Anyone that has followed the Trump-Russia collusion story has to be outraged that accountability for the criminal acts that were committed has not occurred. I regularly hear from people who are not only frustrated but also quite angry at the lack of action. There is a reason, a very frustrating reason, for this.
When we go back to the start of this criminality, there are really two issues there. The one that has received the most attention is what is known as Russiagate. This was the Clinton campaign activity that went hand-in-hand with the Crossfire Hurricane investigation within the FBI. This was the dirtiest of dirty political tricks. It was bought and paid for by the Clinton campaign. And certainly people have gone to jail in the past for doing much less than what happened here.
The second issue is the FBI’s illegal surveillance of not only PDJT but all Republican presidential candidates as well as anyone else who was viewed as a threat to the political power of the Democrats and, in particular, Barack Obama.
Now ask yourself, what was the bigger threat to our nation as constituted by our founding fathers?
♦ Russiagate, where the Hillary Clinton campaign manufactured a dirty political story during a presidential election that was supported by Barack Obama and the DOJ/FBI?
OR…
♦ Spygate, where full spectrum political surveillance by the Obama administration was conducted on all political opposition using government access to the NSA database that contains the private metadata of every American citizen?
Most reasonable people would likely identify Spygate as a much bigger issue. While Russiagate was a despicable activity, Spygate is worse than what the KGB of the old Soviet Union and the Stasi of East Germany combined were up to.
It is helpful to review how much of this came about.
The Democrats engaged in a bruising primary in 2008. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battled for months trying to win the nomination. In the end, as everyone knows, Obama eked out the win.
The “Inside Baseball” look at this is very revealing. I am indebted to Daniel Bocic Martinez for this rather succinct view of the Hillary Clinton vs Barack Obama dynamic.
“Hillary Clinton didn’t trust Barack Obama because he was supposed to have waited his turn.
When the Bill Clinton presidential team in 2000 burrowed into the DNC, and installed HRC into the NY Senate seat, through heavy influence in primary machine politics, the Clintons were the happiest Dems in the country when W squeaked by Gore, leaving them in full control of the DNC money laundering operation for the duration of the W years.
“8 years of Bill, then 8 years of Hill,” was all going according to plan, with Hollywood planting Hillary as President “Easter eggs” throughout media of the 1990’s.
The 2008 primary was the culmination of their plan started decades earlier.
Obama’s 2004 DNC Speech and his Jefferson-Jackson speech were to place him as the heir apparent, but their lock over the DNC (and the superdelegates) was fait accompli.
Even Obama running a near flawless campaign wouldn’t have been enough on its own.
The factors that pushed him over the top, and that were outside his control, were 1) Hillary ran an abysmal campaign, due in large part to her abysmal interpersonal skills and genuine dislike of most human beings; and 2) then patriarch of the Kennedy political dynasty, Ted (whose always loathed the Clintons), pounced on the chink in HRC’s inevitability armor highlighted by her loss in Iowa (where she was outhustled in all 99 counties), and literally embraced Obama in New Hampshire shortly before the primary voting, and crowned Obama as heir apparent of what remained of the political capital once described as Camelot.
The superdelegate tsunami was stopped in its tracks and the rest is history.
With an embittered Hillary not ready to abandon decades of planning and ride off into the sunset, she first hoped McCain would somehow best Obama and then moved to burrow into his administration to maintain some level of control/access to the DNC money laundering operation her crime family ruled over for the better part of two decades.
Obama knew she would be disloyal outside of the administration, even worse in the Senate, spending each moment plotting a 2012 primary challenge (same reason she could never have been VP, she would have poisoned him if given the slot).
So, he made the Faustian bargain that would one day destroy his legacy and place in History and made her the one offer he knew she could not refuse, Secretary of State.
Out of sight, out of mind. He always cared more about his domestic agenda than foreign policy, and if she’s too busy selling political indulgences around the world, she’d put off 2012 primary ambitions and keep her eye on 2016.
Of course, this is just what happened. Hillary built wealth for herself and her family through the so-called charities that they ran. That’s why she used a personal email, maintained her own servers, and generally controlled how her activity could be monitored and tracked. Just what was in the 33,000 emails that were destroyed?
When Clinton left the State Department (after the Benghazi mess) in 2013, John Podesta entered the Obama White House to look out for Hillary’s interests. Again, as noted above, the Clintons and the Obamas never fully trusted each other.
Obama kept his end of the bargain. Sundance notes:
In 2015, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had a check-in meeting -just touching base to firm up the goals and objectives as Hillary began her campaign launch. Podesta then left the White House to take up position inside the campaign, and Obama would maintain Clinton’s interests as planned without a monitor.
All of President Obama’s appointments, in/after 2015, were essentially through the prism of assisting Hillary Clinton to win in 2016. Attorney General Loretta Lynch (tarmac meeting), Deputy AG Sally Yates, Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and FBI Director James Comey were all part of that.
This is a key point missed by many. In the last two years of Obama, the cabinet and top-tier members of the administration would align their institutional interests to that of Hillary Clinton.
Technically, Hillary had eyes and ears all over the White House at the time, and with Hillary Clinton being a foregone conclusion, per the expectations of Washington DC, everyone would fall in line during the transition from Obama to Clinton.
Again, this was the general plan. Obama would show up in 2016 to campaign for Hillary, and all would be seamless.
To achieve this, the FBI and “FBI contractors” had a role. The FBI was there to neutralize any threats that came along (think private email servers, mishandling classified information). The FBI activity was to support, defend and facilitate the Clinton effort. The “FBI contractors” had a different role.
After March 2016 (Super Tuesday), it became obvious Donald Trump was going to win the Republican nomination. Trump would be Clinton’s opponent. This was probably a bit of a surprise for the Democrats. Originally the Democrats had amplified some of Trump’s positions in order to push the Republican candidates further to the right. The Democrats believed that this would make it easier for them to win the general election.
With the knowledge that Trump was going to be the candidate, “FBI contractors” narrowed their spying focus in the NSA data base to do political surveillance of the Trump campaign. This intel was then sent to the Clinton team. Clinton benefitted from knowing the communication inside the Trump campaign. All of that intel was in the metadata captured by the NSA and searched by the “FBI contractors.”
From a report of the FISA Court:
Please note the highlighted section where 85% of inquiries were “noncompliant.” Almost all of that activity was undoubtedly political surveillance by the US government led by Barack Obama. We will come back to the extent of this later.
Back to the Russian Collusion hoax. The Russia Collusion hoax was created by Hillary Clinton, spread to media through Fusion GPS, and given credibility by the DOJ and FBI. President Obama did not orchestrate the Russia Collusion hoax. Obama facilitated it by not interfering with his administration officials who were assisting Hillary Clinton. This is an important distinction.
When these actions became a threat to Obama, both the Obama and Clinton political teams supported and organized the Robert Mueller cover-up. All of this activity is because Hillary Clinton was supposed to win. They all knew the “dirty tricks” that were deployed and specifically what systems were utilized in order to carry it out.
This is Russiagate. Illegal? Absolutely. However, investigating ‘Russiagate‘, as dirty as it was, takes you to a place where politics infected the DOJ/FBI. Every participant carries plausible deniability. It is harder to outline as unlawful, easily obfuscated, downplayed and subsequently dismissed.
Spygate, on the other hand, is much worse and cannot be dismissed out of hand. Spygate and Russiagate intersect at the FISA warrant on Carter Page. This merges the dirty tricks campaign with the highly illegal surveillance of political opposition. Focusing on the use of the NSA database to spy on people is simple to understand, completely unlawful and is stunningly unconstitutional when contrasted against 4th amendment protections.
When did Spygate start?
It started with the IRS scandal in 2010. The IRS targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. Lois Lerner eventually acknowledged the targeting but claimed it was due to some rogue employees in one field office. Of course, as was typical with the Obama administration, that was a bunch of BS.
After this scandal erupted (one of many scandals in the “scandal-free Obama administration”), the Obama administration realized they need a more secretive way to control opposition. Enter the NSA database and the FISA Court.
Beginning in 2012, “FBI contractors” began accessing the NSA database and, as noted in the report above, some 85% of the accesses were “noncompliant.” That means those accesses did not correspond with any legitimate law enforcement or national security activity.
All of this activity was organized by the Obama administration. These were not some rogue employees doing crap on their own. Maxine Waters (D-CA) in her own inimitable way let us know that Obama was doing this.
Here is a video of Waters explaining that President Obama has put together a database that “…will have information about everything on every individual in ways that it’s never been done before.”
Waters was referring to the president’s “Organizing for America,” set up as a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization for the benefit of Democratic political candidates.
Waters makes it sound like a political organization, which should have raised the alarms at the IRS about its tax-exempt status. Ha! Ha! Who would have guessed that the IRS would do nothing?
Investigating Spygate (and that includes the 2016 illegal surveillance of the Trump campaign via the NSA database) is the Holy Grail here. None of that activity can be justified. It was a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment. Beware those who would have one follow the dancing ball of Russiagate. Spygate is exponentially worse.
Bottom line. Authorized “contractors” with the USIC were conducting illegal political surveillance for four years including on the 2016 GOP presidential contenders.
There is a document trail directly to this activity, and audit logs showing exactly who was doing it. This should be the focus of continuing declassification efforts.