Will the Washington Post story that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid for the notorious “Russia dossier” change the trajectory of the investigation presently under way?
Updated
The editors of the Wall Street Journal join the scrum:
It turns out that Russia has sown distrust in the U.S. political system—aided and abetted by the Democratic Party, and perhaps the FBI. This is an about-face from the dominant media narrative of the last year, and it requires a full investigation.
The Washington Post revealed Tuesday that the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee jointly paid for that infamous “dossier†full of Russian disinformation against Donald Trump. They filtered the payments through a U.S. law firm (Perkins Coie), which hired the opposition-research hit men at Fusion GPS. Fusion in turn tapped a former British spook, Christopher Steele, to compile the allegations, which are based largely on anonymous, Kremlin-connected sources.
Strip out the middlemen, and it appears that Democrats paid for Russians to compile wild allegations about a U.S. presidential candidate. Did someone say “collusion�
It will be interesting to see whether these revelations change the tune of those who’ve been screaming “Collusion!” in their opposition to Trump. It doesn’t prove that the Trump campaign didn’t “collude” with the Russians but it does suggest collusion cuts both ways.
It’s been known for about a year that this dossier started as opposition research in the Republican primary, and was then picked up by the Democrats during the general election, and forwarded to the FBI who found it mostly credible.
Many of the claims made in the dossier have been independently verified.
The Republicans will attempt to use these “revelations†to change the course of the investigations, but the simple fact remains that the dossier is mostly accurate where verifiable.
The pee pee tape will be hard to verify unless it is released.
It’s behind a paywall, but I wonder if the WSJ oped mentions that the dossier was begun by a still unknown Republican organization or campaign during the primaries. What about them? My guess is the WSJ omitted that part.
What was surprising to me is how much the Clinton Campaign and the DNC paid that law firm. Even more surprising is that it appears that Clinton and the DNC sought to hide the money used to pay for the dossier which sounds like an FEC violation. The GoP organization which started the dossier is likely guilty of the same violation as there are no reported payments to Steele by Republicans that were reported to the FEC. My guess it was the Bush campaign.
The sad reality is that politics has descended to a level in this country where the extreme is becoming normative behavior. A house divided….
Back during the campaign when Trump claimed that if Clinton won the election, it would be because of Russian collusion, there were articles that explained that Russian history with meddling in electinos had not been to fix the winner, but to create mischief in order to discredit and deletigimize the political process.
Seemed reasonable then and now. We seem to be stuck in a false choice between who the Russians were seeking to help, when I doubt they wanted to help anybody, and the result is supposed to determine the best healthcare and tax policies.
@Andy, I have not followed the details closely, but the Federalist states that the reporting is that the dossier was not created until after Democrats hired Fusion GPS:
http://thefederalist.com/2017/10/25/top-10-things-to-know-about-dossier/
Thanks for the correction PD, I had not seen that before.
No one is accusing the Trump campaign of performing opposition research. They’re accusing them of going to the Russians and asking about emails that were taken from the DNC in a hack as well as hinting that the Trump campaign had some hand in or knowledge of alleged Russian attacks on voter registration systems.
And Trump did a ton of business in Russia. Of course opposition research would take a campaign to Russia. It’s not illegal to ask questions of Russians. It is illegal to deal in stolen emails via Russians.
“It doesn’t preclude” is technically true, but is akin to the claim that we won’t know for sure if we have a head on crash until the sound of crushing metal and airbags blowing up in our faces.
As for the differences in Mueller’s investigation let me clear up some disinformation. One has to wonder if its ignorance, or intellectual dishonesty.
The Dems and Mueller have been at it for about a year now. The mandate was never defined. The evidence has not been forthcoming, despite episodic breathless reporting along the way. It could change. But after a year, nothing.
Switching gears, the characterization of the origins of the dossier is false. Now suspected to be Jeb Bush’s campaign, it was in fact at that time standard opposition research. However, it wasn’t just “picked up” by the Democrats. In fact, it changed in character. A legal firm was hired to obfuscate team Clinton and the DNC as being the new seekers of dirt. (They have lied for a year about this). They employed and paid some $6MM to a foreign national to contact the Russians. That’s illegal. And this wasn’t just any spook; he was the head of the Russian desk. Clinton/DNC knew they were looking for Russian originated dirt. That’s not standard opposition research. I will leave aside that the dossier content, hookers urinating on a bed, is preposterous on its face. That any person could entertain this identifies them as unserious.
With respect to the dossier, the only open issues are whether they will prosecute for hiring/paying a foreign national, and whether this flimsy document was the basis for the issuance of FISA warrants. The reason for the UN Ambassador unmasking like crazy appears clear.
This is so Clintonian I feel like a re-run of the last 25 years.
But the main event is going to be the FBI informant and Uranium 1. We have the FBI fully aware (an investigation……..or is it a “matter?”) and Holder, and the info in the Daily Briefing to Obama of bribes kickbacks etc from Russian interests and yet they approved the sale. Oh, and the Clintons got enormous financial gain (how many times has $150MM gone from those Russian interests to the Foundation recently?? None?) and they tried to cover the whole thing up, including failing their responsibility to notify Congress. It will be a full frontal propaganda and disinformation assault by the media and Democrats. (already started) Congressional hearings are nice, but those guys and gals are feckless. A special counsel is warranted.
Guarneri, I estimate Melania Trump could be a hotshot Slavic dominatrix, so I don’t dismiss the dossier out of hand. Trump is that strange to me.
I also like Melania a lot, which, ah, shows what I feel about Trump, the man.