe remains deputy FBI director. All were involved in the nuclear racketeering matter and the Russia meddling matter.
The punchline: it's not the Clintons that should be looked at, at least not at first - their time will come. It's the FBI:
By any normal evidentiary, probative or journalistic measure, the big story here is the FBI - its politicized handling of Russian matters, and not competently so. To put it bluntly, whatever its hip-pocket rationales along the way, the FBI would not have so much to cover up now if it had not helped give us Mrs. Clinton as Democratic nominee and then, in all likelihood, inadvertently helped Mr. Trump to the presidency.
We eagerly look forward to Trump's furious tweetstorm once he learns of all of this... and how long before he fires Mueller, in this case with cause.
UpdateThe "new" DNC is scrambling to do damage control. They've just put out a
press release denying any involvement.
In a brief statement from DNC Comms Director Xochitl Hinojosa,
"Tom Perez and the new leadership of the DNC were not involved in any decision-making regarding Fusion-GPS, nor were they aware that Perkins Coie was working with the organization."
Of course, the DNC then added - for good measure...
"But let's be clear, there is a serious federal investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, and the American public deserves to know what happened."
All of which is quite ironic following Perez' comments during the week:
"We have the most dangerous president in American history and one of the most reactionary Congresses in American history," Democratic Chairman Tom Perez said during his speech.
Perez also labeled Trump an "existential threat" with no apparent worry that his words could be taken, along with those by Waters and other liberals in the media, as ammunition for a crazy leftist to once again attack Congress or even the White House.
And even more ironic in light of the increasing evidence and investigation surrounding Hillary Clinton's dealing with the Russians over Uranium One.
Kommentar: In other words, the DNC used dodgy Russian sources (compiled by Steel in his dodgy dossier) to try to swing the election. Precisely what they accused the Trump campaign of doing. Zero Hedge summarizes the situation so far: Then there's the FBI angle in all of this. As the Post pointed out: "After the election, the FBI agreed to pay Steele to continue gathering intelligence about Trump and Russia, but the bureau pulled out of the arrangement after Steele was publicly identified in news reports."
From the WSJ (with commentary by Zero Hedge): Update
The "new" DNC is scrambling to do damage control. They've just put out a press release denying any involvement.