This post expands my article “Russian Interference” Didn’t Happen in the American Thinker.
The DNC Used its Hack to Entrap Trump
The DNC and CrowdStrike Destroyed Evidence in June 2016
The Support for the “Russian Hacking” Theory Came from EU Intel
Steele was Known to the State Department as an Unreliable Source
The DNC, Hillary’s Campaign & FBI Colluded with Ukraine against Trump
The DNC, Hillary’s Campaign & the Obama administration attempted to Collude with Russia
The Obama Administration Hid its “Russian” Activities from Congressional Republicans
Misc
Most quotes and comments refer to events from April — November 2016. Most quotes are from the following books, written by ardent promoters of the Russian interference and Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theories, and used as admission against interest:
Brazile, Donna. Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House. Kindle Edition.
Isikoff, Michael and Corn, David. Russian Roulette. Kindle Edition.
The DNC Used its Hack to Entrap Trump
“For the first time, the enormity of the situation dawned on Reynolds…It occurred to Reynolds: ‘This is the new version of Watergate. This is the way they do it now. You don’t need crowbars anymore.’ Reynolds immediately called Amy Dacey, the DNC’s chief executive officer. Until now, Dacey had known nothing of the possible Russian penetration. The next day, she informed the DNC’s chair, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz. And Sussmann retained CrowdStrike with a new task: to investigate the breach and kick the Kremlin’s modern-day burglars out of the DNC,” – refers to “discovery” of the DNC network breach by its top staff on April 28-2 (Isikoff, p. 74)
Thus, the thinking about the cyber-breach in the DNC was how to exploit the breach and use it against Trump, not how to stop it or how to protect the data and state secrets. The reference to the Watergate (an “electronic Watergate”) was repeated by Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats later.
“One of CrowdStrike’s first moves was to advise the DNC officials to do nothing. Don’t shut down the system. Don’t stop using it. The reason: Any dramatic action or change in routine could alert the hackers they had been spotted, and then the intruders might take steps to make it impossible to ferret them out of the system.” (Isikoff, p. 74)
This is nonsense! If the “intruders” could have “made it impossible to ferret them out of the system,” this is the first thing they would have done. Not even CrowdStrike would have given the DNC the advice “to do nothing“. The DNC and CrowdStrike coordinated and provided this false account in order to explain why the DNC did nothing when it discovered the breach.
“CrowdStrike and the lawyers warned the small circle of DNC officials in the know to keep their mouths shut. And this meant not telling anyone in the Clinton campaign.” (Isikoff, p. 74-75)
This is one more subject on which they have to keep their mouths shut.
“Mook decided to think like a spy and wondered if the campaign could mount what he called a “honeypot” operation. The Clinton team would plant phony information about Clinton or the campaign within the DNC computer system and wait to see if the Trump campaign or its allies later made public use of it. If they did, it would prove that the Trump camp was in league with the Russians. Then the Clinton campaign could pounce and expose Trump’s secret partnership with Moscow. Mook raised the idea with Marc Elias, the campaign’s lawyer.”
And so they did, as can be seen now! It’s not their honesty that got in the way.
“[cont.] But they both decided it was harebrained. The planted nugget would have to be so tantalizing or salacious that the Trump campaign couldn’t resist putting it into play. And they both realized that were they to try anything of the sort—and the Trump campaign took the bait and disseminated the false story—the Clinton campaign could have a tough time convincing voters the information was indeed fake. The whole operation could backfire. The honeypot went nowhere,” refers for early May 2016 (Isikoff p. 116)
Now we know that they have found a way to overcome these obstacles! They had CrowdStrike as a witness in case they needed to convince voters that anything true was fake, or the other way around. They knew that CrowdStrike would say whatever they wanted. In April, CrowdStrike had shown its utility when it investigated conflict between the Bernie campaign and the DNC over NGP VAN use (see the end of this post). Its findings were favorable for the DNC.
Thus, in May-June 2016 CrowdStrike, the DNC, and/or Perkins Coie developed a false story in which CrowdStrike accepted responsibility for the decision to not remediate the security breach. Furthermore, they controlled (or thought they did) what information was disseminated. In its statement on June 14, the DNC mentioned the opposition research on Trump and donors’ information. They were spoken of differently – the former was said leaked, while the latter was said “probably not.” The first batch of leaked files, published by Guccifer 2.0, indeed contained both the research and donors’ information and the “Russian fingerprints.” For salacious purposes, spreadsheets of LGBT donors and guests were published on July 6. Thus, they met all the mentioned challenges: planted the “salacious nugget,” not included information damaging to Hillary, had an expert witness to deny authenticity of that information (which was used in a different way), plus “energized” the donors. The version of Adam Carter that the Guccifer 2.0 persona was operated by somebody affiliated with the DNC is the most plausible one now. Look at his reply to Guccifer 2.0 (I don’t agree with everything he said).
CrowdStrike fit the criminal DNC enterprise like a glove. The Dems were probably prepared to provide to the Trump campaign the leaked information directly, and to say it came from Moscow. The June 9 meeting between Don Jr. and Natalya Veselnitskaya organized by Fusion GPS, might have been an attempt to do that. When WikiLeaks announced that it had the DNC documents, it was too late for further attempts.
“Simpson [Fusion GPS] at this point knew something else that he did not share with Steele during their lunch at Heathrow. As a Democratic Party contractor, he had been briefed on the Russian hack of the DNC—a development that was not yet public,” refers to the period between May 6 and June 14 (Isikoff, p. 145)
What was the reason to brief Simpson on this “information”, if not to inject it into the fake Trump dossier he had been hired to produce? Of course, he shared it with Steele as soon as he learned it! But the “information” was false.
“About this time, the FBI received a startling message that had been passed from the Australian government: Papadopoulos back in May had told its top diplomat in Britain the Russian government had dirt on Clinton.”
All the world has dirt on Hillary Clinton.
“[cont.] In the wake of the WikiLeaks dump, this information seemed ominous. And it spurred the FBI to take a closer look at the ties between Trump’s campaign and the Russians.”
If the FBI in DC were not corrupt, it would have taken a closer look at the crime scene – the DNC offices and computer networks. Of course, the FBI in DC is corrupt. It knew that if it looked at the crime scene, it would find plenty of crimes. So when the FBI asked to inspect the DNC network and was rebuffed, it quietly went away. Then it looked only in the direction that Democrats let it look — the Trump campaign.
“[cont.] The Bureau already had in its possession the initial Steele memo, with its harrowing allegation of a Trump-Moscow conspiracy.“
The Steele memo looked and smelled like garbage. I suspect he wrote it that way to simulate a mental disorder if things went south.
“[cont.] And Page’s trip in early July to the Russian capital was suspicious.”
When did trips to foreign countries become suspicious in the US?
“[cont.] The hack of the DNC—and the subsequent releases by Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks, both deemed to be Russian intelligence fronts—was another piece. “
On what evidence? On the evidence the FBI had failed to collect at the DNC network, or on the word of the DNC’s PR and its downstream MSM?
“[cont.] Then there was Manafort. The Ukrainian government had recently asked the bureau for help in tracking payments to Manafort from the pro-Russia Party of Regions.”
After the DNC asked Ukrainian government to “investigate” Manafort to interfere in the US elections. See the section on collusion with Ukraine below.
“[cont.] The FBI also had received intelligence from friendly spy services, including the Dutch and the British, about the Russian hack, as well as contacts between Trump associates and Russia.”
If so, didn’t “friendly” spy services overstep their role in the US elections? Did the FBI forget to whom its loyalty belonged?
“[cont.] With the Papadopoulos report in hand, Comey’s FBI made a fateful decision: It launched a counterintelligence investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and the government of Vladimir Putin. This would be one of the Bureau’s most highly guarded secrets.” (Isikoff p. 178-179)
If the FBI had suspected any person close to Trump of any foreign threat or inappropriate connection, it must have informed Trump in a defensive briefing, rather than keep it secret from him. That it didn’t inform him blows away the pretext and exposes the actual intent of the investiGATErs: to spy on Trump and his campaign in order to aid Democrats to remain in power.
“On June 14, the Washington Post—which had been briefed on the breach by the DNC and CrowdStrike—broke the news with a front-page story headlined, ‘Russia Government Hackers Penetrated DNC, Stole Opposition Research on Trump.’” (Isikoff p. 128)
And this was the first time when the Russian government was publicly named as the hacking culprit. Nobody in the FBI, DHS, ODNI, or CIA had made this attribution before. The attribution came from the DNC.
“In February 2015, it (Fancy Bear) had launched a ferocious attack that seized control of the computer system of TV5Monde, a major French television network, shutting down its broadcasting channels. For this assault, the Fancy Bear hackers had posed as ISIS terrorists whose images suddenly popped up on TV5Monde’s website.” (Isikoff p. 129)
Pure lunacy. Why would the Russian government seize control of a major French TV network, and why would it pose as Daesh (ISIS) terrorists while doing that?
“The Trump campaign first responded to the news of the hack by accusing the DNC of committing a hoax.” (Isikoff p. 129)
And was entirely correct.
“Miranda couldn’t get over a key fact: Many of the most damaging emails in the WikiLeaks dump had been swiped after the DNC already knew it had been hacked.” (Isikoff p. 171)
To be more accurate, these emails have been voluntarily released by the DNC, not “swiped”.
The DNC and CrowdStrike Destroyed Evidence in June 2016
“Chris discovered malware on Raider, the most important server in the whole system. Raider was the server that all the other servers backed up their data through. Any malicious entity that gained access to Raider essentially had the keys to our whole digital kingdom. … The intruders had been sitting in our voter data files for months. They had downloaded a lot of information, but they also could have manipulated what was there,” — refers to September – October 2016, (Brazile p. 194-195)
The voter data almost certainly included information about military personnel, making those who intentionally allowed this to happen (in the DNC, CrowdStrike, and FBI) indictable for espionage.
“In June 2016, the IT team at the DNC technicians wiped all emails connected with any device they did not consider to be secure.” (Brazile p. 159)
They did what??? Donna Brazile writes that they wiped out all DNC staff emails, including such senior people as herself, from everything including mobile devices. An email cannot harm a network, unless it contains a malware attachment or a specially crafted link to phishing site or malware executable. Old emails contain important information, and people preserve them. Even a very aggressive clean up should delete only links and attachments in the emails, not the emails themselves. Yet the DNC and CrowdStrike deleted all emails, re-imaged laptops and, probably, other computers found in the office — but malware still remained in the DNC network. That was destruction of evidence, not a security measure.
That emails deletion had the same pattern as the laptops “clean up”, conducted by CrowdStrike on June 10-12: documents are deleted, malware remains. Afterwards, the DNC HQ personnel complained that their laptops were wiped clean and important documents were deleted. Malware is contained in executable files. Document files aren’t executables, and are mostly harmless. Mostly because some documents contain scripts or macros, which might be harmful. Documents with macros could have been quarantined, scanned by an antivirus, or stripped of macros. The documents should have been backed up before the “clean up”, and restored after it. Documents are normally backed up continuously and certainly before important system procedures. That they weren’t indicates that the “clean up” was destruction of evidence, not a security measure.
The Support for the “Russian Hacking” Theory Came from EU Intel
“Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was speaking the week of the Democratic convention at the Aspen Security Forum—an annual conference at which the country’s top current and former national security officials appeared. To the surprise of many in the audience, Clapper seemed dismissive of the importance of the DNC hack. No one should be ‘hyperventilating,’ Clapper said. He then added sarcastically: ‘I’m shocked somebody did some hacking. That’s never happened before,’” — refers to July 28 (Isikoff, p. 179)
James Clapper was talking common sense. He was not among the conspirators yet.
“By now, several European intelligence services had reported to the CIA that Russian operatives were reaching out to people within Trump’s circle. Brennan wondered whether Moscow had the cooperation of anyone within Trump’s camp,” — refers to some time around August 4, 2016 (Isikoff p. 183)
What did European intelligence services do in the American elections, and why was Brennan acting according to their suggestions?
Steele was Known to the State Department as an Unreliable Source
“Between May 2014 and February 2016, Steele sent [Assistant Secretary of State Victoria] Nuland 120 Orbis reports about political and diplomatic developments in Russia and Ukraine. … ‘His stuff was 75 to 80 percent accurate,’ she later said. ‘At times, I thought he had gotten spun up by a source. But in general, they were congruent with what I was seeing.’” (Isikoff p. 143)
A source whose findings are 75-80% accurate is certainly NOT reliable and NOT trustworthy. Any information from it has zero value because the recipient doesn’t know whether it falls within the 75-80% which is true or in the 20-25% which is false. Her phrase “congruent with what I was seeing” suggests that the accurate part of Steele’s Ukrainian reports came from public sources. This is the same Victoria Nuland whose phone call with the US Ambassador to Ukraine was intercepted by Russian intel and leaked on YouTube (“F-ck the EU”). The content of this call showed that she had no basic understanding of Ukraine.
“Steele called Michael Gaeta, his FBI contact on the FIFA case…The FBI checked with Victoria Nuland’s office at the State Department: Do you support this meeting [in which Steele, employed by Fusion GPS, would give his “reports” to the FBI]? Nuland, having found Steele’s reports on Ukraine to have been generally credible, gave the green light.” (Isikoff p. 153)
Straight reading suggests that Victoria Nuland recommended Steele, who “at times was gotten spun up by a source” (or didn’t have sources and was making up stories from A to Z), as a credible agent.
“Steele got in touch with one of his chief sources in Russia—or, as he called him, the “collector”—and instructed him to start seeking information on Trump. Steele guarded the collector’s identity as a top secret. But Simpson understood that the collector was a Russian émigré living in the West who traveled frequently to Moscow and was acquainted with well-informed Russian professionals and officials. He was Steele’s undercover operative, working his own Russian sources for whatever nuggets they might yield.” (Isikoff, p. 146)
Thus, Isikoff admits that in the best case, Steele received hearsay. That made the “Steele reports” a double hearsay, at best. If Isikoff knew that, so did the FBI. Yet the reports were written as if Steele talked to his alleged sources directly. Thus, FBI knew “Steele reports” were forgery — but still used them. Add to that that Victoria Nuland knew Steele was a liar, and that his reports were written like junk, and their content was unbelievable.
There is no evidence that Steel had any sources in Russia. Even if Steele aided FBI to build cases related to the FIFA corruption, that was not indication that he had Russian sources or was trustworthy. International bodies representing the globe are notoriously corrupt; FIFA was not an exception. Soccer is a British national sport; Steele knew about FIFA more than FBI investigators just by being British. One who knew the basics could find a lot of more specific information about FIFA bosses on the Internet. He could have packaged information from public sources, his personal knowledge and guesses as a sourced report. On FIFA, Steele might have also used his connections in MI6.
(Added on March 17, 2017) Steele admitted that he had packaged internet rumors as information from sources in his “dossier”.
“Former British spy Christopher Steele confessed that he used an unverified report submitted to a CNN website, where “random individuals” can post information, for his salacious anti-Trump dossier. Steele made the awkward revelation during a deposition last year in a case involving Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev, who claims his companies Webzilla and XBT Holdings were defamed by Steele after the dossier was published by BuzzFeed.” (Fox News, March 16, 2019)
These were allegations about XBT/Webzilla, posted by an anonymous source on CNN’s iReport in 2009.
Craig Murray, British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, called Steele a charlatan on January 11, 2017, when Steele’s name was published. In December 2016, Craig Murray told the Daily Mail that he had received DNC documents from a DNC insider – Bernie supporter, and transferred them to WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks might have received the DNC documents from multiple sources.
FBI should have investigated who was running Steele at them, rather than looking for truth in his “reports.”
The DNC, Hillary’s Campaign & FBI Colluded with Ukraine against Trump
One of alleged connections between Trump and Putin was Paul Manafort. This wild allegation was made based on the work that Manafort did for Viktor Yanukovych, President of Ukraine, in and prior to 2014. Ukraine is at war with Russia. How one could believe in such “connection”?
“When Manafort’s role as a Trump campaign adviser was announced, Alexandra Chalupa, a consultant working for the Democratic National Committee, could barely contain herself…‘This is huge,’ she texted top DNC officials. ‘This is everything to take out Trump.’” (Isikoff, p.99)
Later, the DNC went to the Ukrainian embassy to seek dirt on Trump, via the same Chalupa. Notice the criminal jargon used in the DNC: “take out Trump”.
“She said she shared her concern with Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and one of his top aides, Oksana Shulyar, during a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy. …
“Chalupa said the embassy also worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions. …
But Andrii Telizhenko, who worked as a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy under Shulyar, said she instructed him to help Chalupa research connections between Trump, Manafort and Russia. … “They were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa,” he said, adding “Oksana was keeping it all quiet,” but “the embassy worked very closely with” Chalupa. …
In the email, which was sent in early May to then-DNC communications director Luis Miranda, Chalupa noted that she had extended an invitation to the Library of Congress forum to veteran Washington investigative reporter Michael Isikoff [the book co-author]. …
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk [called “Yatz” by Victoria Nuland] warned on Facebook that Trump had “challenged the very values of the free world.” …
Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, Arsen Avakov, piled on, trashing Trump on Twitter in July as a “clown” and asserting that Trump is “an even bigger danger to the US than terrorism.””
Yes, the DNC and Hillary campaign not only used tips from foreign intelligence agencies, but pro-actively asked the government of Ukraine for the dirt on the Trump campaign, which was manufactured and provided on the demand.
“[Ledgers released by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine] appeared to show $12.7 million in cash payments that were earmarked for Manafort by the Russia-aligned party of the deposed former president, Yanukovych. … The New York Times, in the August story revealing the ledgers’ existence, reported that the payments earmarked for Manafort were “a focus” of an investigation by Ukrainian anti-corruption officials, while CNN reported days later that the FBI was pursuing an overlapping inquiry. … Clinton’s campaign seized on the story to advance Democrats’ argument that Trump’s campaign was closely linked to Russia. The ledger represented “more troubling connections between Donald Trump’s team and pro-Kremlin elements in Ukraine,” Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, said in a statement. … Manafort denied receiving any off-books cash from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, and said that he had never been contacted about the ledger by Ukrainian or American investigators …”
Even if the ledger and/or cash payments were true, they would not create even a shadow of a connection between Manafort and Russia. Manafort advised elected and recognized by the US president of Ukraine. Manafort resigned from Trump campaign after publication of the ledgers. After Trump’s victory, many Ukrainian officials and parliamentarians challenged the story of cash payments to Manafort and said that the ledgers were fake:
“… the ledgers might have been doctored or even forged. Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, a Ukrainian former diplomat … said it was fishy that “only one part of the black ledger appeared.” He asked, “Where is the handwriting analysis?” and said it was “crazy” to announce an investigation based on the ledgers. He met last month in Washington with Trump allies, and said, “of course they all recognize that our anti-corruption bureau intervened in the [US] presidential campaign.””
So, it appears that the Ukrainian government manufactured evidence against Manafort to please the DNC. Now the kicker:
“The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. It was created in 2014 as a condition for Ukraine to receive aid from the U.S. and the European Union, and it signed an evidence-sharing agreement with the FBI in late June [2016] — less than a month and a half before it released the ledgers …”
Hard to believe it was a coincidence. The real explanation is that FBI made an evidence-sharing agreement with the Ukrainian government with the purpose to receive kompromat (real or manufactured evidence) against Trump campaign.
(The quotes in this section are from Politico, January 2017, https://archive.is/64KI8)
All that doesn’t mean that Ukraine is anti-Trump. The DNC and Hillary campaign pulled Ukraine in their dirty game. Believing the win of Hillary is inevitable, and reading fake news about Trump in the MSM, the Ukrainian government just couldn’t refuse.
The DNC, Hillary’s Campaign & the Obama administration attempted to Collude with Russia
“In early June, State Department officials huddled around their computers to watch an astonishing video that had just arrived from Moscow. It captured a violent attack outside one of the entrances to the U.S. embassy compound. An embassy officer was dropped off by a taxi. Seconds later, a uniformed FSB guard jumped out of a booth, grabbed the American, and slammed him to the ground. A few feet from the door to the complex, the American struggled to break free. But the Russian remained on top of him, pinning the American to the concrete. It took the U.S. officer about twenty seconds to squirm, kick, and struggle his way to the entrance. When the door automatically opened, he managed to position his feet against a sidewall and, using all his strength, pushed his way through the door, with the FSB man still on top of him. He eventually escaped the guard’s grip and was safe on American soil. But his shoulder was broken, and he soon was flown out of the country to receive medical attention. Secretary of State John Kerry watched the video aboard a plane flying back to Washington—and was furious…The video clearly depicted an unprovoked attack on compound property, and was an outright violation of international law prohibiting local nationals from entering diplomatic property without permission. Kerry contacted Lavrov to complain…This was unacceptable, Kerry told Lavrov.” (Isikoff, p.123-124)
That was it! An FSB guard attacked an American diplomat, made him crawl and squirm at the door of the American embassy. The whole reaction of Obama administration was to tell Lavrov that it was unacceptable. Note that it happened after the DNC or allowed the exfiltration of troves of its internal data to what they thought was Russian intelligence. Apparently, the Obama administration felt itself open to blackmail by Russia, and decided to do what was best for the Hillary campaign — stay low.
“As Obama and his top policymakers saw it, they were stuck with several dilemmas…Prevent Putin from further cyber aggression without prompting him to do more. ‘This was one of the most complex and challenging issues I dealt with in government,’ Avril Haines, the NSC’s number two official, who oversaw the deputies meetings, later remarked,” — refers to September – October 2016 (Isikoff, p.191)
In other words, the dilemma was: what could the Obama administration offer to Putin to secure a better attitude towards Hillary? Apparently, it felt that allowing FSB to beat up and humiliate American diplomats was already insufficient to maintain any Obama-Hillary collusion with Putin. The collusion might have been one-sided – Hillary and other Democrats attempted to get Putin to stop the publication of information damaging to their electoral chances, but Putin didn’t publish it and couldn’t understand what Obama wanted.
“‘There was a concern if we did too much to spin this up into an Obama-Putin face-off, it would help the Russians achieve their objectives,’ a participant in the principals meeting later noted. ‘It would create chaos, help Trump, and hurt Clinton,’” — refers to September – early November 2016 (Isikoff, p.191)
Exactly! A typical behavior by top Democrats – screw this country, but don’t help Trump! There are still Democrats in government, aren’t there?
The Obama Administration Hid its “Russian” Activities from Congressional Republicans
“Obama convened a series of meetings to devise a plan for responding to and countering whatever the Russians were up to. The meetings followed the procedure known in the federal government as the interagency process. The general routine is for the deputy chiefs of the relevant government agencies to meet and hammer out options for the principals—that is, the heads of the agencies—and then the principals hold a separate (and sometimes parallel) chain of meetings to discuss and perhaps debate before presenting choices to the president…But for this topic, the protocols were not routine. Usually when the White House invited the deputies and principals to such meetings they informed them of the subject at hand and provided ‘read-ahead’ memos outlining what was on the agenda. This time, the agency officials just received instructions to show up at the White House at a certain time. No reason given. No memos supplied…For the usual interagency sessions, principals and deputies could bring staffers. Not this time. ‘There were no plus-ones,’ an attendee recalled…When the subject of a principals or deputies meeting was a national security matter, the gathering was often held in the Situation Room of the White House. The in-house video feed of the Sit Room—without audio—would be available to national security officials at the White House and elsewhere, and these officials could at least see that a meeting was in progress and who was attending. For the meetings related to the Russian hack, Susan Rice ordered the video feed turned off. She did not want others in the national security establishment to know what was under way, fearing leaks from within the bureaucracy. Rice would chair the principals’ meetings—which brought together Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Kerry, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—with only a few other White House officials present, including Denis McDonough, Lisa Monaco, and Colin Kahl, Joe Biden’s national security adviser.” (Isikoff, p.184-185)
What was so secret in these meetings, if the subject was suspicion of a Russian influence campaign? The suspicions and accusations were public, and if it were a Russian campaign, Russia knew where it stood. The real cause for the secrecy was that the Obama administration plotted against Trump campaign and wanted to keep the meetings secret from Republicans! This behavioral pattern repeated. What was Gen. Joseph Dunford doing there?
“At the White House, a trio of Obama’s most senior aides—Rice, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, and homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco—took charge of the administration’s response. An order was sent to the intelligence community: Tell us what’s going on here. The president wanted to know more…Deliberations within the White House about the matter were closely held—much more so than with other sensitive topics.” (Isikoff, p.136-137)
For Democrats, staying in power is the most sensitive topic.
Misc
“One of the key officials in charge of implementing Obama’s Russia reset was Hillary Clinton, the new secretary of state.” (Isikoff p. 25)
Yes, she was.
Curiously, CrowdStrike was also hired by the DNC to investigate conflicting claims between the DNC and the Bernie campaign related to the security of and access to the voter file program, NGP VAN. NGP VAN was supposed to be equally accessible by both Bernie’s and Hillary’s campaigns, but the Bernie campaign was shut out for some time. CrowdStrike finished this investigation (which might have been a whitewash favoring Hillary and the DNC) just a few days before Perkins Coie invited it to handle the “discovery” of the DNC network hacking. Somebody needs to look into it deeper. https://archive.is/8YNnE
2019-03-31 update
Daniel Greenfield, FrontPageMag, DEMOCRATS CREATED THE RUSSIAGATE MONSTER, THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO LEAVE IT
“Dem leaders would live to pivot away from Russiagate. But it’s impossible. Especially since Pelosi may set the legislative agenda, but the media and some vocal lefty freshmen like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Tlaib, Omar, etc… set the actual public agenda.
And Pelosi is tied to the donor base, which is activist, militant and wants to see a brutal scorched earth campaign against Trump. Individual Dems in safe lefty districts can profit by pushing impeachment and Russia conspiracy theories, becoming high profile figures and fundraising off their attacks.
Pelosi has shown that she can’t control them. The media sees big profits in pushing these conspiracy theories. And so the Dems are doomed to use their House majority to go after Trump while giving most Americans no reason to support them.”
Originally published on 2019-02-15