I want to explore the significance of the Russia collusion story. Here is a significant reason for many on the political Right to who believe the Democrat Party is weaponizing the federal bureaucracy against their political opponents and a significant reason the political Right does not trust major media outlets or the technology companies.
The stimulation of this exploration is the acquittal of Sussman and Danchenko. I want to begin with what I consider the factual date, provided from several articles by Margot Cleveland and a recent article by Ben Weingarten of Newsweek. I will then get into the frame of mind that led otherwise intelligent persons to behave in these ways.
In a matter like this, I want to be clear as to the facts as I understand them.
The Clinton campaign and its attorneys hired technicians to attack the servers of Donald Trump to establish a narrative by gathering derogatory information about Trump. They were unsuccessful, so they developed a story about a Russian-based bank, which Jake Sullivan declared on October 21, 2016, that it unlocked ties between Russia and Trump, but Sullivan failed to disclose that Clinton financed the computer scientists on which he relied for his information. After her defeat, her team backed off and after the inauguration they continued. Mueller found no such actionable collusion. Clinton hired members of the Perkins Cole law firm to contract with tech experts with the purpose of finding any dirt that the failed Steele Dossier did not uncover, which led to the claim of Russian Alfa Bank collusion. They fed false information to the media and the FBI. Victor Davis Hanson referred to it as a slow-motion coup. Agent Scott Hellman told the court that he and another agent took less than a day to ascertain that the information did not support the allegations that Trump’s business and Russia’s Alfa Bank had a secret connection.
The Federal Election Commission fined Hillary Clinton’s campaign for lying about the discredited Steele Dossier in campaign filings. As Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation revealed, Perkins Cole, the law firm hired by the Clinton campaign, paid Fusion GPS more than $1 million, $175,000 which they used to fund opposition research designed to undermine then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. They laundered money to pay Russian nationals like Danchenko for the intelligence that formed the Steele Dossier and was peddled on her behalf to the DOJ, FBI, and CIA. Fusion GPS, hired by Hillary Clinton, then hired Christopher Steele to compile negative and false secondhand accounts designed to tie Trump to the Kremlin that were subsequently fed to corporate media reporters and government officials. This coordinated effort by Clinton allies, Kevin Clinesmith pleading guilty, to lie about their political enemies sparked the Obama administration’s efforts to spy on Trump and his campaign under knowingly false pretenses. For lying about the purpose of campaign funds, the FEC ordered Clinton’s campaign to pay $8,000 to the commission in the next 30 days. The Democratic National Committee was also fined $105,000 for the same violation. Durham used his cases to reveal not only the information operation the Clinton campaign ran to present Trump as a Russian traitor, and how the campaign flooded the federal government from a million directions with its fake evidence, but also how the feds at every turn engaged in willful blindness to lawlessly, recklessly, and corruptly pursue Trump-Russia collusion despite knowing full well it
The FBI and the DOJ used the uncorroborated Steele memoranda, which had failed as a Clinton operation, misleading the FISA court as to its authenticity to obtain four FISA court orders to surveil Carter Page, and the judges responsible for authorizing the most intrusive court-ordered surveillance possible based upon hearsay for sources of unknown reliability. Individuals justified this behavior by having a view of President Trump that involved him as being so dangerous he had to be removed. The FBI paid Steele and others to verify the lies in the dossier. An FBI lawyer even altered a document as part of a government effort to disrupt a presidential transition and presidency.
The DOJ and FBI launched an investigation into the campaign of a president based on the pretext that a low-level volunteer adviser had made a passing comment over drinks to an Australian diplomat that the Russians might release information detrimental to Clinton, continuing the charade for years, knowing there was no “there” there.
As FBI Deputy Assistant Director, Peter Strzok launched Crossfire Hurricane, plotted the removal of Michael Flynn, and making the most “impactful series of missteps” seen in some 20-plus years at the bureau that “called into question” and “thoroughly damaged the reputation” of the FBI,” according to an official report.
James Come provided a defensive briefing to provide CNN a hook to report the Steele dossier, took secret notes of his conversations with the president and used a lawyer friend to leak them to the media once he was fired to prompt the appointment of a special counsel, he failed to inform then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions of developments in the case prior to Session’s recusal, he oversaw the Crossfire Hurricane debacle, and he violated the constitutional rights of Page.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) lied to the American public since he knew the truth of the classified material.
Confidential human sources Stefan Halper, Rodney, Joffe, Steele, and Danchenko peddled false intel to the FBI. Danchenko failed to polygraph the Russian or conduct the many recommended procedures necessary to ensure his loyalty and credibility. Those responsible for approving his service are equally culpable since they did so with regard for the prior espionage investigation that never reached conclusion.
Then DOJ General Counsel James Baker shrugged off the peddling by Michael Sussman of the alfa Bank-Trump-Russia hoax. Computer scientists were also responsible for assisting in that how. Inspector General Michael Horowitz kept this information from Durham.
The agents working the Crossfire Hurricane investigation or assisting Robert Mueller did not do their jobs and did not blow the whistle when others weaponized the criminal justice system. The agents operating under the Mueller special counsel investigation limited the scope of their inquiry into the Steele dossier, ensuring that damning information about the original investigation into the dossier would remain hidden. Mueller allowed his underlings to act in this fashion. Mueller claimed not to investigate the Dossier, but the Durham investigation has shown that not only did he do so but stopped the investigation from reaching a conclusion. The question became not whether the federal government was a mere party to the Russia hoax, but the extent to which it was an active co-conspirator—if not the primary culprit itself.
Given the powerful people involved in all this, it is hardly surprising that two of three indictments ended in acquittal. This may well have been an investigation where the real targets were too big to bring down.
Journalists used their skills to sell the Russia-collusion narrative and have since then failed to report the truth of the scandal.
Sadly, too many Americans do not care that the DOJ and intelligence communities were weaponized to get Trump. In fact, too many Americans celebrate what these persons have done.
Four years of national hysteria, a divided nation, and dangerous new tensions with Russia were some of the results of such behaviors.
My presumption is that neither the persons and groups mentioned here, nor Donald Trump, are any better or worse than the rest of us. They bear the image of God and therefore deserve respect; they bear the mark of the human tendency toward turning away from that which life-giving and becoming self-destructive, and therefore deserve caution as we consider their motives.
A rational choice after her defeat might have been for Hillary Clinton to accept that she ran an ineffective campaign, lost to someone who focused upon the seven toss-up states effectively and beat her, and be gracious in defeat. Instead, she and Obama decided to cultivate a Russian collusion narrative that brought a tainted election victory to Donald Trump.
Given the data, I think we can move from discussing the Russian narrative to discussing the Russian hoax. The Russia hoax was an effort by progressives and never Trump conservatives to warp the results of the 2016 election. The Russia hoax reminds me of what the Clinton’s did surrounding the sexual wanderings of Bill and its coverup. There is a consistent pattern with them of destroying political opponents, which in that case were women abused by Bill Clinton, such as Juanita Broderick and many others. This hoax is consistent with the Clinton pattern of abusing people they believe to be their enemies. We also need to be clear. The Clintons were rewarded for their efforts with a second term for President Clinton. Those who perpetrated the hoax were also successful, for it was the soil out of which the victory of the Democrat Party in the mid-term elections and the defeat of Trump in the 2020 election. What intrigues me most is the form of thinking that leads persons to justify promulgating such a hoax upon the American people, and the fact that so many, whether progressive or never-Trump conservatives, were willing to embrace the hoax.
It might be enough that they were angry with the decision of the electorate, a decision with which Hillary took exception. Hillary Clinton repeatedly declared Trump an “illegitimate president,” and claimed that 2016 was “not on the level” and “stolen.” The reason these persons engaged in this behavior may be as simple as believing this to be true. If so, they were engaging in behavior arising from a belief they held, the anger it generated, leading to seeking revenge against Trump, who must have engineered the stealing of the election. One could also reason that they were responding in kind to Trump, who was encouraging crowds to chant, “Lock her up.” Trump had his version of stirring up anger in the crowd. However, most of us would not consider revenge a moral response to what they believed Trump did. Confucius memorably said that if you devote your life to seeking revenge, dig two graves.
Many of us want to think that hatred is an emotion that we cannot help to have or a feeling we cannot overcome. If we hate someone, so we tend to think, we simply cannot help ourselves. We are human and thus have no choice but to hate. We believe this to excuse our hatred. We are not at fault when we hate. Our problem is that we can help it if we hate, and hatred is our fault. Hatred is a choice, even as love is a choice. Love and hate are matters of the will (Philip Gulley). Do you as a progressive or Never Trump conservative love Donald Trump and his voters or do you hate them? I do not think I can look upon charges of fascism toward President Trump and by implication his millions of voters coming from another place than the anger and hatred that has hooked your darkness. Of course, I could be wrong in that, but with what I see on Twitter and from informal conversations, I do not think so. In either case, you have chosen a path.
My suspicion is that the justification of their behavior derives from another place in their thinking.
First, to think of Trump as one capable of engineering such a steal is to adopt a view of his character that would make him reprehensible when engineered at this level. The voters for Trump were deplorable. President Trump himself was a racist and a hater of women. He was a fascist. Therefore, he attracted voters like this. As an example, before the election and after, a young theologian I follow repeatedly expected something like a Nazi attempted violent takeover of the government at the inauguration of Trump. Such a fear was a common from progressives I saw on Twitter. Thus, President Trump was a danger to peace and democracy. Any action taken against him and that would undermine his presidency became morally justifiable.
I recall Democrats accusing Ronald Reagan of being a danger to peace, warning that America would not want him anywhere near the nuclear button. This accusation had its precursor in the famous one-time advertisement by the Democrat Party against GOP candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election, in which a girl is counting daises as a nuclear bomb exploded. The accusation of fascism was present in spades with George W. Bush, a man with whom I disagreed in his Iraq and Afghanistan policy. Mitt Romney was a hater of women and was ready to kill the elderly with his desire to reform Social Security. Regarding President Trump, I can only say that before he ran for president, he was friends with many Democrat leaders, donated to their campaigns, had a television show that I never watched for years with NBC, dated seriously an African American model, and had on staff as president people like Ben Carson and Nikki Haley. These are enough to convince me that the accusation of President Trump being such a danger was nothing more than the extreme political rhetoric to which the Democrat Party has resorted at least since the 1960s.
Second, to think of Trump voters as monolithic haters is to not hear them respectfully and rationally. Polls show that progressives have an intensely negative view of the GOP. Some Trump voters were loyal GOP voters who will vote for the most politically conservative candidate on the ballot, were solid fiscal conservatives, have traditional values, and have concern for illegal immigration. In contrast, the progressive supports the fluidity of gender and believes the illegal immigrant has had a positive impact upon the communities in which they live. Some were believers in free markets and small government, while progressives want a larger federal government with more services and higher taxes on corporations and on people making over $400,000. Some have concerns about preserving what they believe to be the best about America, wanting to preserve respect for the founders. In contrast, the progressive thinks many countries are better than the USA is and think major institutions need to be rebuilt to get rid of the racial and sexual bias, and thus support groups like BLM. Some were anti-elite, thinking of the political system as rigged against them. Elites in the entertainment industry, technology companies, labor unions colleges, and universities, are having a negative influence upon the country. Some are skeptical of large corporations and financial institutions, a skepticism that some progressives share. Some were politically disengaged, do not follow politics, and feel alienation from the institutional life of the country. Given that there is little shared ground between the Trump voter and the progressive, I get the intensity of negative thoughts that exists between them. I also understand that some of those who share the concerns listed here are intensely loyal to Trump, while others have doubts about Trump, making what they believe to be the best choice given the options in a binary voting system. Many have high education and high income, but many also came from lower education levels and lower income.
I would urge a reflection upon the harsh judgment made of Trump and his millions of voters. “Do not judge … do not condemn,” (Matthew 5:37) Jesus famously said. We have one judge, and it is not us, so we are to love our neighbor (James 4:12). On a personal note, I have had to be careful in my judgments of Trump. When he ran for President, he was at the bottom of the lengthy list of GOP candidates. I would still like for him to be quiet and let the GOP sort this out. He simply does not exhibit the personality and character I would like to see in a President. His behavior after he lost the election of 2020 solidified in my thinking that he has a reckless side to him. I was disappointed that Nikki Haley lost to him. I feel today like a person without a political party. My family and friends who remain loyal in their support of him I think are misguided in doing so, but I can appreciate the concerns that motivate them to do so. Washington DC can seem like a swamp that needs to be drained of its corruption and its greed for power that it seeks to gain by reducing the power of states, local communities, and the people. However, I imagine I have said enough to make those who support Trump be upset with me. I might be labeled a RINO, but I will accept that. Yet, none of what I have said would justify behavior on my part, if I were able to do so, to undermine his presidency with lies and deceit necessary to perpetrate a hoax upon the American people. Even with the deep difference the political Left has from the Trump and his voters, it did not justify the actions I have outlined here.
The result of the actions of the people and groups named above was the weaponizing of the FBI and CIA by Hillary Clinton and President Obama. It was the use of deception and lies to advance a political agenda. Deceit, treachery, guile, (I Peter 2:1), craftiness, malignity, malevolence (Romans 1:29), insolence, violent and insulting words (Romans 1:30), are behaviors that arise out of our darkness and do not lead to the light we need to guide us as a nation. People engaged in these behaviors because a view arose about Trump and his followers. Yes, of course, they were fascists, hate women, and are racists. They had to be stopped. They were a threat to democracy. The justification of this dark behavior in their minds made them patriotic and protective of the future of America. It did not matter that many African American conservatives and many conservative women, including several close to me, were among his supporters.
Given the resort to deception and lies, the division of the nation is not surprising. New Testament authors had to confront a similar spirit. Paul refers to enmities, referring to hostilities between individuals or communities, on political, religious, or racial grounds (Galatians 5:20). Paul (II Corinthians 6:20) does not want to find certain vices among them when he visits, such as strife, referring to quarrelsomeness, contention, and wrangling (Romans 1:29 as well). Anger refers to outbursts of rage. Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics, 7.1149a3) refers to the menace of uncontrolled rage that does not hear the voice of reason. He compares it to a pet dog who vigorously barks before discovering if the approaching person is friend or foe. Quarrels (James 3:14, II Corinthians 6:20) refers to a mercenary spirit and selfish ambition, the seeking of followers and adherents by means of gifts, the seeking of followers, hence ambition, rivalry, self-seeking; a feud, faction. In Romans 13:13, Paul refers to the dishonorable life of quarreling, variously translated as strife, dissension, wrangling and rivalry. Dissensions refers to divisions. Factions refers to heresy. In II Corinthians 6:20, he refers to disorder, also translated as disturbance, upheaval, revolution, anarchy, first in the political, and thence in the moral sphere. Such behaviors arise out of our darkness, our attraction to self-destructive behaviors, and turning away from that which is life-giving.
The anger in American culture is deep. That is the real danger to the soul of America and the health of our democracy. It has led to dangerous rhetoric, such as labeling masses of people as fascist or a danger to democracy, designed to draw parallels with the universally hated Hitler, drawing out anger toward the group so labeled, and forcing the accused into self-defense and distancing from the accuser. Such hostility has led to destruction of property and loss of life. It leads to subcultures that look upon adherence to the subculture as primary and looks upon opposing subcultures with hatred and moral superiority. None of these subcultures wants to remain a subculture, for they want their ideology and viewpoints to dominate the scene. That is why subcultures clash. They seek dominion.
Anger provides the soil out of which our murderous and violent actions come (Matthew 5:22). Jesus understood that the dehumanizing act of violence has its roots in the dehumanizing of another person through our anger. Moreover, not only does anger dehumanize the other, but it also dehumanizes us. Every time we decide to allow anger to smolder inside of us, we become less than fully human, less than the people God created us to be. Instead of merely avoiding murder and violence, we need to embrace reconciliation, which leads to community.
Among the seven deadly sins, anger may be the most fun. We get to lick our wounds, smack our lips over grievances long past, roll our tongues over the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, savor to the last morsel the pain someone gave you and the pain you give back. We have a feast fit for a king. Of course, the chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down so joyfully is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking Harper & Row, 1973, 2).
I am not confident there is a path away from this anger and toward a spirit of community. If there is, it will need to affirm a rationality that is behind political movements today, instead of making the opponent so other than oneself that they become evil, immoral, and irrational, and instead affirms a rationality in the other that deserves respect, dialogue, and learning from each other. If such a path exists, it will not come from President Biden and those around him, and it will not come from President Trump. That is why I supported Nikki Haley. If such a path exists, it will need to arise from a separate set of political, cultural, and political leaders than have disclosed themselves at present.
