Over the seven years of writing on “Our America” (aka “Trump World”) , there have been a couple of essays with “Foil Hat” in the title (Put on My Foil Hat, Foil Hat Two) . These were the essays I indulged in the conspiracy, so far unproven, that Russia took a direct hand in the 2016 election. There were three basic “strategies” that the conspiracy followed.
Social Media Fact
The first strategy is factual, and well known. We know that Russian Intelligence influenced social media in the 2016 election, much of it out of a non-descript building in St. Petersburg. That was made clear in the Mueller Report, and Mueller actually indicted several Russian in-absentia for their actions. At the very least, we know that Russian Intelligence worked to exacerbate the extremes in American politics. Russian agents were active on Facebook and other social media sites, stoking the fires of extremism, and trying to push Americans towards division. They went so far as to organize bogus rallies, getting real Americans to attend.
The intent of this Russian program was to benefit Donald Trump in his campaign against Hillary Clinton. Social media never had so much influence as it did in 2016. While it’s impossible to determine how many actual votes the Russian actions impacted, we can be sure that it influenced the election. Whether it determined the outcome in that razor-thin result, we can’t be sure.
Spies and Cigars
The second question was simple: how much influence did Russian intelligence directly have on the Trump Campaign? The current Republican talking point is that the Mueller investigation was based on the “now discredited” Steele Dossier, a Democratic opposition research effort. So, first things first: the FBI investigation into the campaign, called “Crossfire Hurricane”, wasn’t based on the now infamous “Steele Dossier”. The investigation was going on before the Dossier became known to the FBI, and even longer before it became public.
The Mueller Report documented over one hundred contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian intelligence sources. It’s easy to disregard foreign policy advisor Carter Page with his goofy fishing hat and trips to Moscow. But it’s more difficult to comprehend the actions of Paul Manafort, the Chairman of the Trump Campaign. He was deeply indebted to a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, and passed strategic polling data to Russian Intelligence sources in the “Cigar Room” of Grand Havana Hotel in New York City. Or former General Mike Flynn, Trump’s top foreign policy advisor and future National Security Advisor, who took thousands of dollars from Russian TV, and sat at the “right hand” of Vladimir Putin in Moscow, among other contacts.
Mueller never came to a conclusion about Trump/Russia contacts or collusion. In his report, he only noted that the “stonewalling” of Trump campaign officials, including Manafort, Stone, and the Trump children; kept critical information secret.
A “Something” Burger
We now know that Attorney General Bill Barr completely misrepresented the Mueller Report to the American people. We also know that the Justice Department Inspector General confirmed that the FBI had a “valid predicate” (reason) for beginning that investigation.
And yesterday, the New York Times reported that the “investigation into the investigation”, led by US Attorney John Durham, came up empty after three and a half years. This was Trump and Barr’s great hope: their attempt to prove that the FBI was “after Trump” at the behest of the Obama Administration, and, as Don Jr would say, Mueller was a big “nothing burger”. But after spending over $6.5 million and losing two Federal Court trials, Durham wasn’t able to shake the Mueller conclusions. In fact, it turns out the only serious “criminal charges” Durham contemplated were financial irregularities by – Donald Trump in Italy.
Comey’s Letter
But the third “leg” of the conspiracy is even more “foil hat-ty”. The ultimate turning point in the 2016 election, was when, two weeks before the vote, FBI Director James Comey announced that he was reopening the e-mail investigation into Hillary Clinton. This announcement violated Department of Justice policy to NOT take actions that influence election outcomes. But Comey felt trapped. An unrelated investigation into former Congressman Anthony Weiner’s computer in the New York FBI office created a huge issue. Weiner was accused (and later convicted) of sending inappropriate pictures to underage girls. But when the FBI examined his computer, they found some classified Clinton emails on his hard drive.
Weiner’s was then married to Huma Abedin, Clinton’s personal chief of staff. Somehow Clinton email’s to Abedin ended up on Weiner’s hard drive, including some marked as classified.
In the weeks leading up to Comey’s announcement, it became clear that Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani knew about the Weiner hard drive. Somehow, the New York FBI office was leaking to the Trump campaign, and Comey thought it was “better” to get ahead of the leak before Giuliani broke the news.
New Information
Comey’s public letter re-opening the investigation had a direct impact on the polling, and two weeks before the election, was the “nail in the coffin” of the Clinton campaign. Whether Comey was right in breaking Department policy or not, his actions determined the next President of the United States. But the one of the questions left hanging for the past eight years was, who leaked the information to Giuliani?
We still don’t know the direct answer to that. But just in the past week, another “data point” was added to the 2016 imbroglio. The FBI Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York counter-intelligence division at the time, Charles McGonigal, just this week was indicted for taking money. That money originated from Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
We don’t know that McGonigal was “spying” for Russia in 2016. But we do know that he had access to the “Weiner” laptop information at the time. And we do know that he’s in deep trouble now, perhaps the worst betrayal of the FBI since Robert Hanssen back in 2001.
So push your foil hat down, and draw your own conclusions.
