Joe Boyles
Guest Columnist
An old case from 2015-2019 has come into the news when the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released long-hidden files associated with the Russia Collusion-Hoax against Donald Trump. As the old saying goes, “beware of leaving skeletons in the closet” because the next owner might find them.
When this was a live news story nearly a decade ago, I refrained from commenting in this column because it was so confusing. Better to hold off and allow facts to unfold. Now, it is becoming a little clearer. Initially, the story that Russia ‘meddled’ in the 2016 election on behalf of Trump and against Clinton was funded through the Clinton Campaign. They had come across opposition research through the Washington Free Beacon during the Republican Primary and expanded it with the infamous and since discredited Steele Dossier.
This was the interference phase. Russia was interfering in our coming presidential election to sow distrust. Clinton was the overwhelming favorite to win, but in November 2016, the unthinkable happened – Trump won. Democrats were astounded, then very angry. How could this have happened? Trump must have cheated, they concluded.
An intelligence community assessment (ICA) was ordered by the outgoing administration to investigate the Russian interference angle that had been cooked-up by the Clinton Campaign. In early December, the ICA concluded that Russia had done some low-level things to interfere, but they had neither been decisive nor changed any votes. There was ‘low confidence’ that anything the Russians had done had many any difference.
At this point, on January 6, 2017, with just days remaining in office, President Obama ordered a new ICA, changing the question from explaining “if” the Russians interfered with our election to “how” the Russians interfered. It is an a priori argument that draws a conclusion and then looks for evidence to support the answer. It is a dishonest way to frame an argument. Rather than examining the evidence to draw a conclusion, it flips the process on its head and begins with the conclusion and works backward.
CIA Director John Brennan and DNI Director James Clapper took their marching orders and hurriedly put together a new assessment which FBI Director James Comey delivered to the new president a week later. It included the Steele Dossier which was both salacious and flimsy. When intelligence experts argued against Steele’s work, Brennan took them off the case and assigned compliant CIA operatives that would follow his marching orders. Now with Brennan’s guiding hand, the CIA developed “high confidence” that Russia had meddled in our election process with the assistance of Trump.
The purpose of the hoax now changed from discrediting Trump to framing him as a conspirator with Vladimar Putin to throw the election in his favor. Essentially, the purpose was to “kneecap” the incoming president with so many accusations as to sabotage the new administration.
The CIA and FBI did something else to fuel the fire – they leaked what they had to a compliant press. For two years, the Washington Post and New York Times blared stories almost daily how Trump had cheated Hillary out of her promised victory. The cable news media, primarily CNN and MSNBC, touted stories about how Russia “hacked” our election and enabled Trump to win the Electoral College. Reporters won Pulitzer Prizes for their salacious reporting.
Additionally, some allies of Trump, both low and high level, were charged with crimes and were subsequently sent to prison. Another dirty piece of laundry was that during the election, the FBI, under guidance of Comey, wire-tapped the Trump Campaign. At least four times, they falsified evidence to obtain a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to spy on Trump. The entire scenario was so diabolical you would have suspected a master spy like Ian Fleming to draw up the plot.
Subsequent investigations by Robert Mueller and John Durham exonerated Trump, but the damage had already been done. In the words of James Comey, who delivered the bad news to Trump just days before inauguration in January 2017, “mission accomplished.”
Who will pay the price of this political hit-job? Certainly not Barack Obama, who has immunity for all official acts. I don’t think that Clapper, Brennan or Comey will be convicted of any crime, but they are going to pay through the nose in legal defense. Some lower-level FBI officials, like Andrew McCabe and Peter Strozk, will pay some price. I hope that all the Trump allies who suffered, including Michael Flynn, will sue to not only exonerate their names, but win healthy damages against those who set them up.
Trump’s enemies have accused him of political retribution. If so, he probably has a right to do so. Ultimately, “the truth shall set us free.” Let’s look at Gabbard’s evidence and draw the proper conclusions.