“Trump caved to Putin.” That’s the media’s take of President Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit.
Or, did Trump cave to the truth?
We were initially told that seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies had independently confirmed that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee and our 2016 presidential election.
But wait! We now learn that only three agencies have confirmed this intelligence finding (CIA, NSA, FBI). Further, only one agency actually conducted the majority of the research that netted that conclusion: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Even in July 2016, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James R. Clapper Jr., had questioned whether Russia was involved and what (if involved) their intentions were. "We don't know enough...to ascribe motivation," he said at the time. "Was this just to stir up trouble or was this ultimately to try to influence an election?"
Clapper convened a group of fourteen top intelligence officials who were asked to sign new nondisclosure contracts. He closed the typical sharing of information and video feeds to persons in the White House and government with top security clearances. At the end of this gathering, the most damning intelligence pointing to Russia came from another country. The National Security Agency (NSA) was reluctant to view it with high confidence given our experiences with that nation.
Given the gravity of this foreign finding, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Jeh Johnson attempted to coerce several Secretaries of State about designating our voting systems as 'critical infrastructure' which would've subjugated those state's roles in the election to the federal government. To DHS's shock, the states outright rejected that request.
Could this ‘critical infrastructure’ effort have been an attempt to form a political weapon against Trump or was it a legitimate concern about hackers changing the outcome of election results?
They call the main findings of Clapper's Russia-investigation "an intelligence bombshell." It was so critical and top-secret that Clapper personally handled the findings issuing strict handling instructions. The report was sent by courier to the White House and shown to only four people including Pres. Obama.
"The intelligence bombshell" is purported to have captured Vladimir Putin's specific instructions on the hacking operations main goals: defeat or severely discredit Democrat nominee for president Hillary Clinton.
We've been told that seventeen intelligence agencies confirmed this conclusion. That was fake news. It was only three. The main intelligence gathering was conducted by the CIA. In other words, the FBI and the NSA simply said "we agree" that the CIA's work is credible. The three agencies did not independently make this same conclusion. The CIA coerced the FBI and NSA into compliance.
Are we Americans supposed to believe that one operative deep inside the Russian government (from an untrustworthy foreign country) was able to capture Putin's specific instructions on a hacking operation, reveal it to the CIA and prove Russia hacked our election?
I'm not buying it!
Pres. Obama and his administration didn't swiftly act on this 'bombshell report.' In fact, it was politics that drove what little reaction occurred. They contemplated whether to tell the American people the truth or attempt to bury it until after the election.
Apparently, they didn't know whether this report would help or hurt Clinton in her presidential aspirations. If they confirmed that the hacking was conducted by the Russians (or any entity) they would fully validate the content of the data/emails being released to the public (which reflected poorly on Clinton). Staying quiet until after the election was a political calculation to keep from further validating the hacked emails being released.
Other than a veiled threat to Vladimir Putin in September 2016, the administration did virtually nothing.
After Clinton’s defeat, with Obama still in office, Democrats had plenty of cover to conflate these findings into an assertion of a Trump-collusion. This explains why none of the Obama-holdovers (including former FBI Director James Comey) were willing to formally admit they had no evidence (against Trump) and continued to act in a way that ultimately discredited President Trump.
Just this weekend, we learned about a meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort (then campaign chair) and other Trump campaign officials in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer. At first glance, this news report seems to confirm an inappropriate (if not unexplainable) meeting.
The 'bait' for the meeting with Trump Jr. and Manafort was to helping Russian orphans by influencing changes to the ‘Dima Yakovlev Law’ that forbids U.S. citizens from adopting Russian orphans.
“We have learned that the person who sought the meeting is associated with Fusion GPS, a firm which, according to public reports, was retained by Democratic operatives to develop opposition research on the President and which commissioned the phony Steele dossier,” Mark Corall, spokesperson for President Trump's lawyer Marc Kasowitz told NBC.
In other words, the meeting was likely an attempt to frame some of the 'Russian-collusion' that has been charged against Trump and his associates.
Mikhail Zygar, the founding editor of Russia's only independent TV network, Dozhd, told MSNBC on June 21, 2017 that his journalistic works suggests that the hackers are likely someone with affiliations with Russia but not the government itself (and not at their direction).
The overwhelming majority of the intelligence community donated to Clinton's campaign. The DNI director, James Clapper, openly speaks of his disdain for Trump. Former CIA Director John Brennan remains extremely critical of Trump. Clinton operatives likely orchestrated attempts to connect Trump campaign officials with Russians. The U.S. intelligence community (in relation to the Russian hacking story) has been fraught with leaks that only seem to reflect poorly on Trump.
The Obama administration successfully politicized our Internal Revenue Service, Department of Homeland Security, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Court System and others.
Shockingly, it appears Obama also politicized our intelligence community transforming it into a political weapon against Donald Trump and Washington outsiders.