Below is my column in Fox.com on the release of the last declassified material on the origins of the Russian collusion investigation. After the release, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote in the New York Times insisted that they never relied on the Steele dossier. The column only reaffirmed the level of dishonesty and duplicity that marked their tenures in office. (The Times still printed this claim despite being demonstrably untrue).
The documents quote Brennan in overruling career analysts and intervening to include the dossier in the intelligence assessment. Moreover, the column echoes the media spin that the investigation was about an attempted Russian interference while dismissing the collusion claim that consumed much of the first term. (Even after leaving office, Brennan continued to push the false collusion claim). Both countries routinely hacked each other’s emails — that is why we have the most recent incriminating evidence on the Clinton campaign’s funding and spreading the false collusion claims. We hacked their emails. We have also regularly tried to influence the elections of other nations. The key to the dossier and the Russian investigation was the allegation of collusion and the central role of the Clinton campaign in creating the narrative that Trump was a Russian asset.
Here is the column:
This week, Washington was rocked by new releases in the declassification of material related to the origins of the Russian investigation. The material shows further evidence of a secret plan by the Clinton campaign to use the FBI and media to spread a false claim that Donald Trump was a Russian asset. With this material, the public is finally seeing how officials and reporters set into motion what may be the greatest hoax ever perpetrated in American politics. There never was a Russian collusion conspiracy. This is the emerging story of the real Russian conspiracy to manufacture a false narrative that succeeded in devouring much of the first term of the Trump Administration.
What is emerging in these documents is a political illusion carefully constructed by government officials and a willing media. The brilliance of the trick was getting reporters to buy into the illusion; to own it like members of an audience called to the stage by an illusionist.
The effort closely followed the three steps of the classic magic trick: The Pledge, The Turn, and The Prestige.
The Pledge
The trick began with the pledge, the stage where the public is set up by showing ordinary events with the suggestion that it is about to transform into something extraordinary. The key is to make something seem real that is actually not.
The Clinton campaign delivered the pledge by secretly funding the Steele dossier, using Fusion GPS and a former British spy named Christopher Steele, to create a salacious account of Trump being an agent of Russia. New emails state that Hillary Clinton personally approved the operation.
It was Elias who was the general counsel to the Clinton presidential campaign when it funded the infamous Steele dossier and pushed the false Alfa Bank conspiracy. (His fellow Perkins Coie partner, Michael Sussmann, was indicted but acquitted in a criminal trial.)
During the campaign, a few reporters asked about the possible connection to the campaign, but Clinton campaign officials denied any involvement in the Steele Dossier. After the election, journalists discovered that the payments for the Steele dossier were hidden as “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to Perkins Coie under Elias.
When New York Times reporter Ken Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”
Later, John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, appeared before Congress for questioning on the Steele dossier. Podesta emphatically denied any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress.
The FEC ultimately sanctioned the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee over the handling of the funding of the dossier through his prior firm.
The Turn
The next step is the turning point when the ordinary becomes something extraordinary. This required the involvement of the government. The Clinton team worked behind the scenes to feed the dossier to the FBI. It would be the criminal investigation that would transform the ordinary accounts, like Carter Page speaking in Moscow, into an elaborate Russian plot. Even though the FBI was warned early on that Page was a CIA asset, not a Russian asset, the Clinton team found eager officials in the Obama Administration to assist in the illusion.
The newly disclosed evidence shows how the turn was made. In July 2016, Brennan briefed former President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s “plan” to tie then-candidate Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” The original Russia investigation — funded by Clinton’s campaign — was launched days after this briefing.
Months later, it would be Brennan who overruled his own CIA analysts in his ordering of a second last-minute assessment at the end of the Obama Administration in support of the Russian allegations. It would help make the turn with the all-consuming Russian investigation that would follow.
Career analysts were not buying the turn. They objected that the reliance on the Steele dossier “ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment.” One CIA analyst told investigators that “[Brennan] refused to remove it, and when confronted with the dossier’s main flaws, [Brennan] responded, ‘Yes, but doesn’t it ring true?’”
That is the key to the turn; it needs only to be enough to fool the audience.
The Prestige
The final stage is called the Prestige, where the magician faces the toughest part of the trick. As explained in the 2006 movie “The Prestige,” the viewer is “looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled.” However, “making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back.”
The difference is that this trick was designed to derail Trump and it worked. In the end, however, the Special Counsel and Inspector General both rejected the Russian collusion claims. The public then reelected Trump. Now, the prestige may be revealed by the CIA.
Reports indicate that the CIA is about to declassify material showing that foreign sources were also in on the trick. The information reportedly indicates that foreign sources were aware of the move to create a Russian collusion scandal and expected that the FBI would play a role in the plan. That was before the bureau launched its controversial Crossfire Hurricane probe. One source said the foreign intelligence predicted the move “with alarming specificity.”
The most recently declassified material shows that the Russian actors in 2016 hacked emails from the Open Society Foundations, formerly known as the Soros Foundation. The emails reveal a broader network of activists and allies who were aware of the Clinton conspiracy.
Leonard Bernardo, who was the regional director for Eurasia at the Open Society Foundations, explained that “during the first stage of the campaign, due to lack of direct evidence, it was decided to disseminate the necessary information through the FBI-affiliated…from where the information would then be disseminated through leading U.S. publications.”
Bernardo added, “Julie (Clinton Campaign Advisor) says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later, the FBI will put more oil into the fire.”
The media (including the Washington Post and New York Times, which won Pulitzer prizes for reporting on the debunked claims) are apoplectic in dismissing these disclosures. The last thing they will do is report on how they helped sell a political hoax. The problem is that they never said it was a trick. They said it was the truth. That is why they cannot honestly cover the story. To do so would not be coverage, it would be a confession.
It appears that everyone was in on the trick: the U.S. government, the media, even foreign governments. The only chumps were the American people. Now they are about to see how it was done.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Political Trick, I think it stopped being a trick when President Trump was legally elected, thereafter it became much more. Please don’t tell me that 5 years have gone by and nothing can be done. Wasn’t President Trump changed with alleged crimes that happened many years past. Every Red State AG should be charging all the conspirators on behalf of the American people in their state. This was an attempt to destabilize the Trump administration, impeach and jail the man on lies by a group of dangerous people.
The Russia hoax has now been unraveled and exposed, the greatest political scandal in American history. Now it’s finally time for stiff consequences to be levied for the operatives in this horrific scandal
Truly astonishing. We all had our various suspicions, but I thought it would be less devious than I imagined, not magnitudes more so. I have a great aunt who to this day thinks Trump is a Russian stooge – the levels of culpability across the entire spectrum are just breathtaking; the mob or past regimes could inly dream of these levels of insidiousness. Thank you for the excellent piece.
We need to stop using the left’s vocabulary. There is nothing about this that is a “hoax.” This was, and is, a coup, plain and simple and the perpetrators were criminals of the highest order. The people want accountability, not explanations that make this seem like a parlor game. The object here is to make the penalties so strict as to dissuade anyone from ever again trying this nonsense.
JJC,
Well said and I agree with you. Unfortunately, I doubt anyone of these people will ever see the inside of a court room. Rather, what we need to do is to make sure everyone knows of the plot, who was involved in this attempted coup. We need to point out how the Democrats attempted this hoax and coup.
Hear hear.
Wouldn’t this sentence, “This is the emerging story of the real Russian conspiracy to manufacture a false narrative that succeeded in devouring much of the first term of the Trump Administration.” make more sense if the word “Russian” were replaced by the word “Democratic”?
Someone’s got to go to prison Ben
and how does Elias still have a license to practice law?
“Someone’s got to go to prison Ben”
The difference is that the corrupt D’s can never “feel better inside.”
So turn them inside out, we’ll all feel better! See how easy it is to find a solution to this problem?!
“turn them inside out, we’ll all feel better!”
Sea Cucumber execution?
Ray Epps and John Brennan in 2028!!! Only THEY can save our precious, sacred Deep State. In your heart, you know it’s the right thing to do!!!
Come on. Brennan and Epps are tools. The natural Democratic nominee in 2028 is Hunter Biden. There is nobody else who so unabashedly advocates for everything the Democrats truly believe in. Not for what they say in talking points, but what they truly believe. Seriously, he would be a truly formidable candidate. A Hunter Biden v. JD Vance contest would be one for the ages. He has his pardon, he was Joe’s brain for 4 years (smartest guy he knows), he is authentic, and he needs a grift to sustain his lavish lifestyle for 4 years. What is better than running for President? And if he wants to add gravitas to his ticket he can choose Newsom as VP, or if wants more flamboyance, he can choose Jasmine Crockett. Do not underestimate him.
When you reply to trolls and morons you feed their egos. Ignore them and eventually they go away.
I’m glad you mentioned effing Hunter the effing nimrod effk. I’ve always thought his wife must be a spy, probably Mossad. They got married six days after they met. Now that they’re not in the White House any more, she’s effing kicked him to the curb and he’s effing back into his effing addiction.
I guess the counterargument will be that it’s not a crime to “trick” the American voters, so no one will ever be prosecuted or go to jail. But at the very least, can Republicans take note of how this game is played and fight fire with fire? Remember, when they go low, we go lower! The “high road” is so yesterday.
How many Senators and Representatives from the 2016 era are still in Congress today. How many Democrats; how many Republicans; and aside from Bernie Sanders, any other ‘Independents’? Those who believed the hoax or helped to perpetuate it are complicit. As for Obama’s alleged immunity, I’ll wager there is a way to legally pierce it and hold him accountable – unindicted co-conspirator president barry o.
Words in MAGAland: Accurately saying that the Russians helped Trump and the Trump campaign knew about it is a “coup”. However engaging in a weeks long illegal effort to install and unelected president that ended in violence is not a “coup”.
There was nothing illegal about using legal means to question an election. Nobody cares about your crap narrative, nobody cares about January 6th, we re-elected Trump as proof. Please just shut up and go away.
Thank God the new FBI and DOJ are providing massive amounts of evidence by the day, proving that the CCP helped the Democrats steal the 2020 election. Pandora’s Box is blowing open, which is why the Left keeps trying to deflect with the “Epstein Files” which they completely ignored during Sleepy Joe’s four years in office.
I hate to see you struggle with your low intelligence.
Trump knew about “Crossfire Hurricane” throughout his entire 2016 campaign. How do we know? Why else would he have selected “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” as his closing song for his rallies? It was a clear message to his enemies. No one has ever asked President Trump why he chose that song, but those of us who were paying close attention know that he doesn’t do ANYTHING without a purpose.
The list of crimes associated with this Op are mind boggling. From fabricated probable cause perjury and willful participation by the FISC, to malicious prosecution of American Citizens (Page, Flynn, Stone, Bannon) this conspiracy to defraud the American People involves hundreds or maybe thousands of individuals. The Perp Board would take up a warehouse!!!!!!!!!!!
Journalism has been absent for at least a decade…or, more precisely perhaps, journalism has been redefined to be synonymous with advocacy.
A decade? Try 50+ years.
You are misnaming the useful idiots. It is a the prestige with an illusion. When advancing a political agenda, the term is useful idiot. Everyone knew, many were in on the trick, the useful idiots believed it.
Does the complicit media have any legal liability in this fraud? Does the average American citizen who supported Trump have any legal recourse? Could plausible civil actions against the plotters be launched independent of any criminal prosecutions? Thank you for all your efforts, Professor Turley!
The professor is too kind.
I call this pure evil, seditious, and treasonous.
If left unpunished, this will happen again, and even more damaging. This could be how our country, the longest modern govt, dies.
Since the Professor believes that the First Amendment effectively removes sedition for the set of legal tools necessary to charge crimes of the sort perpetrated here, i.e. sedition is just piling on, let the Justice Department seek indictments using other legal means.
You are 100% correct.
Regarding what I suppose is somewhat of a peripheral issue, but imo nevertheless very important:
The fact that the FBI is even remotely susceptible to exerting partisan influence to corrupt the political process in this way means that it is not salvageable as an honest law-enforcement agency. We should have known full well how corrupt it was subsequent to its conduct wrt the WACO abuse of its power under Reno and Clinton, but the implications of that evidence were largely ignored. After the investigation of Russia-gate has been completed, any indictments handed down, and trials completed, it should be summarily and totally eliminated.
Every Federal law enforcement agency is under the President’s command – as the Constitution requires. If the President’s Administration is corrupt and hyper partisan (as Obama was), there is no way to avoid them corrupting the people they command – especially a President that has been in office 8 continuous years.
“If the President’s Administration is corrupt and hyper partisan (as Obama was), there is no way to avoid them corrupting the people they command ”
The only way that rank and file employees with Civil Service protections can be corrupted by elected or politically appointed superiors is if they are already lacking moral or ethical precepts. I think the historical record is pretty convincing that the FBI (among a few other Federal agencies, e.g., ATF) is a magnet for that type of person. We don’t need them, or it. Flush it into the cesspit where it belongs.
For far too long, the names of the people who govern us do not appear on a ballot.
Perhaps their names should appear on an indictment for treason. If not that, then for perjury.
Everyone involved, especially Hilray & associates, should be punished to the full extent of the law and thrown in jail, hard core jail, no country club, and repay with interest all the money the US Gov’t spent and everyone hurt by the Clintons/DEMS/Deep State, Gov’t should be fully reimbursed with interest for the money they lost and the pressure they suffered by this Deep State/DEM hoax. As well all foreigners and Gov’ts involved should reimburse all the money everyone lost. MSM should be punished by the FCC and pay huge fines. Hit them where it hurts in the pocket book.
You spelled Crime wrong. It is not spelled “trick.”
WHEN are Democrats GOING TO JAIL by the 10,000’s?
Jail Democrats by the 10,000’s for
1) Russian Hoax and Trump Persecution
2) Protecting bidens and others crime syndicates
3) Jan 6th entrapment
4) Vote Crimes
5) Helping Illegals
Calling this a trick seems way too tepid. Someone has to push this for prosecution and not saying their trick worked, ha.