https://townhall.com/columnist
e-fleeing-the-sinking-collusio
email&utm_campaign=nl&newslett
de49be4&recip=594987
TOWNHALL
Federal Rats Are Fleeing the Sinking Collusion Ship
Victor Davis Hanson <https://townhall.com/columnis
Posted: May 23, 2019 12:01 AM
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the
views of Townhall.com.
The entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative was always implausible.
One, the Washington swamp of fixers such as Paul Manafort and John and Tony
Podesta was mostly bipartisan and predated Trump.
Two, the Trump administration's Russia policies were far tougher on Vladimir
Putin than were those of Barack Obama. Trump confronted Russia in Syria,
upped defense spending, increased sanctions and kept the price of oil down
through massive new U.S. energy production. He did not engineer a Russian
"reset" or get caught on a hot mic offering a self-interested hiatus in
tensions with Russia in order to help his own re-election bid.
Three, Russia has a long history of trying to warp U.S. elections that both
predated Trump and earned only prior lukewarm pushback from the Obama
administration.
It's also worth remembering that President Bill Clinton and the Clinton
Foundation had been recipients of Russian and Russian-related largesse --
ostensibly because Hillary Clinton had used her influence as Secretary of
State under Obama to ease resistance to Russian acquisitions of North
American uranium holdings.
As far as alleged Russian collusion goes, Hillary Clinton used three
firewalls -- the Democratic National Committee, the Perkins Coie law firm
and the Fusion GPS strategic intelligence firm -- to hide her campaign's
payments to British national Christopher Steele to find dirt on Trump and
his campaign; in other words, to collude. Steele in turn collected his
purchased Russian sources to aggregate unverified allegations against Trump.
He then spread the gossip within government agencies to ensure that the
smears were leaked to the media -- and with a government seal of approval.
No wonder that special counsel Robert Mueller's partisan team spent 22
months and $34 million only to conclude the obvious: that Trump did not
collude with Russia.
Mueller's failure to find collusion prompts an important question. If the
Steele dossier -- the basis for unfounded charges that Trump colluded with
Russia -- was fraudulent, then how and why did the Clinton campaign, hand in
glove with top Obama administration officials, use such silly trash and
smears to unleash the powers of government against Trump's campaign,
transition team and early presidency?
The question is not an idle one.
There may well have occurred a near coup attempt by high-ranking officials
to destroy a campaign and then to remove an elected president. Likewise, top
officials may have engaged in serial lying to federal investigators,
perjury, the misleading of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the
illegal insertion of informants into a political campaign, the leaking of
classified documents and the obstruction of justice.
So, how can we tell that the former accusers are now terrified of becoming
the accused? Because suddenly the usual band of former Obama officials and
Trump accusers have largely given up on their allegations that Trump was or
is a Russian asset.
Instead, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Rod
Rosenstein are now beginning to accuse each other of wrongdoing.
Even their progressive media handlers are starting to sense the desperation
in their new yarns -- and the possibility that these hired-gun analysts or
guests were themselves guilty of crimes and were using their media platforms
to fashion their own defense.
The end of the Mueller melodrama has marked the beginning of real fear in
Washington.
Comey, the former FBI director, has hit the lecture and television circuit
with his now-tired moralistic shtick that he alone had a "soul" while others
allowed theirs to be eaten away by Trump. Translated, that means Comey is
terrified that former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, whom Comey
attacked as a Trump enabler, knows that Comey himself may have broken the
law -- and may direct prosecutors on how to prove it.
Comey is also in a tiff with his former deputy, Andrew McCabe. Both know
that the FBI under Comey illegally leaked classified information to the
media. But Comey says McCabe went rogue and did it. Of course, McCabe's
attorney shot back that Comey had authorized it. Comey also claims the
Steele dossier was not the chief evidence for a FISA warrant. McCabe insists
that it was. It's possible that one might work with prosecutors against the
other to finagle a lesser charge.
Former CIA Director John Brennan has on two occasions lied under oath to
Congress and gotten away with it. He may not get away with lying again if
it's determined that he distorted the truth about his efforts to spread the
Steele dossier smears. A former CIA official claims that Comey put the
unverified Steele dossier into an intelligence community report on alleged
Russian interference. Comey has contended that Brennan was the one who did.
It's possible that both did. Doing so would have been unethical if not
illegal, given that neither official told President Obama (if he didn't
already know) that the silly Steele dossier was a product of Hillary
Clinton's amateurish efforts to subvert the 2016 Trump campaign.
In sum, the old leaky vessel of collusion is sinking.
The rats are scampering from their once safe refuge -- biting and piling on
each other in vain efforts to avoid drowning.
No comments:
Post a Comment