Sunday, August 2, 2020

New Disclosures Confirm: Trump Himself Was Target of Obama Administration's Russia Probe

Documents finally pried from U.S. intelligence agencies prove that the Obama administration used the occasion of providing a standard intelligence briefing for major-party candidates as an opportunity to investigate Donald Trump on suspicion of being a Russian asset.

As I contended in Ball of Collusion, my book on the Trump-Russia investigation, the target of the probe spearheaded by the FBI - but greenlighted by the Obama White House, and abetted by the Justice Department and U.S. intelligence agencies - was Donald Trump.

Not the Trump campaign, not the Trump administration.

In collusion with the Clinton campaign, and with the complicity of national-security officials who transitioned into the Trump administration, the Obama White House deployed the FBI to undermine the new president, dually using official investigative tactics and lawless classified leaks - the latter publicized by dependable journalists who were politically invested in unseating Trump.

In truth, the animating assumption of the probe was that Trump himself was acting on Russia's behalf, either willfully or under the duress of blackmail.

There was no case file called "Donald Trump" because Trump was "Crossfire Hurricane." The theory of Crossfire Hurricane was that Russia had blackmail information on Trump, which it could use to extort Trump into doing Putin's bidding if Trump were elected.

Consistent with this White House strategy session, Comey did not actually brief Trump about the Russia investigation; he buzzed Trump with an allegation that the Putin regime might be in possession of blackmail material - the pee tape - that it could hold over Trump's head in order to get him to do the Kremlin's bidding.

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