Previously, using “off-the-books” Situation Room meetings outlined in Ben Rhodes’ 2018 book as our backdrop, we went through the highly consequential events of July 2016.  They showed how the Russia-Russia-Russia machinations had pushed James Comey further and further into the center of the concentric circles Obama was drawing around the coup, it’s conspirators, and the intel agencies whose imprimatur was needed to carry it out.

Now August arrives with, as Don McLean would phrase it, bad news on the doorstep.

(ChatGPT for American Thinker)

On August 3, 2016, Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan found out that the Dutch had found out that Hillary Clinton was going to run a dirty Russian-themed op on Donald Trump.  Uh-oh.  They’ve got spies too.  Brennan briefed the White House about it.

Time to pull back?  Nope.  Time to step on the gas.

NEW: Handwritten notes CIA Director John Brennan took during an Aug. 3, 2016 meeting in the White House with President Obama and FBI Director James Comey indicate that Obama tasked them to find "any evidence of collaboration between Trump campaign and Russia." #ObamaWasMastermind

“This was Obama, Comey, Clapper and Brennan deciding ‘We’re going to screw Trump' ... It was, ‘We’re going to create this and put the imprimatur of an IC assessment in a way that nobody can question it.’ They stamped it as Russian collusion and then classified it so nobody could… pic.twitter.com/MCArlGr2K3

— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) August 1, 2025

— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) July 27, 2025

On August 6th, Hillary posts her first Trump+Russia-themed tweet:

Seriously, what is going on with Trump and Russia? https://t.co/N6ySNILYMx

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 6, 2016

On August 8th, Comey’s hand-picked guy, Peter Strzok issues his infamous “We’ll stop it” text to his paramour, Lisa Page when she worries that Trump is “not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”

More from Comey’s FBI.  Via CNN:

“… In a text from August 15, 2016, Strzok tells Page: ‘I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office’ – an apparent reference to Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe – ‘that there’s no way he gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40 …” 

Ten days later, Brennan goes nuclear; he goes to the Hill.  From Fox News:

“…On August 25, 2016, Brennan went to Capitol Hill to brief Harry Reid…”

If any of them even entertained the thought there was a way, there was definitely no turning back now.

Two days later, August 27th, Reid sends a letter to James Comey, urging him to open an investigation into Trump’s Russia ties.

Now back to Ben Rhodes’ book.  Pages 391-392:

At the beginning of September [2016], we flew to China for the G20 summit, where Obama would have his final meeting with Putin before the election.

This would be the infamous meeting when Obama thought it was all big and bad to tell Putin to “cut it out.”  He was widely mocked in conservative media for being so ridiculous.

Rhodes goes on:

After about an hour [and after Putin had gone], I was asked to leave the room, and Obama stayed behind with Susan Rice. Later, we all came together before Obama’s press conference, and went through the questions he was likely to get asked. Josh Earnest and I raised the issue of Russian hacking. Obama waved his Styrofoam teacup at us: “I know how I’m going to handle that,” he said. He and Susan looked at each other, and I realized this must have been one of the subjects that was covered when I was out of the room.

Something else happened “at the beginning of September.”  Peter Strzok messaged Lisa Page:  “POTUS wants to know everything we’re doing.”

Also in early September, more of the coup plotters went to the Hill.  Via The Washington Post:

In early September, [Jeh] Johnson, James Comey and [Lisa] Monaco arrived on Capitol Hill in a caravan of black SUVs for a meeting with 12 key members of Congress, including the leadership of both parties. [Emphasis added]

They were now all-in on selling the narrative, and would later want congressional buy-in, but Leader McConnell and the Republicans writ-large were skeptical.

By the beginning of October, the Russia-Russia-Russia narrative was taking on a life of its own. Democrats had started running with it — hard — and the pressure on Obama to act was enormous. The Democrats, on a wholesale basis, were actually buying the Russia-Russia-Russia narrative and were screeching for Obama to act aggressively against Putin.  Obama had to do something.  So, Susan Rice was trying to organize two things: a bipartisan letter of concern — which Mitch McConnell famously refused to sign on to — and a statement from the I.C.

Page 395:

“On October 7, the [I.C.] statement was finally ready for release. … Referring to the release of hacked documents, the statement said that the ‘thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process…’"

Meanwhile, Trump was noticing Comey was up to no good.

EXCLUSIVE: FBI Agents Say Comey ‘Stood In The Way’ Of Clinton Email Investigation:https://t.co/6n63fHVvNo

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2016

Wow, FBI confirms report that James Comey drafted letter exonerating Crooked Hillary Clinton long before investigation was complete. Many..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2017

Come the end of October — just nine days before the election — The New York Times actually does some journalism-ing, and kicks the coup-plotters in the groin.

From the October 31, 2016 New York Times:

“For much of the summer, the F.B.I. pursued a widening investigation into a Russian role in the American presidential campaign. … None of the investigations so far have found any conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government. And even the hacking into Democratic emails, F.B.I. and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump.”

Now, keep this in mind as you read the following from our fabulist, Ben Rhodes. 

“I did not know of any FBI investigation of the Trump campaign until I learned about it in the press after I had left government.” [Emphasis added]

Mr. Rhodes told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence this October 25, 2017.  It was an obvious lie.

Amazingly, (admirably?) he repeated the lie to an interviewer a year and a half later, in April of 2019.

“[Ben Rhodes] told journalist Nicholas Ballasy that the Obama administration was unaware and uninvolved in the FBI’s investigation into then-candidate Donald Trump.

‘Literally, I learned about the investigation into Trump as a private citizen in the freaking Washington Post,’ Rhodes said.”

I guess if you’re gonna be a liar, being consistent is essential to being good at it?

There’s just one tiny problem.

He finally got invited to a meeting.  It was a December 9, 2016 meeting in the Situation Room with the coup plotters.  It simply strains credulity that the subject of supposed Trump-Russia criminality wasn’t a topic of discussion there.  Otherwise, why hold it in the Situation Room?  And how to explain the cascade of critical events that emanated from it?

December 9th was a hugely consequential day.  Three events took place:  1. The Washington Post ran with a piece which said that Brennan had told the Hill the Russians hacked the DNC and tried to hurt Hillary and help Trump win.  Mind you, they had zero proof for these allegations.  Zero. 2. Senator John McCain personally handed the complete dossier to James Comey “during a meeting at the latter’s office.” And 3. President Obama gave the order for the I.C.A. (the Intelligence Community Assessment to “prove” Russia interfered in our election on behalf of Trump).

It simply strains credulity that Mr. Rhodes saw no evil, heard no evil, spoke no evil in that December 9 meeting.

That ticks us into the next year, 2017, when James Comey’s malfeasance turns from preventing a president to removing one.