53 Transcripts: The Forrest Gump Of Campaigns

Earlier this week the House Intelligence Committee finally released transcripts of 53 interviews (of 49 witnesses) it conducted in 2017-18.  Though the Committee had voted in November 2018 to release the transcripts after national security reviews for classified information, incoming chairman Adam Schiff refused to do so for what are now obvious reasons - he had repeatedly lied to the media and public about what was said in those interviews and the release of the transcripts would demonstrate that.

Under pressure from Acting DNI Richard Grenell, who publicly announced release was fine from a national security perspective and threatened to release the transcripts himself, Schiff finally relented.

I'm in the process of reading all 5,000 pages of the interviews, have completed 18 of the 53, and will write at more length when finished but wanted to pass along some fascinating quotes (it'll come as no surprise but there is absolutely no evidence in what I've read so far of any collusion between the Trump campaign or Trump personally with the Russians).

The first quote is from the February 27, 2018 interview with Hope Hicks, Trump's press secretary during the campaign and then communications director for the first couple of years of his presidency.  It's in response to questions about collusion with the Russians:

"Not to say that Russia's interference wasn't something to be taken seriously, but that our involvement in that was sort of laughable, given that we were like the Forrest Gump of campaigns.  We couldn't spell the address to our Iowa field office right and yet we colluded with Vladimir Putin to steal the election.  It was sort of a hilarious narrative to us." (p.155)

In the interview with Hicks and others, like Corey Lewandowski, the ramshackle, improvised nature of the Trump campaign comes through over and over again.  They made amateurish mistakes and were incapable of the pulling off a coordinated campaign of collusion.  The Democrats on the panel must have been thinking, "how could we have lost to these clowns?".

Earlier in her interview, Hicks was asked about Trump's private comments about the Russia issues and she responded, "his private comments echo his public comments".  I think we all now know this to be true, for better and for worse.  The President says the same stuff to us as he does to his staff.

On June 22, 2017, Dan Coats, then Director National Intelligence and former Senator was interviewed by the committee.  Coats was not personally close to Trump before or after his nomination to become DNI but he recounted an extraordinary moment when, in a private meeting with the President after couple of days after his inauguration, an upset Trump suddenly started talking about Comey's briefing of him on January 6, during which he was informed of the dossier and his alleged romp with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room. According to Coats, the President said;

"I want to - I swear to you on the soul of my son, I had nothing to do with the prostitution.  And for them to take me aside and raise this issue and then have it leaked, he said, how would you like it if - how do you go home and talk to your wife when it is plastered all over the place that you were using prostitutes in Russia and you are having your family hear that and having you son hear that?". (p.13)

Today we all know what Trump knew then - the allegation was false - we can imagine the anguish it must have caused him at the time.

The Tilted Playing Field

I'm so old, I remember when having a political campaign working hand in glove with high tech companies to elect a President was considered the coolest thing!

For a reminder of those golden days way back in 2012 when scraping data from Facebook to manipulate voters was considered the height of sophistication, read this article from The Guardian:

Barack Obama's re-election team are building a vast digital data operation that for the first time combines a unified database on millions of Americans with the power of Facebook to target individual voters to a degree never achieved before.

Digital analysts predict this will be the first election cycle in which Facebook could become a dominant political force. The social media giant has grown exponentially since the last presidential election, rendering it for the first time a major campaigning tool that has the potential to transform friendship into a political weapon.

Facebook is also being seen as a source of invaluable data on voters. The re-election team, Obama for America, will be inviting its supporters to log on to the campaign website via Facebook, thus allowing the campaign to access their personal data and add it to the central data store – the largest, most detailed and potentially most powerful in the history of political campaigns. If 2008 was all about social media, 2012 is destined to become the "data election".

For the past nine months a crack team of some of America's top data wonks has occupied an entire floor of the Prudential building in Chicago devising a digital campaign from the bottom up. The team draws much of its style and inspiration from the corporate sector, with its driving ambition to create a vote-garnering machine that is smooth, unobtrusive and ruthlessly efficient.

Already more than 100 geeks, some recruited at top-flight university job fairs including Stanford, are assembled in the Prudential drawn from an array of disciplines: statisticians, predictive modellers, data mining experts, mathematicians, software engineers, bloggers, internet advertising experts and online organisers.

At the core is a single beating heart – a unified computer database that gathers and refines information on millions of committed and potential Obama voters. The database will allow staff and volunteers at all levels of the campaign – from the top strategists answering directly to Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina to the lowliest canvasser on the doorsteps of Ohio – to unlock knowledge about individual voters and use it to target personalised messages that they hope will mobilise voters where it counts most.

And Time Magazine added a very interesting wrinkle to the project:

That’s because the more than 1 million Obama backers who signed up for the app gave the campaign permission to look at their Facebook friend lists. In an instant, the campaign had a way to see the hidden young voters. Roughly 85% of those without a listed phone number could be found in the uploaded friend lists. What’s more, Facebook offered an ideal way to reach them. “People don’t trust campaigns. They don’t even trust media organizations,” says Goff. “Who do they trust? Their friends.”

And it wasn't just the Obama campaign neutrally making use of data.  Facebook was happy to cooperate according to this article, according to former Obama campaign staffer Carol Davidsen:

She also said that Facebook officials came to the campaign offices after the election recruiting Obama's tech team, and that "they were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn't have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side."

This wasn't entirely new news, by the way. The New York Times reported in 2013, in another glowing piece on Obama's tech team, how "The campaign's exhaustive use of Facebook triggered the site's internal safeguards." Facebook's response, according to one campaign official: "They'd sigh and say, 'You can do this as long as you stop doing it on Nov. 7.'"

Facebook wasn't the only tech company playing a key role in the Obama campaign.  Google's Board Chairman Eric Schmidt was providing hands-on assistance.  As reported in this article

Schmidt was intimately involved in building Obama’s voter-targeting operation in 2012, recruiting digital talent, choosing technology and coaching campaign manager Jim Messina on campaign infrastructure. The system was credited with helping Obama achieve his unexpectedly large margin of victory.

On election night in 2012, Schmidt was in Obama’s Chicago campaign headquarters “boiler room” alongside the team charged with maximizing voter turnout.

It was a good deal for Google, as during the Obama Administration you could not tell where Google ended and the White House began.  They even got the White House to push "net neutrality" which was a business push to advantage large internet platforms over the actual investors and owners who had provided internet access.  With the help of the White House, credulous Progressives believed that the lives of millions were at stake because of "net neutrality" rather than it being merely an effort to make Google even more profitable.  Thankfully, the Trump Administration reversed the handout to Google.  As far as I know, millions have not died.

Of course, when the 2016 election did not turn out as planned, clever use of Facebook and other social media by people the high-tech crowd and media did not approve of became "manipulation" and "election tampering''.  Both the co-founder and the CEO of Google vowed to shocked employees they would do everything possible to make sure the 2020 election turned out "the right way".  I am sure they will.

The best way to understand the situation in 2020 is to understand that while both Progressives and non-Progressives have complaints about high tech companies and social media, their viewpoints are fundamentally different.  For non-Progressives it is, "we'd like our voices to be heard along with everyone else", for Progressives it is, "we demand you shut down the voices who disagree with us".  It's why the Progressive tactic is to get the tech companies to use actual hate groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which defines as a "hate group" any organization that is not Progressive, to determine what type of speech should be censured.  And it is the inherent Progressive leanings of the tech companies that make non-Progressives very suspicious of where this is all headed.  It's why 21st century Progressive thought is an authoritarian cult.

That Russia Thing: Unanswered Questions

There are many questions for which we still don’t know the answers regarding the Russian collusion hoax. Here are four critical questions about its origin which, if answered, would fill in a lot of the blanks and tell us if this fiasco involved "just" unethical conduct, bias, gullibility, gross negligence and incompetence or also included illegality.  After the Mueller report was issued I posted a much longer list of questions (which you can read here), some answered by the December 2019 IG report. At this point we can only hope Durham answers the questions below.

Who was Joseph Mifsud acting on behalf of and what was said in his meeting with George Papdopoulos?

The alleged content of the Mifsud-Papadopolous and Downer-Papadopoulos conversations was the predicate for the FBI opening of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation on July 31, 2016.

Mifsud was the Maltese academic, publicly connected with Western intelligence services (particularly British), who approached the young, naive wannabe and newly appointed Trump foreign policy advisor George Papadopolous in March 2016. On April 26, 2016 they had a conversation in which Papadopolous says Mifsud told him the Russians had “dirt” on Clinton in the form of thousand of emails. Mifsud denied this when interviewed by the FBI.

The Mueller investigation found, no doubt to its frustration, no evidence that Papadopolous informed anyone else in the Trump campaign about any statement made by Mifsud regarding the Russians having dirt or emails regarding Clinton.

Here’s what we know about who Mifsud was not working for:

The Horowitz report found no evidence, including in FBI databases, that Mifsud was an informant for that agency.
The Mueller report found no evidence Mifsud was an asset of Russian intelligence or acting on its behalf.

There are three other possibilities:

Mifsud freelancing on his own behalf trying to enhance his reputation and make connections for the future.
Mifsud acting on behalf of a “friendly” Western intelligence agency worried about the foreign policy of a potential Trump Administration.
Mifsud acting directly, or indirectly, on behalf of an American intelligence agency.

Who was Alexander Downer acting on behalf of and what was said in his meeting with George Papadopoulos?

In early May 2016, Alexander Downer, a senior Australian diplomat with intelligence service experience and with links to the Clinton Foundation, invited Papadopolous to meet him in a London bar. During the conversation, which Papadopolous believes was recorded by Downer, he allegedy mentioned the emails obtained by the Russians – allegedly according to Downer that is, as Papadopolous denies discussing the subject with Downer. On July 26, 2016, Downer reported the conversation to the FBI claiming P had told him the Trump campaign had received indication from the Russian government it could assist the campaign by release of information damaging to Clinton. This report triggered the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Note that P’s statement regarding his discussion with Mifsud does not mention any indication that the Russian could assist the campaign, while Downer makes that specific claim. Further, Downer stated he decided to report the conversation ten weeks after it occurred after hearing about the hacking and public release of the DNC emails which occurred in July. Both the Mueller report and the Horowitz IG report place the alleged Papadopolous-Mifsud conversation in the context of the DNC email hack while the more obvious context is Hillary Clinton’s emails that she had destroyed to thwart the investigation, an event which was publicly known in April. Most people, myself included, assumed the Russians and/or Chinese had the missing Clinton emails and would have assumed that was what Mifsud was referring to.

Why was a senior Australian official contacting a junior Trump staffer?

Was it on his own initiative or at the request of others?

Was his conversation recorded? If so, does it support the claims he made when later reporting it to the FBI?

Does the connection made by Mueller and the FBI between the conversations and the DNC hacking make sense or was it invented after the fact to justify the initiation of Crossfire Hurricane?

Can the discrepancies between the accounts of Papadopolous, Mifsud, and Downer regarding the Clinton emails be reconciled?

Did this all start with the intelligence community trying to get Michael Flynn?

I originally thought Flynn was a bad appointment, someone who’d made some careless mistakes between the time he left the Obama administration and joined the Trump administration. Looking back I was wrong. Flynn was one of the few people in the administration who was both a Trump supporter, not just someone who wanted to “manage” Trump, and knew how the DC bureaucracy worked. He would have been very helpful to the President in those initial months when he had almost no one around him he could trust and who knew how DC worked. And he was a danger to the intelligence community because he’d made clear that the current structure was inefficient, incompetent, and needed to be slimmed down which meant a loss of power, influence, and jobs for those agencies. He needed to be taken out of action.

There is some evidence this effort to take out Flynn started as long ago as 2015. The travails and smearing of Russian emigre and Cambridge academic Svetlana Lokhova may have been ground zero for this effort, and present at the inception was U.S. intelligence agency asset Stefan Halper who turns up later interacting with Papadopolous, Carter Page, and others in what appears to be efforts to entrap them.

Was there an effort to specifically “get” Flynn and his conversation with the Russian ambassador merely an opportunity to do so?

Was Stefan Halper tasked to do this and, if so, by whom?

What is the background to the January 2017 Intelligence Community assessment regarding Russian interference with the 2016 election?

How was the assessment completed unusually quickly – only a month after being requested by President Obama?

How were the analysts selected and by whom? Was this the normal process?

Why was the assessment limited to three agencies?

What was the underlying evidence for its conclusions? Was any of the underlying evidence part of the now discredited Steele Dossier?

[By the way, the appendix to the intelligence assessment asserts the Kremlin supports the anti-fracking movement in the U.S. – Putin must be very pleased with the Democratic candidates for the 2020 election.]

And as long as we are talking about Russia . . . two more things

One of the factors in the recently announced DOJ decision not to charge Andrew McCabe for making false statements in connection with his leaks regarding the investigation of the Clinton Foundation is the difficulty in successfully prosecuting anyone seen as a opponent of Republicans in the District of Columbia (for some good analysis on the decision read this and this).  Donald Trump received 4% of the District's vote in 2016.  Voters, and potential jurors, don't just dislike Trump, they hate him and view his administration as an illegitimate occupying force that has no business being in control of THEIR government.

With the ongoing investigations and the likelihood that most indictments would need to be filed in the District we are faced with a true challenge for democracy.  Is it possible to successfully prosecute opponents of Donald Trump in the nation's capital?  If not, we are in big trouble as a country.

Secondly, I'd been meaning to write about this but an article in Red State beat me to it.  It's about Dana Boente of DOJ, who is now General Counsel of the FBI and has been neck deep in dubious activities regarding the Russia probe.  The chronology outlined in the piece is accurate and yet another illustration of how difficult it is to untangle the efforts to try to unseat Trump and why those only relying on the anti-Trump advocacy of the media don't even begin to understand what happened.

The DC Bubble & The FBI

I've just finished reading "Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation", the 480 page report issued by the Office of the Inspector General of the US Department of Justice in December 2019.  While it will take a while to pull together my thoughts there is one issue I wanted to address now because it is so striking throughout the document and has not been addressed much in commentary to date.

During Crossfire Hurricane (the code name for the investigation of possible collusion between Russia and individuals associated with the Trump campaign) the FBI often relied upon "open source" materials to assist in its investigation.  These materials usually consisted of articles published in newspapers and magazines.  It is also clear from the IG report that much of the material in those open sources came from information planted by representatives of the Clinton campaign, particularly Glenn Simpson of Fusion/GPS, and Christopher Steele who was hired by Fusion/GPS and produced the "Steele Dossier".

The result is the FBI, in part, confirming its theory of Trump campaign collusion with Russia, using news articles based upon claims, which we now know to be false, from the Clinton campaign, information which, in part, purports to come from sources in Russian intelligence!  Sounds crazy, doesn't it?  Particularly where, as the IG report concludes, the FISA Warrant against Carter Page would not have been sought without the Steele Dossier.  In effect the FBI confirmed Steele Dossier allegations by reference to newspaper articles whose source was the Steele Dossier!

Let's take one example that really struck me; the sections in the Republican Party Platform regarding Ukraine.  The IG report states that all four FISA applications regarding Carter Page relied upon information from the Report 95 of the Steele Dossier, including:

[A]ccording to [the sub-Source], Candidate #1's [Trump's] team, which the FBI assesses includes at least Page, agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue and to raise U.S./NATO defense commitments in the Baltics and Eastern Europe to deflect attention away from Ukraine.

The IG report goes on to state:

In further support of this allegation from Report 95, the FISA application described two news articles from July and August 2016 reporting that the Trump campaign had worked behind the scenes to change the Republican Party's platform on providing weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces and that candidate Trump appeared to have adopted a "milder" tone on Russia's annexation of Crimea.

The application further claims that Carter Page was involved in changing the platform language in his role as an intermediary between Russia and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort (Page has repeatedly denied ever even meeting Manafort and the FBI never found any evidence to the contrary - Carter voluntarily, and without legal representation, met on several occasions with the FBI in 2017).

But there is a problem with the popular media narrative, widely reported at the time, about the arguments over the platform - one that I fell for in 2016, as did the FBI, a narrative that proved to be false.*

In truth, the draft Republican Party platform already contained tough language on Russia, in part as a reaction to what was seen as the Obama Administration's too-soft approach to Putin's regime.  When the platform committee met at the convention a Texas delegate, Diana Denman, originally a Cruz supporter who ended up supporting Trump, proposed an amendment to the draft language:

We therefore support maintaining (and, if warranted, increasing) sanctions against Russia until Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are fully restored.  We also support providing lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine's armed forces and greater coordination with NATO on defense planning. Simultaneously, we call for increased financial aid for Ukraine, as well as greater assistance in the economic and humanitarian spheres, including government reform and anti-corruption.

A Trump national security aide, JD Gordon, recommended edits to the amendment and after consulting with New York HQ asked to have the language regarding lethal defensive weapons deleted (these were the same weapons the Obama Administration had steadfastly refused to provide to the Ukraine).

The final platform language contained some of Denman's amendment.  Here is the final language and you can judge how tough it is on Russia:

Also neglected are our strategic forces, especially the development and deployment of ballistic missile defenses.  The Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system has been delayed and underfunded.  To curry favor with Russia, defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic have been neutralized and the number of planned interceptors in Alaska has been reduced.  A New START agreement (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), so weak in verification and definitions that it is virtually impossible to prove a violation, has allow Russia to build up its nuclear arsenal while reducing ours.  Meanwhile Moscow has repeatedly violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (a treaty agreeing to the elimination of land-based mid-range nuclear missiles) with impunity, covertly testing missiles banned under that agreement.

In the international arena, a weak Administration has invited aggression.  The results of the Administration's unilateral approach to disarmament are already clear: An emboldened China in the South China Sea, a resurgent Russia occupying parts of Ukraine and threatening neighbors from the Baltic to the Caucasus, and an aggressive Islamist terror network in the Middle East.

We support maintaining and, if warranted, increasing sanctions, together with our allies, against Russia unless and until Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity are fully restored.  We also support providing appropriate assistance to the armed forces of Ukraine and greater coordination with NATO defense planning.

And here is the 2016 Democratic Party Platform language:

Russia is engaging in destabilizing actions along its borders, violating Ukraine's sovereignty and attempting to recreate spheres of influence that undermine America interests.  It is also propping up the Assad regime in Syria, which is brutally attacking its own citizens.  Donald Trump would overturn more than 50 years of American foreign policy by abandoning NATO partners - countries who help us fight terrorism every day - and embracing Russia President Vladimir Putin instead.  We believe in strong alliances and will deter Russian aggression, build European resilience, and protect our NATO allies.  We will make it clear to Putin that we are prepared to cooperate with him when it is in our interest - as we did on reducing nuclear stockpiles, ensuring Iran could not obtain a nuclear weapon, sanctioning North Korea, and resupplying our troops in Afghanistan - but we will not hesitate to stand up to Russian aggression.  We will also continue to stand by the Russian people and push the government to respect the fundamental rights of its citizens.

Note the contrasts here - while the Denman amendment language on explicitly providing "lethal defensive weapons" to Ukraine was dropped, her language committing the Republican Party to "maintaining and, if warranted, increasing sanctions until Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity are fully restored" has been added; the Democratic platform does not mention sanctions, nor commit the party to restoring Ukraine's sovereignty.  Nor did the Democrats promise to provide "lethal defensive weapons".  In fact, if you look at the language carefully the Democrat platform makes no concrete promises regarding Ukraine, unlike the Republicans.

One would think the nation's premier law enforcement and counter-intelligence agency would do something as elementary as trying to confirm the story peddled by the news media regarding the Republican platform, and then comparing the language regarding Ukraine in the respective platforms.  I'm betting the Crossfire Hurricane team never looked at the full section on Russia and Ukraine in the Republican platform because between the Steele Dossier and the reports from their media favorites they had what they needed.

The blind faith of the FBI in the liberal news media exists (1) because they've grown up in a world where the New York Times and Washington Post have biblical authority and (2) those publications constantly and reassuringly reinforce dtheir existing world view.  I give the Times and Post the same credibility as Breitbart and Gateway Pundit but seemingly the question of credibility did not arise for the FBI so it fell for Fake News propagated by the Clinton campaign and trumpeted through its house media organs in New York and DC.

-------------------------------------------------------
* There is a bigger problem with the fact that the FBI was never able to find any confirmation that Carter Page had anything to do with the platform, an allegation he has repeatedly denied nor, for that matter, anything to support any of the Steele Dossier allegations regarding him, yet were continually asserted to be factually accurate by the agency in its renewal FISA applications, but that's a story for another post.

Why Wasn't The Clinton Campaign Investigated In 2016?

Sometimes the best way to determine bias is to look at what didn’t happen . . .

I am starting to slowly, very slowly, make my way through the 480 page report by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice regarding the FBI and DOJ role regarding the Russia investigation and the obtaining of four FISA warrants regarding Carter Page so I'm sure I'll have more to say on the matter, but having listened to IG Horowitz's Senate testimony and read analyses from the few sources I trust, there is no doubt he's confirmed what I've been writing about for the past year or so - we are seeing the biggest political scandal certainly of my lifetime, and perhaps in American history.

Having read the terms of reference from the report, a finding of political bias would only have been made if direct testimonial or documentary evidence was discovered (as in a document that said "I hate Trump, I know this is illegal, but will do anything to defeat him".  In his testimony Horowitz has consistently stated his report did not rule out bias, stating that the only explanations for the FBI/DOJ behavior were incompetence, gross negligence, or intentionality (bias) and he was not in a position to decide among the contenders.

I'll take a different approach and look at the dog that did not bark.
 

Using the standards employed by the FBI and DOJ in 2016 regarding the Trump campaign, for which the IG report has informed us that the standards for opening an investigation are very low, let’s look at Hillary Clinton and her campaign in that light:

During the 2016 campaign, one candidate employed a series of cut-outs to develop a dossier on the opposition candidate. The dossier claimed to include information sourced from Russian intelligence sources, information damaging to the reputation of the opposition candidate. At the same time, the candidate’s lead contractor (Fusion GPS) was representing a Kremlin-tied Russian oligarch in efforts to get the U.S. Congress to repeal sanctions damaging to Russia.

Contents of the dossier were leaked to the media, and representatives of the candidate met with FBI and DOJ officials in order to prompt them to take action against the opposition candidate based upon a dossier containing information from Russian intelligence, all in an effort to influence the 2016 election.

These were the actions of the Clinton, not Trump, campaign.

Now, let’s go back a few years to add some context that should have triggered further concern at the FBI and DOJ during 2016.

In 2008 both Democratic primary candidates (Obama and Clinton) denounced President Bush for damaging relations with Russia and Putin and both pledged to improve American relations with Russia.

In 2008 Putin openly endorsed Obama (the Kremlin hated McCain).

Upon becoming Secretary of State, H. Clinton proudly announced the “reset” in Russian relations, after blaming their breakdown solely on the actions of the prior administration.

During her term as SoS, H. Clinton urged American high tech companies to become involved in a new tech center in Moscow, touted as Russia’s version of Silicon Valley, a tech center which several years later was identified by American intelligence as a den of Russian technology spying.

During her term as SoS, H. Clinton approved the controversial transfer of ownership of 20 percent of America’s uranium supply to a Russian oligarch with Kremlin ties.

During her term as SoS, H. Clinton’s husband was paid $500,000 for a speech in Moscow and the Clinton Foundation received tens of millions of dollars in contributions from Russian oligarchs with Kremlin ties, including the one who ended up owning a portion of America’s uranium.

While still SoS, the Kremlin openly supported Obama’s 2012 reelection bid, in return for which Obama mocked Romney’s assertion that Russia was an enemy, and was caught on open mic promising Putin’s stooge that he would be more “flexible” after the election; positions supported by H. Clinton.

After H. Clinton left the SoS role, it was discovered that her private server, set up in violation of government regulations, was not secure, and government investigators concluded it was likely that hostile foreign governments had access to her communications. Was this just reckless behavior or was it designed to possibly allow the Russian government to have access?

There is certainly enough on the record to have justified the investigation of the Clinton campaign for potential coordination with the Russian government and, if such coordination occurred, to determine whether it was opportunistic, if Hillary Clinton had been compromised by the Russians, or was even a Russian asset.

When one looks at the skimpy and fraudulent justification for the Trump investigation, I think it fair to look at the Clinton campaign the same way. The difference in treatment during 2016 is strong evidence of political bias, particularly in light of the FBI Director's extraordinary action in deciding not to recommend pursuing criminal charges against candidate Clinton regarding her email server by reading an intent requirement into a statute that had no such requirement, less than a month before the official opening of the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign.

Obstruction?

I've gone back through the first section of Volume 2 of the Mueller Report, concerning potential obstruction by the President with the FBI investigation, to get a better feel for the sequence of events from the beginning of January 2017 until the appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel on May 17, 2017.  Stripping out excess verbiage and reorganizing the events in the report into chronological order is a device helpful in dealing with voluminous amounts of information.  I've tried not to leave out anything material, or distort anything excerpted from the report.  The outline concentrates on what Donald Trump knew, and was telling people, at the time.

Except where noted, this timeline is based on the information presented in the Mueller Report.  All quotes, except where otherwise noted by use of brackets or otherwise indicated, are directly from the Mueller Report.   The major exception are events added, from other sources, for the period from May 10 through 17.

In effect, what you see below is the prosecution's best case regarding the events.  It takes at face value the narrative presented by Mueller without providing any opportunity for Trump or other participants to provide more context or information that counters what is set forth in the report.

January 6
Trump is briefed by Intelligence Community leaders on assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

Following this briefing, FBI Director Comey has a private one on one meeting with the President-elect to tell him of "unverified, personally sensitive allegations compiled by Steele".  Comey assures Trump the FBI is not investigating him personally; "Comey recalled he did not want the President-elect to think of the conversation as a 'J Edgar Hoover move' ".  [Comey does not mention anything regarding the origins of the dossier.]

January 10
Widespread media reports (led by Buzzfeed and CNN) that Comey briefed Trump on the Steele Dossier.

January 11
Trump meets with Intelligence Community leaders expressing his concern about the leaks and asks them whether they can refute the allegations. [Remember that Trump knew then, what we all now know, the allegations he was briefed on were false.]

January 13
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence opens investigation into possible Russian election interference.

January 25
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence opens investigation into possible Russian election interference.

January 26
Acting AG Yates contacts WH General Counsel McGahn to discuss Flynn and possible lying.

McGahn reports Yates conversation to Trump who directs him to look into the matter.

WH Chief of Staff Priebus "recalls that the President was angry with Flynn in light of what Yates had told the White House and said, 'not again, this guy, this stuff'".

Trump meets with advisers and asks their opinions of Comey.  Consensus is "not positive" but Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats supports Comey and urges Trump to meet with him face to face.

January 27
Trump invites Comey to dinner that evening.  Trump tells Comey he is thinking of ordering FBI to investigate the dossier allegations against him.  Comey recommends he not issue the order because it would give the incorrect impression he is under investigation.  According to Comey, Trump says "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty".  Comey tells him, "You will always get honesty from me."

February 2
Senate Judiciary Committee opens investigation into possible Russian election interference.

February 6
Flynn and Trump talk.  According to Flynn, "President was upset" with him.

February 13
Flynn resigns.  Trump, "We'll give you a good recommendation.  You're a good guy.  We'll take care of you."

February 14
Trump has lunch with Chris Christie.  Tells Christie, "Now that we fired Flynn, the Russia thing is over".  Christie disagrees.  Trump asks Christie to reach out to Comey.  Christie does not.

Trump meets alone with Comey.  Regarding Flynn, Trump says, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.  He is a good guy.  I hope you can let that go."  Comey agrees Flynn is "good guy" but will not commit to ending the investigation.

March 1
News of possible recusal by AG Sessions breaks.

March 2
Trump has McGahn call Sessions to ask him not to recuse, but Sessions recuses.

March 3
A furious Trump tells McGahn he wishes Roy Cohn was his lawyer [Cohn, who worked for Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, represented Trump on many matters early in his business career], lamenting he does not have his own lawyer now.  Says Robert F Kennedy and Eric Holder protected their presidents.

March 4
Trump asks Sessions to reverse recusal.  Compares him unfavorably to Robert F Kennedy and Eric Holder.

March 9
Comey briefs Gang of Eight (Congressional leaders and heads of intelligence committees) about the FBI investigation on Russia and on subjects of that investigation.

Prior to March 20 Testimony of Comey
Trump expresses frustration with advisers about Comey "for too frequently making headlines and for not attending intelligence briefings at the White House" and that he suspects him of leaking.  According to McGahn, Trump thought Comey was acting like "his own branch of government".

March 20
In congressional testimony, Comey publicly confirms Russia investigation.  Comey declines to answer question about whether Trump is under investigation.  He also says, regarding the President, "we have briefed him in great detail on the subjects of the investigation and what we're doing."

March 21
Following Comey testimony, press reports suggest Trump is under investigation.  Trump is upset, described as "beside himself".  At urging of Trump, McGahn tries to have Comey or DOJ correct misperception that Trump is under investigation.

McGahn says Asst AG Boente tells him "it is not sustainable for Comey to stay as FBI Director for next four years".  McGahn tells Trump of the comment.

March 22
According to Coats (DNI), but not Pompeo (CIA), Trump asks them to publicly say there is no link between him and Russian interference in election.  They do not.

March 23
Trump calls Coats to complain again about Comey.  Coats says to let things run their course.

March 26
Trump calls NSA Director Rogers complaining that all this has made relations with Russia difficult.  Said news stories are inaccurate and asks if he could refute them.  Though he takes no action, Rogers does not see this as order and later testifies he had "never been directed to do anything he believed to be illegal, immoral, unethical, or inappropriate" and did "not recall feeling pressure to do so". 

March 30
Trump calls Comey:

According to Comey's contemporaneous record of the conversation, the President said "he was trying to run the country and the cloud of this Russia business was making that difficult".  The President asked Comey what could be done to "lift the cloud".  Comey explained "that we were running it down as quickly as possible and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to our Good Housekeeping seal of approval, but we had to do our work".  Comey also told the President that congressional leaders were aware that the FBI was not investigating the President personally.  The President said several times, "We need to get that fact out".  The President commented that if there was "some satellite" (which Comey took to mean an associate of the President's or the campaign) that did something, "it would be good to find that out" but that he himself had not done anything wrong and he hoped Comey "would find a way to get out that we weren't investigating him".

March 31
News reports that Flynn has offered to testify in exchange for immunity.  Trump tweets "Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt . . ."

Late March/Early April
Trump asks KT McFarland to pass message to Flynn telling him Trump feels bad for him and he should stay strong.

April 11
Trump calls Comey again, asking he get the word out he is not personally under investigation.  Later that day, Trump tells advisers he has twice recently reached out to Comey, and tells McGahn that Comey indicated the FBI could make such a statement if DOJ approved.

Prior to May 3 Testimony of Comey
Leading up to Comey's next testimony to Congress, Trump tells advisers to work with Comey to make public he is not under investigation.  According to McGahn, the "President said that it would be the last straw if Comey did not take the opportunity to set the record straight . . .".

May 3
In public testimony, Comey refuses to answer questions about whether the FBI had "ruled out the president of the United States."  Trump is furious over this response and with Sessions, and once again with advisers brings up Robert Kennedy and Eric Holder as examples of attorneys who protected their presidents.

May 4
Steve Bannon says Trump brought up Comey at least eight times in conversations that day, each time saying, "He told me three times I'm not under investigation.  He's a showboater".  Bannon tells Trump that firing Comey will not end investigation.

May 5
Trump tells advisers he definitely wants to fire Comey.  Asks Stephen Miller to prepare letter.  Trump wants letter to start, "While I greatly appreciate you informing me that I am not under investigation concerning what I have often stated is a fabricated story on a Trump-Russia relationship, please be informed that I, and I believe the American public - including D's and R's - have lost faith in you as Director of the FBI."   Draft prepared by Miller tracks this language.

May 8
Trump meets with McGahn, Preibus, Miller, and others regarding firing Comey.  Trump reads them first paragraph of draft letter.  McGahn says he is meeting with Sessions and Rosenstein to find out what they think.

According to McGahn, Sessions and Rosenstein criticize Comey and don't object to replacing him.  Their reaction gives McGahn "peace of mind" that the firing is not an act of obstruction.

At a meeting late that afternoon, Trump tells Rosenstein to draft a memo and to "put the Russia stuff in the memo" [that he has been repeatedly told he is not under investigation]; Rosenstein says no and Trump says "he would appreciate it if Rosenstein put it in his letter anyway".

Rosenstein tells DOJ colleagues "his own reasons for replacing Comey were not the President's reasons".

May 9
Letter from Sessions recommending Comey removal and memo from Rosenstein setting out grounds for removal [but not making recommendation].  White House counsel office says Miller draft "should not see light of day".  Trump again asks Miller to draft letter mentioning Russia.  It is unclear from the Mueller report how the final text of the letter was drafted:

I have received the attached letters from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of the United States recommending your dismissal as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  I have accepted their recommendation and you are hereby terminated from office, and removed, effective immediately.

While I greatly appreciate your informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau.

It is essential we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission.

Trump summons McCabe, who will be acting FBI Director, to the White House.  McCabe in response to question from Trump, says he knows the president is not under investigation.  McCabe says he has been closely involve with the Russia investigation and it will continue.

May 10
Trump meets with Russian Ambassador and Foreign Minister:

I just fired the head of the FBI.  He was crazy, a real nut job.  I faced great pressure because of Russia.  That's taken off . . . I'm not under investigation".  The President never denied making those statements, and the White House did not dispute the account, instead issuing a statement that said: "By grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into Russia's actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia.  The investigation would have always continued, and obviously, the termination of Comey would not have ended it." 

May 11
In an interview with Lester Holt, "The President affirmed that he expected the new FBI Director to continue the Russia investigation".

Later, after watching the Holt interview, the President tweets, "Russia must be laughing up their sleeves watching as the U.S. tears itself apart over a Democrat EXCUSE for losing the election."

These next entries are NOT in the Mueller report:

May 10
McCabe opens FBI obstruction investigation regarding President Trump. 


May 11
McCabe testifies in the Senate and Sen Rubio asks "“has the dismissal of Mr. Comey in any way impeded, interrupted, stopped, or negatively impacted any of the work, any investigation, or any ongoing projects at the Federal Bureau of Investigation?” and McCabe responds "there has been no effort to impede our investigation to date."

May 12
McCabe meets with Rosenstein and recommends appointment of Special Counsel.

May 15
McCabe and Rosenstein talk again about Special Counsel.

May 16
Rosenstein brings Robert Mueller to the White House to meet with Trump as potential FBI Director.  However, by statute the FBI Director is eligible to serve only one term, for a maximum of ten years.  At the end of Mueller's earlier ten-year tenure as FBI Director it was extended for two years by a special Congressional Act and new legislation would be required if he was to be reappointed.  Trump, Rosenstein, and Mueller converse in the Oval Office.  It is not known whether the legal impediment to Mueller's appointment is raised.  McCabe has recently published a book in which he writes that Robert Mueller temporarily left his cell phone behind after meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office and that the phone “later had to be retrieved.”"

May 17
Rosenstein announces he has appointed Mueller as Special Counsel.

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My thoughts:

Just as during the campaign we saw the difference between amateurs (Trump Jr and Kushner have an unproductive meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian) and professionals (the Clinton campaign works through four layers of cut-outs to successfully get damaging, though inaccurate, information on Trump from the Russians which they leak to the media and inject into the FBI and DOJ via their contacts), we see the same play out from January through mid-May now that Trump is president.  A more cautious person, someone more experienced in Washington, might have better controlled himself, and not have fallen into the traps as Trump did.  On the other hand, Trump's naivete about the process and frequently expressed frustrated reaction to the FBI's continued refusal to state publicly what he has been repeatedly assured in private - that he personally is not under investigation, along with his suspicion that those in the intelligence community are leaking information, in some instances false information, suspicions that have since proved well-founded, actually help his case that he was not involved in obstruction.

There has been a lot of commentary since release of the Mueller report that Trump's staff saved him from some of his worst instincts.  I think that true in some instances, but on two critical matters they failed him.  The first is with whatever advice he was getting to keep Comey in office as of January and to not remove him shortly thereafter. The longer Comey was there the worse things became.  The second was persuading the President to not follow his instincts in making it clear that Comey's firing was because he refused to state publicly what he was telling the President privately.  Instead the final letter inaccurately assigned the blame for the firing to Sessions and Rosenstein, an inaccuracy the President is responsible for as the one who signed the letter, but was also insisted upon by his advisors.

The historical references employed by Trump and Comey are also interesting.  On three occasions, Trump accurately complains that he does not have a lawyer willing to protect him as Robert F Kennedy did his brother, and Eric Holder performed for Obama; in fact, Holder openly described himself as President Obama's "wingman".

Comey in his testimony regarding the January 6 meeting claims "he did not want the President-elect to think of the conversation as a 'J Edgar Hoover move', a reference to the FBI Director's implied threats to Presidents (particularly JFK, LBJ, and Nixon) to release damaging information if he did not get his way.  It would be interesting to get Trump's take on this, particularly since he was schooled on politics by Roy Cohn, who knew Washington and was a cynical manipulator, well acquainted with Hoover's methods.  What did Trump think when just a couple of days after a "confidential" briefing by the FBI Director, he saw details of the salacious allegation spread across the news media; allegations he knew, and we now know, to be false?  Did he think what Comey was up to was precisely what Hoover used to do?

According to Comey's own testimony, on January 27 he tells Trump, "You will always get honesty from me."  At the same time, he was repeatedly telling Trump he was not under investigation personally, Comey was leaking damaging information to his allies in the press and documenting his actions in memos to file.  In retrospect, Comey's assurances that the President was not "personally" under investigation was misleading because what was really going on was an FBI investigation that Comey hoped would eventually lead to the President.

Finally, it is very strange that Rosenstein arranged for Mueller to visit the White House supposedly to be interviewed for the FBI Director position at a time when Rosenstein must have already known he was going to appoint Special Counsel and Mueller would be named to the position.

Questions About The Russian Collusion Story

There are many unanswered questions about the Russia Collusion story, mostly for the investigators now that we know the Trump campaign was not coordinating its activities with the Russians and the Steele Dossier could not be verified. What is remarkable is how little we would have ever known about the pre-election investigation, the dossier, and even the Clinton email investigation, if Hillary Clinton had won the election. I’d like some answers. And they better get cracking! If it isn’t completely wrapped up by the summer of 2020 and Trump loses the election, this whole matter will disappear like it never happened.

For more background on the Russia Collusion story see my prior posts.

The questions are broken down into five categories;

The FBI Investigation (July 2016-May 2017)
Obama Administration Surveillance Programs 
Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Interference (Jan. 2017)
Mueller Investigation (May 2017-March 2019
Clinton Email Investigation (2015-6)
The last is included as part of the Russia collusion story because many of the same players at the FBI and DOJ were involved in both, and without Clinton being cleared in that matter the 2016 election might have played out very differently.

The FBI and Intelligence Community Investigation 

Did the FBI and DOJ really begin their investigation of the Trump campaign and Russian collusion on July 31, 2016? Was there a preliminary investigation already under way? Was the CIA undertaking any relevant activity prior to that date? According to the Mueller Report it was information obtained from a friendly foreign government in late July 2016 regarding George Papadopolous’ (P) discussion in May 2016 regarding Russia having damaging emails regarding Hillary Clinton that initiated the investigation. The Mueller Report mentions no U.S. government activity prior to that date.

In April 2017 The Guardian (UK) reported that "British spies were first to spot Trump team's ties with Russia".   According to the article, the agencies became aware in the  fall of 2015  of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents.  It claims that several other western agencies developed similar information but " at no point" carried "out a targeted operation against Trump or his team or proactively seeking information".  What information was spotted by the British?  Was there any targeted operation against Trump by any western intelligence agency?  How and when was this information conveyed to the U.S.?

Who is Joseph Mifsud? Mifsud, a professor in London, approached P in March 2016 shortly after it was announced P was a Trump foreign policy advisor. In April, Mifsud told P the Russians had damaging emails regarding H Clinton. It is likely that some intelligence service became aware of this conversation leading to two Australians reaching out to meet with P the following month. If so, how did they become aware? Was Mifsud a Russian intelligence asset? Was he working for American or another Western intelligence service? Was he a freelancer trying to puff up his importance? Did the FBI really not learn about P’s information regarding Clinton until late July 2016?

According to the Mueller Report, when Mifsud was interviewed by the FBI on February 10, 2017 he denied telling P anything about the Clinton emails and even denied knowing anything about them at that time.  The Mueller Report does not characterize his response as false and he faced no criminal false statement charges.  Why?

Is it true that two military personnel at the U.S. Embassy in London (Terrance Dudley and George Baker) were with the Defense Intelligence Agency and reached out to P on May 6, 2016? If so, why?
How did P’s meeting with Australian Erika Thompson on May 6, 2016 come about? Was Thompson associated with Australian intelligence? Why did she introduce P to Alexander Downer? Although it is obscured by the language in the Mueller Report it appears it was at this meeting, and not the Downer meeting on May 10, that P mentioned the Clinton emails, though even this is unclear.

Did Australian diplomat Alexander Downer approach P on behalf of an intelligence service? At their May 10, 2016 meeting did P mention the Clinton emails?

P believes his conversation with Downer was recorded.  Does a recording exist of the conversations with Downer or Thompson?

How was Downer or Thompson's conversation with P described in the July 26 memo to the U.S. government which started the official investigation?

Why was Bill Priestap, senior FBI official and Peter Strozk’s boss, in London at the same time as P’s meetings with Thompson and Downer?

What, if any, connections did Felix Sater have with Russian, American or other friendly government intelligence services?  Is Sater the "Individual 2" referenced multiple times in the charging statement regarding Michael Cohen?  It was Sater who approached the Trump Organization in September 2015 on behalf of Russian investors about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow.  There are conflicting reports on Sater's intelligence connections.  In 1998 Sater pled guilty to criminal charges filed by the United States and agreed to cooperate with the government.  The cooperation agreement is signed on behalf of the government by Andrew Weissman, who was Mueller's chief deputy in the Russian collusion investigation.

Under what circumstances did the Obama DOJ admit Natalia Veselnitskaya into the U.S.? Was she under surveillance while in the U.S.? Veselnitskaya, who met with Trump Jr and Kushner at the Trump Towers, was banned from the U.S. and needed special approval from DOJ to enter.

Was any government agency or individual aware of the Trump Towers meeting of June 2016 before it occurred?

Did, as has been widely reported, Glenn Simpson meet with Veselnitskaya on the same day as the Trump Towers meeting, both before and after the meeting? If so, what was the purpose of the meeting? Were Simpson and Fusion GPS retained by Veselnitskaya to lobby on behalf of a Putin connected oligarch?

What communications regarding the alleged Trump campaign/Russia connection did Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr, or anyone else associated with Fusion GPS have with DOJ or the FBI prior to the 2016 election? Nellie Ohr is the wife of senior DOJ official Bruce Ohr; a Russian expert, she was hired by Fusion GPS.

What is the accurate date on which Nellie Ohr obtained a ham radio license? Is there anything relevant about the date, or the use of the ham radio?

Did Stefan Halper reach out to P and Carter Page on behalf of an American intelligence service?  If so, was, as his first attempt to reach out to Page prior to July 31, 2016, as Page has asserted?

When did the Intelligence Community first become aware of any of the allegations contained in the Steele Dossier?

What occurred during the two meetings between Christopher Steele and Michael Gaeta of the FBI, the first in Rome in June 2016 and the second in London on July 5?

Was, as has been reported, Serge Millian a source for the dossier?  Did Millian approach Papadopolous in October 2016 as P has claimed?  If so, why?

What information, other than the Steele Dossier, was used to obtain the FISA warrant on Carter Page?

What did the FBI know about the source of funding for the Steele Dossier and when did it learn it?

What type of verification did the FBI and DOJ have regarding the allegations in the Steele Dossier at the time it applied for the FISA warrant, and upon each of the three subsequent applications for its renewal?

What was the role of current FBI GC Dana Boente in the approval of the Page FISA Warrants?

There are reports that the FISA Court denied three FISA applications related to the Russia investigation during 2016. Is this correct and, if so, on whom were they sought and why were they denied?

Why didn't the Obama Administration provide a defensive briefing to Candidate Trump in 2016?  Defensive briefings are designed to alert officials of potential intelligence breaches within their staffs.  For instance, when the intelligence community discovered that Sen Diane Feinstein's long-time staffer was also a long-time Chinese spy, she was privately briefed and the staffer dismissed.  Was the failure to do so based upon intelligence community suspicions that Trump was directly involved with Russia?  If so, what was the evidence that prompted this suspicion and how, and by whom, was the evidence evaluated?

On November 17, 2016 NSA Director Mike Rogers went to see President-elect Trump at Trump Towers, without informing DNI Clapper. On November 18 it was announced the Trump Transition Team was moving its operations from the Towers to New Jersey. Were these events connected? What was the substance of the Rogers discussion with Trump?

Who leaked to the media the contents of Michael Flynn’s call with Russian Ambassador Kislyak? This leak was of classified information and illegal.

Is it true that, at some point between January 6 and January 10, 2017, DCI Clapper leaked to the media that President-elect Trump had been briefed on the Steele Dossier, a leak which triggered widespread media reporting on the dossier?

Is it correct that the FBI agents who interviewed Michael Flynn believe he was not lying? Why was there a three week interval between their interview and their 302 memo? Were there any prior drafts of the memo? FBI agents do not record interviews, instead summarizing them later in what is called a 302 memo.

At their dinner meeting on January 26, 2017 why did Comey try to dissuade President Trump from asking the FBI to investigate the allegations made in the Steele Dossier?

Obama Administration Surveillance Programs

Were the FBI and NSA using access to the Section 702 database in order to illegally obtain information on domestic political opponents of the Obama Administration from 2012 until early 2016? If so, who were the contractors who had access to the information, who were the targets, and how was the information used? Several conservative publications have speculated, or even asserted, there was a linkage between the documented Section 702 abuses (85% of certain searches done improperly at NSA, and FBI contractors having improper access to data on Americans, as confirmed by a 2017 FISA Court ruling) and whether the purpose of at least some of the illegal data collection was for use against political opponents and also linked to the alleged widespread “unmasking” by Obama administration officials. To date, I have seen no credible documents establishing this linkage but it is important to find out the answers to these questions.

Did “unmasking” of communications regarding political opponents of the Obama Administration occur in 2016? Usually when confidential intelligence reports are circulated within the government, the identity of any U.S. citizens inadvertently picked up while surveillance of non-Americans was occurring would be redacted. It has been widely reported that in the last year of the Obama Administration there was a high volume of requests for unmasking the identity of Americans.

Was Samantha Power telling the truth when she said she did not make unmasking requests that are shown as being under her name in official records? If so, who did? According to documents, former UN Ambassador Power made more than 200 requests for unmasking but she denied making such requests in Congressional testimony.

What did Strozk’s August 2016 text stating “the White House is running this” refer to?

What was the purpose of President Obama’s January 2017 directive widening the scope of those who could see intelligence information?

Why did NSA Susan Rice write a memo to herself at 1215pm on January 20, 2017 regarding a Jan 5, 2017 meeting involving President Obama, Rice, and the Intelligence Community about the Russia investigation, the focus of which was to tell the IC to operate “by the book”?

In March 2017 then House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes stated that after reviewing intelligence reports:

1.) …”On numerous occasions the [Obama] intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.”

2.) “Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming administration; details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.”

3.) “Third, I have confirmed that additional names of Trump transition members were unmasked.”

4.) “Fourth and finally, I want to be clear; none of this surveillance was related to Russia, or the investigation of Russian activities.

Are these assertions correct?

Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Interference (January 2017)

Did President Obama’s desire to obtain Russian support for the Iran nuclear deal and his Syrian policy affect his reaction, or lack thereof, to Russian efforts to influence Americans, efforts reported publicly in a lengthy article in the New York Times in June 2015?

The January 2017 Intelligence Assessment states that at a specific point the Russians switched supporting Trump to damaging the anticipated Clinton presidency. When did that occur and why did they make that assessment?

Why was the FBI and CIA conclusion made with high confidence while the NSA with only moderate confidence?

In selecting the analysts for the assessment was the normal process followed? There are reports DNI Clapper did not follow the normal process.

The January 2017 Intelligence Assessment states that Russia’s 2016 effort to impact the election was a continuation of a pattern from the Soviet Union and since the establishment of Russia in 1991. What are the details of those earlier efforts? What evidence does the FBI, CIA, and NSA have regarding Russian attempts to influence the 2008 and 2012 elections?

The Mueller Investigation 

What did Andrew Weissman know about the source of funding for the Steele Dossier and when did he learn it? It has been reported that Weissman was part of a DOJ briefing on the dossier in the fall of 2016, months before Mueller was appointed Special Counsel.

Same question for Robert Mueller about what he knew about the dossier and when.

The day before Rosenstein announced he was appointing Special Counsel and that it would be Mueller, he brought Mueller to the White House to meet with Trump. Is it true that the President was told Mueller was a potential candidate as FBI Director? If so, was the President told that Congress would have to pass special legislation to allow the appointment? Was there any discussion of Russia or the Comey firing at the meeting? When did Rosenstein decide to appoint Special Counsel and decide it would be Mueller? Did Rosenstein and Mueller have any discussions, directly or indirectly, regarding that decision prior to the meeting with the President? Is it true that, as described in McCabe’s recent book, Mueller left his cell phone in the President’s office and had to return later to retrieve it? If so, did the device record anything while it was left in the office?

Did Rosenstein ever consider recusing himself from the investigation since he was a potential fact witness in any obstruction case involving the President?

Why did Rosenstein not consider Mueller’s long and close relationship with Comey as grounds for not appointing him as Special Counsel?

Why did Mueller appoint Weissman as his chief deputy in light of his Democratic partisanship and ethical record in such a politically charged investigation?

What efforts were made to try to validate the Steele Dossier?

Why did the Mueller Report not directly address the accuracy of the allegations in the Steele Dossier or even mention it in Volume I of its report? Did Mueller conclude that the dossier was not relevant to Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election?

What did Peter Strozk mean in his May 2017 text to Lisa Page, regarding whether he should take Mueller’s offer of a job, when he wrote, “there’s no big there there”?

Was James Comey interviewed by the Mueller investigation? If so, was the interview recorded and/or transcribed?

Same questions regarding Stefan Halper, Christopher Steeler (and his contractors), Glenn Simpson, Peter Strozek, Andrew McCabe, Carter Page, Brennan, Clapper, FBI GC Baker, Nellie and Bruce Ohr.

An inquiry into every document requested from DOJ, the FBI, or the Special Counsel since January 20, 2017 until the submission of the Special Counsel report to include when the request was made; when it was fully responded to, if it was partially responded to what was omitted, what was the legal basis for any failure to fully respond, and who was responsible for making such determination.
Did anyone on the Mueller team tip off CNN regarding the raid on Roger Stone’s house?

Why did Mueller not seek a renewal of the FISA Warrant on Carter Page when it expired in September 2017?

Did Mueller seek other FISA warrants during his investigation? If so, on whom, and were they approved or denied?

Clinton Email Investigation

After President Obama stated on national TV that Hillary Clinton had not committed a crime, did DOJ consider appointing a Special Counsel to conduct the investigation? Did any DOJ or FBI official make, or discuss, such a recommendation, or the appropriateness of the President’s remarks regarding an ongoing investigation?

Did DOJ ever consider bringing charges against Hillary Clinton or anyone associated with her for the destruction of emails?

Why were potential fact witnesses like Cheryl Mills allowed to sit in on interviews of other fact witnesses?

Why were the four references to Hillary Clinton’s “grossly negligent” handling of emails in Director Comey’s draft of his statement on the conclusion of the email investigation deleted in the final version and why was the phrase “extremely careless” substituted for “grossly negligent”? Did Comey receive any instructions or guidance from DOJ that “grossly negligent” was not sufficient to justify charges?

Why, if the statute under which Clinton was being investigated did not require intent in order to violate, did Comey interpret it as requiring intent? Did he receive any guidance from DOJ in support of that conclusion?

Is it correct, as reported, that when AG Lynch announced she would not make the decision on the Clinton investigation she already knew Comey would not recommend charges?

A Unified Field Theory Of The 2016 Election

I wrote this last June and thought I'd posted it but just realized failed to do so.  I think it holds up well now that the Weissman/Mueller report has been released.

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Now that the IG Report has rained downed yet another blow to the Trump-Russia collusion fantasy, and we know that everything breathlessly reported to us for the past two years by the NY Times/WaPo/CNN has been inaccurate, and the much-maligned (by those same outfits) Rep Nunes has proven the most accurate source, we can see how this all happened in three simple steps, though it turned out to be a huge miscalculation by the Clintons, the Democrats, and the media.

Step One: Encourage Donald Trump To Seek The GOP Nomination
The Clinton campaign and its allies figured Trump would be the easiest opponent to beat, and even if he didn’t get the nomination, would raise havoc with the rest of the GOP field.

Bill Clinton speaks with Trump urging him to get into the race.

Democratic media ensures Trump gets enormous coverage (remember when CNN was the Trump Network 24/7) while ignoring the rest of the GOP field.

[UPDATED:  I thought at the time and still think that when Trump announced he was running he did not expect to win the nomination.  I think his reasons for announcing were:

1. Enhancing the Trump brand - he's been brilliant at that.
2. He'd been spouting off on politics for years and threatening to run and, because of his age, this was probably his last chance.
3. He hated Jeb Bush the GOP frontrunner.
4. He likes to have fun.

Nor do I think that when he won the nomination did he expect to win the election.] 

Step Two: Get Hillary Out of the Email Mess To Clear The Decks For Her Campaign
Obama sends clear public message to his “wingmen” at DOJ and the FBI that Hillary has not committed a crime. (How this intervention alone did not trigger special counsel, independent of the DOJ, is still unfathomable).

The FBI/DOJ treats Hillary investigation with kid gloves. Destroying evidence? No problem! You need immunity? No problem! Need to have fact witness (Cheryl Mills) masquerade as Clinton lawyer and sit in on witness interviews? No problem!

Write draft exoneration memo before interviewing Clinton.

Have McCabe massage the draft memo to eliminate language that otherwise indicates Clinton committed crime, as well as embarrassing reference to Clinton sending classified emails to Obama while in Russia.

Ensure AG Lynch knows Comey will exonerate Clinton, before she announces she will leave decision to him.

Step Three: Beat Trump
This is the easiest step of all! Trump’s an idiot; how can Hillary possibly lose! Just to make sure, help compound Trump’s ineptness regarding his stupid statements on Putin and Russia with an insurance policy via leaks to press regarding Manafort and Page and their supposed active connections with Russia (which turn out to be completely false). Use innuendo about DNC email leaks, Wikileaks, and the Russians, to further impugn Trump campaign. Make sure your allies at DOJ and FBI never examine DNC server.

The other benefit for the Clintons is that the attacks on Trump help obscure their problem with the tens of millions of dollars coming to the Clinton Foundation from corrupt Russian oligarchs with Kremlin ties.

And now we have the perfect contrast between the amateurish Trump campaign and the professional Inside the Beltway Clinton campaign.

Amateurish failure: The Glimmer Twins, Fredo Trump Jr and Jared from Subway, meet at Trump Tower with Russian lawyer tied to Putin. Nothing comes of it, except 2017 headlines in the Democratic press.

Professional success: Clinton campaign uses cut-outs. Hires Perkins Coie, which hires Fusion GPS, which hires Christopher Steele, who hires folks to collude directly with Kremlin intelligence sources. Resulting product is filtered to sympathetic parties in press, DOJ, and FBI (and, as we know now, used to obtain FISA warrant to surveil the Trump campaign).

And here’s where the missteps began to accumulate. By late summer, Hillary looks like a certain winner. Obama decides not to make a big deal of Russian efforts to interfere with election by creating havoc, because with a Hillary victory seemingly a lock, raising it has the potential to backfire politically and help Trump. Same thing with the Steele dossier. Selective leaks and intimations in the press of Trump-Putin connection are enough to keep the issue alive, without adding to it direct release of the dossier.

Finally, Comey, certain of Clinton victory, decides to announce reopening of email investigation based on Weiner laptop since he know she will still be cleared and wants issue over so as not to taint her victory.

Post-Election Change of Strategy
When the unthinkable happens and Hillary loses, use your assets in government and media to destroy the Trump presidency and spin up the Russia connection out of thin air.  And, if you're at DOJ and the FBI, to cover your tracks now that the unexpected has happened.  It now looks like yet another massive miscalculation backfiring on its perpetrators. 

Comey Knew

Reading the Weissman Report* can be rewarding if you’re already familiar with many of the other relevant documents publicly available, and know how to interpret the tortured verbiage of the report which is designed to imply all sorts of things that the authors would have liked to be able to prove but were unable to do so.

Remember the Steele Dossier that became a big media splash when it leaked the day after FBI Director Comey briefed president-elect Trump on selective portions (the salacious parts involving his personal behavior) in January 2017?  The Dossier that was the basis for the four FISA Warrants issued regarding Carter Page? The predicate on which this entire Russia collusion story was based?

There is no mention of the Steele Dossier in Volume 1 of the report, the section dealing with collusion!!

It is simply astonishing and a demonstration of the bad-faith with which the investigation was conducted that in Volume 1, which purports to be about Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election, there is NO mention of the only documented instance of collusion and coordination between Russia and an American presidential candidate, even though the contents of the document were leaked to the American press and used by the Obama Administration to obtain a FISA warrant to access the communications of a Trump adviser.**

There is a passing mention to the Steele Dossier in Volume 2, the obstruction section, referring to it containing unverified allegations. Most of the other references in Volume 2 concern how angry President Trump was about the allegations in the dossier. And who can blame him since they were false!

However, there is one very intriguing reference to the dossier on Page 246 concerning a private dinner Comey had with the President in late January of 2017. Here’s what the report states:

The President brought up the Steele report that Comey had raised in the January 6, 2017 briefing and stated that he was thinking about ordering the FBI to investigate the allegations to prove they were false. Comey responded that the President should think carefully about issuing such an order because it could create a narrative that the FBI was investigating him personally, which was incorrect.

Some thoughts on this:

If you are wondering what the source is for this conversation it is, according to the report, Comey’s memo of January 28, 2017 written to himself!

Pretty clever 5-D move by Trump in his campaign to obstruct justice! (just joking)

Most importantly, it demonstrates it was very likely Comey knew the Steele Dossier allegations (and about its origins) were false way back in January 2017.  Why else would he be trying to persuade the President of the United States not to pursue an investigation of the allegations about him personally, allegations Trump knew to be false?

Because an investigation would have defused the ongoing campaign of Comey and his associates to find something, anything, to pin on Trump or at least seriously disrupt the new administration.

Because an investigation also ran the risk of bringing into the open that the dossier was paid for by the Clinton campaign, done at the direction of Fusion GPS (which at the same time was lobbying on behalf of Russian oligarchs tied to Putin), and compiled by Steele who used his contacts to get information directly from Russian intelligence!

Because an investigation would have also undermined the basis for the continued wiretaps of Carter Page and anyone associated with him.

And if the truth about the dossier became known we never would have had a Special Counsel.

As to what the Kremlin wanted out of the dossier read my post What Was Putin Up To in 2016.  Bottom line - Putin saw the election as a win-win, though like everyone else he expected it would be Hillary, so during the campaign the goal was to agitate Trump voters who would pose a continuing problem for Clinton after her expected victory.  And after Trump's unexpected victory the emphasis changed to creating and amplifying dissatisfaction among Clinton voters.  Regardless of who won, Putin could use the aftermath to create more havoc and dissension about America's government.  With the aid of the Democratic Party, its media allies, and its credulous supporters, Putin could not have been more successful if they'd been paid agents of the Kremlin.

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*I refer to it as the Weissman Report because Andrew Weissman was running the show on a day to day basis. Robert Mueller was a figurehead. He was safe in that role because of his institutional devotion to protecting DOJ and the FBI and preventing any criticism of those agencies (a trait many who’ve dealt with him, like Boston civil rights and criminal defense lawyer Harvey Silverglate, have recognized for years) and he’s also proven, possibly because of that institutional devotion, to be easily duped by those working for him, whether it be the grossly corrupt Boston FBI office in the 80s, or the HQ FBI which relentlessly pursued an innocent man in the anthrax investigation during the 2000s.

Both Mueller and Weissman’s involvement in this investigation has also been unethical. Mueller is a long time colleague of Comey and an ally of his during the Cheney Wars and should have been recused from the investigation, and the same for Weissman, with his record of unethical conduct, his blatant partisanship on behalf of Hillary and the Democratic Party, and being among those briefed on the Steele Dossier in the fall of 2016 while he was at DOJ.

I believe the role of Mueller (former FBI Director and senior DOJ official) and Weissman (senior DOJ lawyer and former General Counsel of the FBI) was twofold; protect the origins of the Steele Dossier and the involvement of those at DOJ and FBI in its use to further the Russian collusion theory, and try to goad Trump into further actions that would, in their view, constitute obstruction of justice.  I base this on their almost certain knowledge at the time of Mueller's appointment in May 2017 that the Steele dossier allegations were baseless.  Moreover, by that time the FISA warrants on Carter Page had been in operation for more than seven months, the FBI investigation for nine months (and possibly for more than a year depending on who Joseph Mifsud was working for when he met with George Papadopolous in London in April 2016), and Peter Strozek's text message (who'd been involved from the start in the FBI investigation) to Lisa Page as he was considering an offer to join the Mueller team in May 2017 that there was "no big there there".

Supporting evidence for this is that once Mueller was fully in charge he did not ask the Page FISA Warrant be extended; it expired in September 2017.  A tip off to anyone following the case that there was no collusion should have been the text of the indictments of Manafort and Papadopolous and the failure to indict Page.  Normally, a prosecutor building a bigger conspiracy case would have an indictment include the offense being plead to, as well as allegations of the defendant participating in a large conspiracy in order to set up their cooperative testimony when the next case was brought against the "higher-ups".  That language was missing in the indictments.

The other tip off for me is when no collusion indictment was filed prior to the fall of 2018.  Since the purpose of the Mueller investigation was to undermine the Trump administration and an indictment would have been the perfect vehicle for that, its absence signaled there was no case, so Mueller chose the alternative route - keep the investigation going through the campaign season in order to keep it alive as an issue for the Democrats.
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** A further example of bad-faith is in the report's treatment of the Trump Tower meeting of June 9, 2016 to which it devotes 12 pages.  This was when Donald Trump Jr and Jared Kushner met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya who had promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton but instead lobbied for their support in repealing the Magnitsky Act which sanctioned some Putin supporters in Russia.  Trump J and Kushner took no action on the request.  This would have been a perfect point to bring in the Steele Dossier since Veselnitskaya had retained Fusion GPS, the firm retained by Perkin Coie on behalf of the Clinton campaign, and which, in turn, hired Christopher Steele to assemble the dossier, to lobby for repeal of the Magnitsky Act and Veselnitskaya met with Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson right before, and right after the Trump Tower meeting!  Instead, the report contains no reference in the text or footnotes to Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, or Steele.

Russian Linked To Clinton Collusion Indicted

Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer strongly linked to the Putin regime and the campaign of Hillary Clinton, was indicted today by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York for alleged obstruction of justice in connection with the government's investigation of Prevezon Holdings, a Russian company she was advising; a company with close ties to Vladimir Putin.

Though the indictment is merely symbolic since Veselnitskaya is in Russia and chances of her extradition are nil, the government's action highlights the linkage between the Clinton campaign and its minions in the FBI and Justice Department during 2016.

Veselnitskaya is best known for her June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Fredo Trump Jr and Jared from Subway, which was set up based upon her claim of having information related to Hillary Clinton's missing emails (approximately 30,000 of her emails illegally kept on her private server while she was Secretary of State were deleted in order to obstruct the Federal investigation of her alleged breaking of federal law).  However, when she showed up for the meeting what she wanted to discuss was the Magnitksy Act, a sanctions law against Russia that Putin has been desperate to have repealed (as was Veselnitskayas client Prevezon Holdings).

And here's where the plot thickens.

At the time Veselnitskaya was in the United States on a non-immigrant work visa issued by Homeland Security and the State Department, which is interesting since she was a Russian lawyer, not a qualified American lawyer.  Her purpose for the 2016 visit was to work on repeal of the Magnitsky Act.  On the same day Veselnitskaya had the meeting at the Trump Tower she met before and after with Glen Simpson.

Who is Glen Simpson?  He's the head of Fusion GPS.  His firm had been retained by the American law firm of BakerHostetler on behalf of Prevezon Holdings to work on repeal of the Magnitsky Act.  Fusion was paid $524,000 by Baker between March and October 2016.

At the same time, Fusion was working for the Clinton campaign, having been hired through its outside law firm, Perkins Coie, which paid Fusion $1.024,000 between May and December 2016.  In turn Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, who in turn hired various contacts to obtain information on Donald Trump from sources in Russian intelligence which was compiled into what is now known as the Steele Dossier.  The only established coordination link between a 2016 Presidential election campaign and the Putin regime is the assembling of the Steele Dossier on behalf of Hillary Clinton, which, in turn, was used by the FBI and Justice Department to obtain the FISA warrant to tap the communications of Carter Page who worked on the Trump campaign.  Under the terms of such warrant, the FBI could also monitor the communication of anyone who communicated with Page, and anyone who communicated with those communicating with Paige.  In effect by this two-step operations pretty much the entire Trump circle of influence.  What is particularly curious about all this is that Carter Page has not been indicted nor, as far as I can learn, been called before a grand jury or even questioned by any governmental authority about all this.

One of the Fusion GPS Russian experts was Nellie Ohr, wife of Bruce Ohr, a senior Justice Department official.  In May 2016 Nellie Ohr obtained a ham radio license enabling her to make contacts outside of normal surveillance.  Bruce Ohr in turn served as a two-way information conduit between Fusion GPS and the Justice Department.  Rod Rosenstein, who oversees (I use the term loosely) the Mueller investigation, was apparently unaware that Ohr was working closely with Fusion GPS and he has since been demoted since his role as a mole was uncovered.

Meanwhile the FBI officials most closely involved in the Russia collusion investigation and obtaining of the FISA warrant were the same officials who made sure to clear Hillary Clinton of any criminal taint in the email investigation.

I continue to marvel at the stark contrast between the amateurs and the pros in the two campaigns.  Trump and Jared were foolish enough to meet directly with Veselnitskaya, and even though the meeting ended up not having anything to do with Hillary, it apparently remains a focus of the Mueller investigation.

Meanwhile the pros at the Clinton campaign do it right.  They have Perkins Coie hire Fusion GPS which hires Steele who hires cut-outs to deal with the Russians.  So we have actual collusion but no apparent interest by Mueller.

Something stinks here.

Facebook

I’m so old I remember when a presidential campaign using Facebook data, and getting help from Facebook in doing so, was considered cool and hip, while the campaign that didn’t use Facebook data was considered a bunch of old fogey losers.

What Was Putin Up To In 2016?

My speculation is that he had a win-win strategy. Unless his folks were a lot better than most US pundits, I don’t think he was anticipating or planning for a Trump victory. Instead, his goal was to weaken the US as an adversary and whomever won I believe Putin thought he would come out stronger.

[Note 1: I am not judging whether the strategy was effective in influencing the election outcome.  I will note that the indictment asserts that, at its peak, the Russians spent $1.25 million in September 2016.  Hillary Clinton spent $1.4 billion, while Trump spent $900 million.]

[Note 2: There are many oddities in the Mueller investigation as well as in the specific charges made in the indictment that have been missed in much of the press.  Just one for now - Mueller will never have to prove his allegations because none of the defendants are in the U.S.!  More on the indictment later.]

The Win-Win In 2016
To start with, the Internet Research Agency, based in St Petersburg, which gets top billing in the Mueller indictment, has been a known entity to the US government for several years, which was aware of its ongoing attempts to sow confusion and conflict in America. In fact, the IRA was the subject of a very long article in the New York Times Magazine on June 2, 2015 which recounts its activities and the arguments within the Obama administration on how to respond. One possible reason for the President’s reluctance to respond more forcibly is not raised in the article, but has been speculated on elsewhere: his belief that he needed Russian cooperation on closing the deal with Iran and, secondarily, on Syria, and was thus reluctant to alienate Putin.

In any event, it is only against this overall strategy of weakening America, and the belief that Hillary would win, that Putin’s approach to 2016 can be understood. It was never specifically about Trump or Clinton and, as the Mueller indictment clearly lays out, it would not end no matter who was elected.

So from Putin’s perspective how did things look at the beginning of the primary campaign?
To my recollection, all of the leading Republican contenders, with the exception of Trump, were quite hostile to Putin. So the references in the Mueller indictment to Russian propaganda being directed to denigrate Cruz and Rubio makes sense. Further, with the exception of Trump, they were all more hostile to Russia than Hillary, the likely Democratic nominee.

While Hillary had been played by Putin for a dupe in her Russian “reset” policy, since his controversial reelection she had been much more rhetorically hostile to Putin’s regime than Obama or anyone else in his administration. And certainly, whatever Hillary’s views on Russia, Bernie Sanders was going to be more friendly and accommodating, so supporting Bernie and denigrating Hillary, as Mueller alleges happened during the primary, makes sense.

How did things look to Putin during the general election campaign?
Hillary must have appeared to be the certain winner to Putin, as she did to most everyone else. I think that while Putin was willing to expend some of his ammo on her during the campaign, he didn’t want to expend it all because it would be needed after her expected election. And, during the course of the campaign, she fell into another trap he laid for her.

For instance, it is reasonable to assume that Putin knows a lot more about the tens of millions of dollars funneled into the Clinton Foundation from Russia and the former Soviet Republics than is currently publicly known. Holding that over President Clinton’s head could be very effective.

It is also reasonable to assume the Putin has all of Hillary’s emails, including the deleted ones, which he could deploy on his own timing. And I’ve always assumed Hillary knows it. How convenient.

Finally, he would be able to show that the Clinton campaign had colluded, through its cut-outs, directly with the Kremlin, in assembling the Steele dossier, a fact that would prove embarrassing to a Clinton administration if and when Putin chose to release the details. And why, if Putin was really confident Trump could win, would he authorize the release of such information to Clinton? It was not for the purpose of beating Trump; it was to give him future leverage over Clinton.

As to Trump, while Putin assumed he would not win, he wouldn’t be upset if that happened. Trump was the most Russia friendly of the Republican candidates. He was extremely unschooled in international politics and very susceptible to flattery. Putin played him well, flattering him and getting flattering comments in return (Trump was even willing to demean America in the course of doing so). In his campaign were people sympathetic (Manafort) or at least not hostile (Page, Papadopolous) to Russia. And, just as with Hillary, Putin had run his own entrapment, the Trump Tower meeting with Fredo Trump Jr and Jared Kushner (at least Clinton had the sense to use cut-outs – Perkins Coie, Fusion GPS, Steele). Fredo and Jared weren’t “unwitting“, they were “witless“.

The Mueller indictment also confirms it didn’t really matter to Putin who won because it asserts that after the election Russian efforts were devoted to instigating more pro and anti-Trump rallies and continuing to stir up the American populace on divisive issues.  Facebook has also noted that the majority of Russian sponsored postings it has identified occurred after the election.

UPDATE: After writing this I just read Andrew McCarthy in NRO who puts it very well, as usual:

In reality, what happened here could not be more patent: The Kremlin hoped to sow discord in our society and thus paralyze our government’s capacity to pursue American interests. The Russian strategy was to stir up the resentments of sizable losing factions. It is not that Putin wanted Trump to win; it is that Putin figured Trump was going to lose. That is why the Kremlin tried to galvanize Trump supporters against Clinton, just as it tried to galvanize Sanders supporters against Clinton, and Trump supporters against Cruz and Rubio, during the primaries. It is why the Russians suddenly choreographed anti-Trump rallies after Trump won. The palpable goal was to promote dysfunction: Cripple a likely President Clinton before she could even get started, wound President Trump from the get-go when he unexpectedly won, and otherwise set American against American whenever possible.

Mission accomplished thanks to the Democrats and Robert Mueller, with an able assist from the bumblings of Donald Trump and his campaign.

Background: From the 1940s to 2016
Much of the media acts shocked, as if this has never happened before. A reminder:

The January 2017 intelligence assessment from the CIA/FBI/NSA (about which I wrote a year ago) asserts that Russia, and the Soviet Union before, have had a long history of trying to influence US elections, though the effort in 2016 was quite significant. The assessment does not reference any specific examples (with the exception of the first below) but we know of many (both for elections and major policy issues), including:

The January 2017 assessment references two other recent Kremlin efforts, (1) support of the anti-fracking movement in the US, and (2) support for Occupy Wall Street (support shared with Obama, Pelosi, and David Duke).

In 2012 we had Russian influence “hidden in plain sight“. The Kremlin openly supported Obama (in fact, though little noted, they did the same in 2008 because they hated McCain). Obama in turn attacked and mocked Romney for being too hard on the Russians, and was caught on open mic assuring Medvedev that he’d have more flexibility after the election. It would be fascinating to know if the intelligence community has any information regarding covert support from Moscow during that campaign.

The hysterical anti-cruise missile movement in the US and Europe in the early 1980s was also supported covertly by the Soviets, along with propaganda regarding Reagan’s supposed warmonger tendencies, manipulation that received wide acceptance in the West. It would also be interesting to know what the Soviets did in connection with the 1984 presidential campaign.

The idea that the assassination of President Kennedy was due to a right-wing conspiracy originated with the KGB in 1964, the first article proposing it was from a secretly communist funded publication in Italy; an article soon picked up by conspiracy theorists in the US who ran with it. The result contributed to widespread conspiracy mania, particularly in the late 60s through mid-70s, but which has had a long life. Instead of believing that a communist who fervently supported Fidel Castro and who had just a few months earlier tried to assassinate a right-wing figure (Edwin Walker), then went on to kill an anti-communist president who himself was trying to kill Castro, most Americans to this day still believe there was a conspiracy in which the right wing killed JFK. It’s become part of popular culture, beloved of those obsessed with conspiracies as with Oliver Stone’s JFK, the Bruce Willis wisecrack in Armageddon, and Donald Trump speculating that Ted Cruz’s dad, an anti-Castro Cuban, was involved in the murder.

The unilateral nuclear disarmament movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s in both Britain and America was directed by communist front groups under Moscow’s direction.

The Progressive Party presidential campaign of Henry Wallace in 1948 which was essentially run by the Communist Party and which, early in the campaign, was seen as having a serious chance to undermine President Truman’s reelection. Several years later Wallace admitted he’d been duped by advisers he didn’t know were commies. In addition, during the 1930s and 40s it was common practice for the Communist Party to run front groups not openly identified as communist in order to attract people who would unwittingly support the party line. As we know now, the American Communist Party was financially supported and ideologically directed by Moscow.