The 'Russia Hoax': It all began with Hillary

You might call it, "The revenge of John Durham."

It's a little late. It took a little long to prove.

But here it is, finally, in late 2021 – one indictment of attorney Michael Sussman.

Will it be enough to shake the tinge of the "Russia Collusion Hoax" from former President Donald Trump?

Sussman, of Perkins Coie fame, the law firm that instantly and, some would say, miraculously, produced the Obama "birth certificate," used their "bag of tricks" for the Democrats, once again, to link Trump to Russia with a phony dossier for Hillary Clinton.

The ruse didn't catch on, but the media barrage cost Trump time and investigations galore right up till Election Day 2020.

Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, explains in a column what it really cost Trump.

Turley explained that the indictment "revealed quite a bit about how scandals are manufactured and manipulated in Washington." He said lawyers can find themselves "in legal jeopardy when special prosecutors find them holding a 'bag of tricks.' A dirty trick in politics can be a thing of beauty for a campaign – until it boomerangs on the tricksters."

He said the more than two dozen pages of supporting material in the indictment fill in "a number of blanks" in "how the Clinton campaign pushed a false Russian collusion narrative despite the objections of its own researchers."

Turley singled out a comment from one of the Clinton campaign "researchers" who said, "You do realize that we will have to expose every trick we have in our bag."

"That warning from an unnamed 'university researcher' captures the most fascinating aspect of the indictment in describing a type of Nixonian dirty tricks operation run by – or at least billed to – the Clinton campaign," wrote Turley. "Fifty years ago, Nixon's personal attorney and the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) paid for operatives to engage in disruptive and ultimately criminal conduct targeting his opponents. With Clinton, the indictment and prior disclosures suggest that Clinton campaign lawyers at the law firm of Perkins Coie helped organize an effort to spread Russia collusion stories and trigger an investigation."

Hillary, like those caught in the Nixon probe, was ready for just such a trick.

This time the charge against Sussman is over his comments to the FBI when he delivered information "supposedly supporting a claim that Russia's Alfa Bank was used as a direct conduit between former President Trump's campaign and the Kremlin."

Sussman told the FBI he was not delivering the information on behalf of a client, yet the indictment shows billings to the Clinton campaign for that very meeting.

"The big trick in 2016 was the general effort to create a Russia collusion scandal with the help of Justice Department insiders and an eager, enabling media," Turley pointed out, citing new information that during the campaign Barack Obama was "briefed by his CIA director, John Brennan, on an intelligence report that Clinton planned to tie then-candidate Trump to Russia as 'a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.'"

But that claim, as well as the unfounded suggestions from the Clinton campaign-funded Steele dossier, quickly disintegrated. In fact, at the time, one conclusion was that "the Clinton campaign and the dossier were being used by Russian intelligence to spread disinformation."

Various "university researchers" were counted on to provide a condemnation of Trump, and were told not to worry about proof but instead give a "useful narrative" about web traffic that was purported to show ties between Trump and Russia.

Turley pointed out the Clinton team was involved in the Steele dossier claims from the outset, but repeatedly denied involvement.

"It was only after the election that mysterious expenses for its legal counsel led reporters to discover the truth," explained Turley. "The payments for the dossier were masked as 'legal fees' among the $5.6 million paid to the law firm."

"Another Clinton figure pushing the Alfa Bank conspiracy was Jake Sullivan, who now weighs intelligence reports for President Biden as his national security adviser," he said. Sullivan had claimed, wildly, that the Alfa Bank allegation "could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow."

The media barrage led to the Robert Mueller probe – two years in the making – to find something that wasn't there against Trump. But even today you will hear such rumbling against the former president who was cheated out of his second term by an even bigger conspiracy.

Now, we just need some cleanup of the elections process – in time for the 2022 midterms.

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