Dems, media aim to squash Barr’s probe of Russia collusion hoax
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President Donald Trump and Attorney General William BarrAP
New York Times reporting on a second call between President Trump and a foreign leader — this time Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison — has sent the media into a frenzy. Liberals have predictably dialed up their impeachment calls.
Don’t go along: What Democrats and their media allies really want is to torpedo Attorney General William Barr’s probe into the origins of the Russian “collusion” hoax.
News of the Australian call followed an anonymous CIA officer’s whistleblower complaint about a July call between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, in which the American supposedly conditioned US aid to Ukraine on the Kiev government supplying dirt on Joe Biden.
Then on Monday, the Times reported on Trump’s ask from Morrison. Trump was again, the paper claimed, using “diplomacy for potential personal gain.”
But how? Even if one thinks mentioning Biden on the Ukraine call was ill-advised, it’s hard to see what’s objectionable about the Australia call. After all, the bipartisan consensus to uncover possible foreign interference in the 2016 election led to Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation. To get to the bottom of foreign interference, Barr needs the cooperation of … foreign officials.
And there’s the rub. Democrats and the anti-Trump media were determined to keep the focus on Trump and Russia. Republicans, on the other hand, dismissed the collusion narrative, which turned out to be bunk, as the Mueller report determined. Instead, the right pointed at coordination between the Hillary Clinton campaign and other foreign powers.
Democrats and the media say that’s a right-wing conspiracy theory. But just because something isn’t in the Mueller report doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Thanks to reporting by Politico, for example, we know of efforts by Clinton operatives to solicit information from the Ukrainian government on dirty Trump campaign officials.
“Our country has been through a lot, and Ukraine knows a lot about it,” Trump told Zelensky. That’s true, and it’s why Democrats, the press and anti-Trumpers in the security establishment and the permanent bureaucracy are worried.
Note, for example, that the whistleblower’s written complaint, based entirely on second- and third-hand information, presents Trump’s request that the Ukrainian leader work with Barr to “get to the bottom” of the collusion hoax as part of the alleged quid pro quo. That suggests the whistleblower and his confreres in the intelligence apparatus are worried about Barr’s investigation and what it could uncover about their spying on the Trump campaign.
The whistleblower complaint and the manic news reports of the Australia call both serve the same dual purpose: to advance the anti-Trump operation and to shield its perpetrators by smearing Barr and thereby discrediting the investigations under his authority.
There are two known Department of Justice inquiries. One is a forthcoming inspector general report on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Congressional sources say the report is expected to be thorough and may include criminal referrals.
The investigation led by US Attorney John Durham, who reports to Barr, is more comprehensive. According to a Justice Department spokesperson, “Mr. Durham is gathering information from numerous sources, including a number of foreign countries.”
The FBI’s anti-Trump investigation began in July 2016, based on a tip from Alexander Downer, then Australia’s envoy to Britain. He alleged that onetime Trump adviser George Papadopoulos had told him that the Russians had damaging information on Clinton.
Barr is reportedly interested in Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud. The Rome-based academic hasn’t been heard from in nearly two years. Well known to Italian and other Western intelligence services, Mifsud is alleged to have told Papadopoulos about Russia possessing dirt on Clinton.
If Mifsud is a Russian agent, as former FBI Director James Comey alleged, NATO countries will spend years assessing the damage. If he isn’t, it’s evidence that Comey’s FBI wasn’t probing the Trump campaign — but running a sting operation against it.
Investigators’ most important stop is likely to be London, home of former British spy Christopher Steele, whose false and salacious reports written on behalf of the Clinton campaign won the FBI a warrant to spy on Page, the Trump adviser.
In the meantime, count on the continued efforts of Democrats and anti-Trump operatives in the intelligence community and media to discredit Barr. They have to stay on offense — or risk exposure.
Lee Smith’s book “The Plot Against the President” will be published this month.
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