When I first read that Donald Trump was a Russian asset back in 2016, I had two thoughts: 1. This is the most serious security breach in American history, or 2. This is the biggest hoax in American history.
Given the gravity of the charge, there was no middle ground: either Trump should be shot for treason, or somebody just told the mother of all whoppers.
The country has gyrated between these two poles for the past nine years, with Democrats flogging the first and Republicans scrambling to prove the second.
How could this happen? How did a handful of politicos, spooks, and hacks nearly bring down the American government?
The Democrats used the allegation to launch the Mueller investigation, which crippled the first Trump administration. The investigation, which found no conspiracy between Trump and Russia, nevertheless begot an impeachment of Trump and likely cost the Republicans the House in 2018. All big wins for the Democrats. Republicans struggled against a shadowy intelligence community to prove a negative.
But the stakes here go well beyond partisan politics and are nothing less than epochal. If Trump was working for Russia, the country was compromised by a foreign despot for years. If the Democrats made the whole thing up, the country was fooled by a cabal that nearly overthrew a sitting president — an attempted coup based on a nothing burger. High stakes indeed.
New documents vindicate Trump and confirm the origins of the Russia Hoax, including the role of the intelligence community, the media, and Barack Obama himself.
Here’s what happened.
June 2016. During her time as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton uses an unsecure private e-mail server to conduct official business, a practice that becomes an issue during the 2016 campaign.
July 2016. Clinton and associates create and finances the Steele dossier, a false story about, most salaciously, Trump frolicking with hookers in a Moscow hotel room. Supposedly, the room was bugged by Russian spies, which gave Putin leverage over Trump.
August 2016. John Brennan, head of the CIA, briefs President Obama on Clinton’s plan to tie candidate Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” Newly Declassified Appendix to Durham Report Sheds Additional Light on Clinton Campaign Plan to Falsely Tie Trump to Russia and FBI’s Failure to Investigate
October 2016. The New York Times reviews the Steele dossier, decides the story lacks credibility and refuses to publish it. The press versus the president, part one — Columbia Journalism Review
October 2016. FBI offers Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, $1 million if he can corroborate any of the claims in his dossier. Steele cannot and walks away from the money. “FBI offered Christopher Steele $1 million to prove dossier claims, senior FBI analyst testifies” | CNN Politics
October 2016. FBI obtains a FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page, an adviser to the Trump campaign, largely based on the Steele dossier. 120919-examination.pdf
October – November 2016. In the lead-up to the election, the intelligence community consistently advises that Russian efforts to discredit the voting process are ineffectual. DIG-Russia-Hoax-Memo-and-Timeline_revisited.pdf
November 2016. FBI fires Steele as a confidential source for cause. 120919-examination.pdf
November 2016. In a big surprise to everyone (including Trump), Trump wins the 2016 election.
December 2016. In a fateful December 9 meeting at the White House, Obama breaks with protocol and requests that the intelligence leaders revisit their conclusions. That night, before any additional work is done, White House officials leak the unproven story that the CIA now believes Russia not only meddled in the election, but favored Trump. DIG-Russia-Hoax-Memo-and-Timeline_revisited.pdf
December 2016. The next morning, the headline in the Washington Post reads: “Secret CIA Assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win the election.” A headline on NPR reads: “CIA Concludes Russian Interference Aimed To Elect Trump.”
December 2016. Ten days later, Obama does his part to promote the Hoax by expelling Russian diplomats. He says he is angry about Russia’s interference in the election.
January 2017. The FBI, CIA, and DNI release a formal Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) claiming Russia favored Trump in the election.
January 2017. The New York Times and the Washington Post pick up the story and run with it.
February 2018. The New York Times and Washington Post share a Pulitzer Prize for their investigative work into Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia.
March 2018 — May 2023. Subsequent probes by the Inspector General and a Special Counsel discover no evidence of any conspiracy between Trump and Russia (the same conclusion reached earlier by Mueller). Both sharply criticize the tactics of the FBI and its heavy reliance upon the discredited Steele dossier. Neither gains much traction in the media. Nobody gives back his/her/their ill-gotten Pulitzer Prize.
July 2025. Tulsi Gabbard releases a House report that exposes the highly questionable evidence used in the ICA to support the Hoax. The main source is — wait for it — the Steele dossier!
So, there you have it. How the Steele dossier, one little lie, an obscure bit of opposition research, grew into a scandal that almost toppled a president.
How could this happen? How did a handful of politicos, spooks, and hacks nearly bring down the American government — something kings and dictators have tried and failed to accomplish for the past 250 years?
First the politicos. Obama knew about the Hoax in real time. He expelled Russian diplomats over a charge he knew to be false. (A less charitable person than I might say Obama deliberately created an international incident just to throw suspicion on Trump’s victory at the polls.) He greenlit the fake story of Russian influence, which poisoned Trump’s attempt to forge a détente with Russia against China.
The intelligence community was clearly out of control. The FBI lied to get surveillance warrants to investigate the Trump campaign. They bribed Steele to get him to substantiate his wild charges. After the election, they spied on the Trump administration itself with the intent of bringing it down. They ran disinformation campaigns like they were changing regimes in a distant Third World country. They almost succeeded. These are the very people our founders warned us against: unelected and unaccountable players working in the shadows to gain power for themselves. We need serious reform. Their wings must be clipped. Heads must roll.
Now we get to the legacy media, which has the power to enlighten or confuse the thinking of the nation, to expose a falsehood or promote it, to raise up the truth or bury it. They closed their minds to evidence that favored Trump and willingly consumed any disinformation cooked up by the spooks, however thinly sourced. And so the firestorm over the Hoax raged across the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post and into the global consciousness. The newspapers did not act as a firebreak to contain the Hoax; they provided the tinder. These hacks were not fooled. They were complicit.
Behold the inner workings of the Deep State! See how the spooks create the big lie, the politicos amplify it, and the hacks spread it around. No one has to be told that Donald Trump is the target. Everyone understands that he is their common enemy, the populist who threatens the power, privilege, and wealth of the elite, a coalition of the so-much-more-than-willing.
Last word goes to Matt Taibbi, who is both the Woodward and Bernstein of Russiagate.
“These people just can’t stop lying. The whole thing is one endless lie, the reason for which is now clear. Hillary Clinton got in trouble being dumb, tried to save herself by doing something dumber, and all of American officialdom backed the play. That’s it.”
READ MORE from Kevin Brady:
The Demographic Winter of Our Discontent
Democrats Wage Lawfare Against Trump
Let Them Eat Cake: America’s Woke Elites and the Ancien Régime