A New Attempt to Resurrect Russiagate?
by John D. O’Connor
The following is an article originally published on American Thinker. Read it HERE.
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For the last eight years, Donald Trump has been subject to the perverse use of the legal system by his political enemies to smear and harass him, trying to weaken his strong support. However, his recently conceived anti-weaponization program has foundered, emblemized by the reassignment of program head Ed Martin and apparent abandonment of the project.
In contrast, the left continues apace with its weaponization through false historical narratives. One recent book, Interference, promoted by such as George Stephanopoulos, seeks to cement in our nation’s history the false and defamatory Russiagate hoax narrative. That work was authored by the chief deputies of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Aaron Zebley, James Quarles, and Andrew Goldstein (collectively, “Zebley” or “SCO”).
The major fraudulent thesis of this book is that the 2016 Russiagate scandal was not a hoax, but rather a campaign of election interference by Russia to help then-candidate Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.
This book is highly important, but not for the Deep State pomposity it embodies. Rather, the book is itself another Russiagate dirty trick.
Interference proudly admits that the SCO chose to ignore the so-called Steele Dossier because, after all, it contained unreliable third-hand allegations. But in so doing, it committed fraud by concealment: The Steele Dossier was the basis for the worst election fraud, including foreign interference, in our country’s history.
Few understand that not only was Hillary Clinton its sponsor, but that she used the following Russian agents and Putin’s oligarchic intimates to cobble this trash together: suspected Russian spy Igor Danchenko; oligarch Oleg Deripaska‘s main spokesman Christopher Steele; oligarch Denis Katsyv‘s main American retainer Glenn Simpson; Russian agent Olga Galkina; Russian and Clinton P.R. agent Charles Dolan; and, according to Danchenko, Vladislav Surkov (“Putin’s Rasputin”) and Vyacheslav Trubnikov (retired KGB spy chief). So the Steele Dossier embodies, yes, Russian electoral collusion, but to help Clinton and hurt Trump.
The Steele Dossier hid Clinton’s fraud on Bernie Sanders and also smeared Donald Trump, who the Dossier said was part of a “well-developed” election conspiracy with Russia, the falsely claimed source of WikiLeaks’ “hack and dump“ of the DNC. So by hiding the evidence of this despicable Clinton trick, the SCO itself obstructed justice, while aiding and abetting Clinton.
The only substantial allegation of Russian interference that the SCO could dredge up was the Clinton-invented “hack and dump” operation, in which it was alleged that Russia hacked the DNC email server, obtained Clinton-damning emails, and dumped them on the public. But in fact, the speeds of the email exfiltration suggest a download, not a hack by Russia or anyone else, as contended. The respected independent group of retired government forensic intelligence examiners VIPS concluded emphatically that the damning emails were downloaded rather than hacked.
In the entirety of Interference, there is no treatment of the strong VIPS evidence of download, which destroys the heart of the fable of “Russian interference” that the book so strongly pushes. Notably, the preening authors do not highlight their failure to have taken half an hour to subpoena the DNC’s I.T. vendor, CrowdStrike, along with the server itself, which would show a hack or download. They thereby concealed key evidence as to their main legal mission. So, who hid evidence: villain Trump or hero prosecutor?
This leads us into devilry of the sneaky James Comey, for whom the phony Russiagate narrative was a rich hunting ground in which he could snare multiple prey, including his hated president.
A quick history of James Comey’s galling abuses: In 2002, Comey trapped Martha Stewart by leading her to believe, falsely, that truthful answers would amount to an admission of criminality. She lied during an FBI interview and went to prison as a result.
In 2004 and 2005, Comey led then–vice president Dick Cheney’s deputy, Scooter Libby, to believe that a truthful answer in “Plamegate” would be an admission of criminality, and so Libby lied and was convicted. Likewise, Comey almost snared President George W. Bush’s chief of staff, Karl Rove.
Comey did the same with lowly Trump aide George Papadopoulos and Trump’s national security adviser, General Michael Flynn, in 2016. They both lied unnecessarily as Comey frightened them with “Russiagate” liability.
By falsely publicizing “Russiagate” through the Steele Dossier, Comey hoped to trap Trump, like his other victims, into some act of arguable obstruction or falsity. Trump soon fired Comey, not because Trump was worried about Russian collusion, but because Comey had ginned up scandalous publicity while refusing to exonerate his boss publicly.
The special counsel investigation Comey, wrongly but successfully, sought in retribution, however, was a dream for Comey, because it might pressure Trump into falsity or obstruction, the oily lawman’s home field.
So, properly understood, the special counsel investigation had two purposes: first, to hide all the Clinton/FBI wrongdoing that had previously occurred, and second, to trap Trump into obstruction through relentless pressure, including 2,800 subpoenas and arrests of his associates.
As Interference shows, the junior-jack prosecutors came up empty after trying to trap Trump into an interview where, per Comey, Trump might lie. Without sufficient evidence, the special counsel had but two choices under the statute: prosecution or declination.
But these partisans did not fulfill their legal obligation to, in effect, put up or shut up. So while they were not prosecuting, they did not have the integrity to give their hated quarry a declination.
This clear dereliction of duty is fitting, because it forms a perfect shell of Russian nesting “matryoshka” dolls. This false book covers up a false special counsel investigation. The special counsel investigation covers up a dirty FBI/Comey investigation. This false FBI probe covers up a false Clinton Russiagate narrative. The false Clinton Russiagate narrative covers up the fraudulent DNC-Clinton corruption.
Clearly, the alleged Russian “hack and dump” was really an internal download, likely by a disgusted Bernie Sanders–supporter. The only way to ensure that the false “hack and dump” narrative would not be exposed would be to silence the actual downloader, which Jullian Assange of WikiLeaks all but said was murder victim and DNC employee Seth Rich.
So a question for Zebley and his putatively fantastic crew: Shouldn’t you have investigated the murder of Seth Rich or, if not, at least his connections to WikiLeaks? If he had been, hypothetically, in touch with WikiLeaks, even if not as a result murdered, then the last ten years of our country’s history would be shown to be the result of a hoax, by Clinton, by the FBI, and now by the special counsel.
But Zebley and cohorts have solemnly instead asserted this overriding theme: Russiagate was not a hoax.
Should we believe them?
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John D. O’Connor is a former federal prosecutor and the San Francisco attorney who represented W. Mark Felt during his revelation as Deep Throat in 2005. O’Connor is the author of the books The Mysteries of Watergate: What Really Happened and Postgate: How the Washington Post Betrayed Deep Throat, Covered Up Watergate and Began Today’s Partisan Advocacy Journalism.