The “A” List of Bad Actors in the Russia Hoax

FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledges applause during President Barack Obama’s remarks in the Rose Garden of the White House, June 21, 2013. The President announced James Comey, right, as his nominee to succeed Mueller. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The motives of the bad actors partaking in the Russia hoax are diverse, but they share a common denominator, writes Victor Davis Hanson.

As Washington politicos and administrative state careerists, all of them believed that Donald Trump was so abhorrent that he should be prevented from winning the 2016 election. After his stunning and shocking victory, they assumed further that either he should not be inaugurated or he should be removed from office as soon as they could arrange it.

Hillary Cleared of Charges without Authority

One big break came for Hillary Clinton when opposition research produced by one of her hired hands ended up being used by the FBI to spy on the Trump campaign and to feed accusations of Russia collusion, William McGurn reminds readers in the WSJ. Amazingly, she lucked out again when, in early July, the FBI director himself (Comey), even though he lacked the authority to do so, publicly and personally cleared Hillary of any charges for having taken off-grid her emails while she was secretary of state.

Top Players in U.S. Intelligence Abused Power

Lindsey Graham isn’t calling for Mrs. Clinton in prison stripes, continues McGurn.

He’s after something more fundamental. What he wants is for the American people to appreciate that men and women at the top of the nation’s intelligence and law-enforcement agencies abused the power of their respective offices by putting their fingers on the election scales.

Hanson’s List of Perpetrators

James Comey: The former FBI director’s testimonies cannot be reconciled with those of his own deputy director Andrew McCabe. He falsely testified that the Steele dossier was not the main basis for obtaining FISA court warrants. On at least 245 occasions, Comey swore under oath that he either did not know, or could not remember, when asked direct questions about his conduct at the FBI. He likely lied when he testified that he did not conclude his assessment of the Clinton illegal email use before he had even interviewed Clinton, an assertion contradicted by his own written report.

Andrew McCabe: The former FBI agent is under criminal referral for lying to federal investigators about leaking to the media. He and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein each have accused each other of not telling the whole truth about their shared caper of trying to force President Trump out of office by invoking the 25th Amendment.

James Clapper: The former director of National Intelligence has admitted to lying under oath to Congress—and since lied about his earlier admission of that lying. His recent sworn congressional testimony of not having leaked information about the Steele dossier to the media is likely to be untrue, given that Clapper had admitted to speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper about the dossier’s contents. CNN, hired the mendacious Clapper as an analyst. And once on air, Clapper would insist that Trump was both a Russian asset and thus guilty of collusion crimes greater than those of Watergate. Lies. All lies.

John Brennan: The former CEA director has admitted to lying under oath to Congress on two occasions. He may well face further legal exposure. When he lost his security clearance, he repeatedly lied that Trump was guilty of collusion, however that non-crime is defined. And as the Mueller probe wound down, Brennan with pseudo-authority and trumped-up hints of phony access to secret intelligence sources deceitfully assured the nation that Trump within days would face indictment—perhaps along with his family members.

Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin: The Clinton aides likely lied to FBI investigators when they claimed they had no knowledge while working at the State Department that their boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was using an illegal private email server. In fact, they had read her communications on it and actually inquired about its efficacy.

Samantha Power: The former U.N. ambassador, in her last year in office requested on more than 260 occasions to unmask names of Americans monitored by the government. Yet Power later claimed that most of these requests were not made by her. And yet she either does not know or does not cite who exactly used her name to make such requests during the election cycle. In any case, no one has come forward to admit to the improper use of Power’s name to request the hundreds of unmaskings.

Susan Rice: The former Obama national security advisor could have made a number of unmasking requests in Power’s name, although she initially denied making any requests in her own name—a lie she immediately amended. Rice, remember, repeatedly lied on national television about the cause and origins of the Benghazi attack, denied there were cash payments for hostages in the Iran deal, misled about the conduct of Beau Bergdahl, and prevaricated over the existence and destruction of weapons of mass destruction in Syria.

Talk about Conflict of Interest, Writes VDH

• Former FBI general counsel James Baker is currently under criminal referral for improperly leaking classified documents.
• Andrew McCabe never should have been in charge of the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton, given that just months earlier his wife had been the recipient of $675,000 in campaign cash donated by Clinton and Democratic Party-affiliated political action committees.
• Rod Rosenstein never should have been appointed acting attorney general in charge of oversight of the Mueller investigation.
• Comey deliberately leaked a classified memo of a presidential conversation, in which he had misled the president about his actual status under FBI investigations, in order to cause enough media outrage over his firing to prompt the hiring of a special counsel.
• Robert Mueller did not need to appoint a legal team inordinately Democratic, which included attorneys who had been either donors to the Clinton campaign, or had been attorneys for Clinton aides, or had defended the Clinton Foundation.

And Still More

To read more on Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, Christopher Steele (a foreign national), Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, former Australian minister for foreign affairs Alexander Downer, and an array of intelligence contractors from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), click here.