According to their career & subordinate Intelligence Officers, there was no evidence
By Victor Davis Hanson
Last week and this week, sometimes reported in the news, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, announced a discovery that included a trove of apparently once-classified documents under her purview that are pertinent to and detailed the origin of the so-called "Russian Collusion Hoax" of 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. Remember what that was? During the campaign between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2015 and 2016, there were allegations that Donald Trump was enlisting Russian President Vladimir Putin to disparage or hurt Hillary Clinton for his campaign's benefit.
That charge was never substantiated – despite 22 months and $40 million of "Special Counsel" Robert Mueller's extensive investigation – which took place after Donald Trump was elected – and found no evidence that Donald Trump was directly involved in any Russian escapade to throw the election.
But, Gabbard disclosed there were the two new sources of discovery – while promising more classified information and dislosure would be forthcoming.
The first is that, apparently, Dutch Intelligence Services had tapped into Russian intelligence – unknowingly to the Russians – and they were concerned that they were being accused of colluding with Donald Trump by the Hillary Clinton campaign. And further, they had intelligence that Hillary Clinton had actually hired – and we know now that this was true – to give money to Christopher Steele through the paywalls of the Democratic National Committee, the Perkins Coie law firm, the Fusion GPS political operation, for this so-called and now infamous "Steele Dossier," which has been proven to be fraudulent "intelligence" yet was used as the source of this entire hoax.
So, here’s the point. That had been completely proven false, both by the Mueller investigation – saw that no credible – but the intelligence agencies, one of these 18 or all of them or some of them, knew from information from the Dutch that there was no validity.
But here’s the second thing.
John Brennan as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA,) James Clapper as Director of National Intelligence – and possibly even James Comey, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – apparently also knew the information (from their own intelligence gathering teams) while trying to act in order to prepare for presentation and digestion by President Barack Obama, the lame-duck president who was on his way out.
They said:
Wow. All of the people who are investigating this "Russian collusion," it’s pretty clear there was no Russian collusion. They may have wanted to tamper in, or troll, or get on the, you know, websites, like the Chinese have done. But according to our subordinates, our intelligence chiefs of these subdivisions, there was no evidence. There’s no evidence that our team can find any evidence.
Tulsi Gabbard, remember, now oversees some of these same agencies – and others well beyond the FBI or the CIA.
Now, what is Tulsi Gabbard upset about?
What was known to John Brennan. What was known to James Clapper. What was probably known to James Comey and the FBI as well.
But, they have, and keep, official White House notes documenting meetings, discussions, and actionable decisions. They had information that when they prepared their Daily Presidential Brief, and the weekly digest of intelligence updates that were given to the then-lame-duck President Barack Obama in 2016 and into 2017, he ignored it. He did not want to hear what the reports actually said. (The lack a damning evidence against Trump.) He wanted more information pertaining to Donald Trump and "the Russians colluding."
It was almost like – you find me the crime, and I’ll give you the criminal.
And so what did Brennan and Clapper allegedly do? Obama's "National Intelligence" team – the “All-Stars” as they were called – were pretty partisan.
They reversed the opinions and advice of their own intelligence subordinates regarding what constituted reliably sourced intelligence, and crafted or fabricated their own analysis after the November 2016 election. And then, according to the wishes of Barack Obama, they created an intelligence falsehood, a false narrative, a fake narrative. They manufactured the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (known as an ICA,) that they knew was false, that Donald Trump – now the president-elect – had been "colluding with the Russians."
According to Gabbard's Report, following the election, the report states that on Dec. 5th, more than a month after the election, President Barack Obama directed the intelligence community,
“to review their work to date on the Russian influence campaign, and quickly produce the new ICA [Intelligence Community Assessment] for release in early January, before President-elect Trump took office.
"The ICA would rehash much of the previously published material on Russian activities, but would also include the judgment that President Putin ‘aspired’ for Trump to win. CIA would be the lead drafter, in coordination with FBI and NSA.”
We all know what happened after that.
They destroyed the career of Michael Flynn. We got these false charges that Donald Trump was "a Putin asset" or "puppet." Then Attorney General Jeff Sessions foolishly, but tragically, appointed Robert Mueller, who was an intimate of James Comey and many of the intelligence chiefs.
The Mueller "investigation" and the Andrew Weissmann mess went on for 22 months, and spent $40 million – all while the Trump presidency was under attack. The process was, in fact, the penalty and intent.
I think it’s fair to say it nearly wrecked the first two years of the Trump Administration – and I think Tulsi Gabbard is making the allegation that that was by design.
They couldn’t stop him with a fake Steele dossier. Hillary couldn’t stop him from being elected. Nobody could stop him during the campaign.
But Barack Obama, allegedly by Tulsi Gabbard’s conjectures, said:
“We can stop his presidency. So, you guys go back, ignore what your subordinates are saying when they found no evidence, and ignore foreign intelligence that found no evidence. Just get me a narrative saying that Donald Trump is colluding with the Russians, and we’ll spread it.”
And spread it they did. It nearly destroyed Donald Trump.
Is all of this now to be taken as serious?
If it’s credible, then you have a conspiracy of the top people in the United States intelligence and investigative communities conspiring with a sitting president of the United States to destroy the administration of his opponent, successor, Donald J. Trump.
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished Center for American Greatness fellow. A classicist and historian at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and the author of "The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won" from Basic Books, you can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.
