"The House Intelligence Committee Report is an excellent first step, predictable, and Chairman [Devin] Nunes should be praised for his tenacious determination to examine evidence and expose truth," Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel told Sputnik.
On April 27, the House Intelligence Committee released the results of its probe into alleged ties between Russia and the Donald Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential race, saying that it found "no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded, coordinated, or conspired with the Russian government."
According to Ortel, "the Obama and Clinton camps, as well as the mainstream media have much to lose as the public reads this report and even more once details of the Inspector General Michael Horowitz's extensive work evaluating the hobbled investigation into the mishandling of classified information by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and others while and after Clinton served as Secretary of State, using alias email accounts, private servers and unauthorized private electronic devices."
The Wall Street analyst pointed out that "the American public understands that the Russia collusion narrative is a false distraction, yet the mainstream media cannot bring itself to admit mistakes clinging to the fiction," referring to national polls.
'Full-On Trench Warfare Against Trump From Day One'
The Democrats and their financial backers kicked off an all-out anti-Trump campaign following his win in November 2016. As Kenneth P. Vogel of Politico noted on November 14, 2016 George Soros and "other rich liberals" worked out a plan of "full-on trench warfare against Trump from Day One." The newly elected president faced protests, and smear campaigns including those targeting his close associates. The US intelligence agents and former Obama officials added to the mess by leaking confidential information and throwing sand in the Trump administration's gears.
As it turned out later, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton campaign hired Fusion GPS in spring 2016 through a "series of intermediaries" to carry out an investigation on Trump and his alleged ties with Russia. For its part, Fusion hired Steele as subcontractor. However, that was not all.
Besides Steele, Cody Shearer, a former journalist and longtime Clinton operative, has been searching for dirt on Trump since August 2016, as The Daily Caller revealed in February 2018. The media outlet noted that Shearer obtained information from an unidentified foreign source, adding that this unverified data was passed to Steele and then found its way to the FBI.
The two dossiers contain a lot of similarities, which prompted RealClearInvestigation.com to raise the question "about the role of Clinton partisans and the extent to which the two dossiers may have been coordinated."
According to Ortel, the Steele and Shearer dossiers appear to be a mere hoax cooked up by the Clinton campaign to hijack Trump's victory.
"The Clintons are experts at 'gas-lighting' — accusing others of behavior that they themselves have been practicing for decades," the Wall Street journalist said. "Going back in national politics certainly since 1996, the Clintons stand accused of soliciting contributions for their various causes from suspicious characters inside and outside the United States, using shadowy intermediaries including Shearer and many others. American presidents make decisions that can cost enemies dearly and make friend even more wealthy."
On the other hand, it "deserves focus is on why Bernie Sanders is no more upset that Democratic primaries were apparently rigged against him," the investigative journalist highlighted.
"What seems the case is that machinery in our [American] security services likely was weaponized before and after Donald Trump won the presidency," Ortel presumed. "This process involved a large number of people, many of whom likely remain as government employees. A massive housecleaning is long overdue and many officials involved as well as their outside operatives need to be exposed, investigated, prosecuted, and, once convicted, incarcerated."
Soros and Silicon Valley Tycoons Digging Up Dirt on Trump
Meanwhile, information emerged that prominent American tycoon George Soros was also behind the Fusion GPS investigation into Trump.
On March 8, Oleg Deripaska, the founder of a Russian aluminum company Rusal, noted in his op-ed for The Daily Caller that "on March 16, 2017, Daniel Jones — himself a team member of Fusion GPS, self-described former FBI agent…- met with my lawyer, Adam Waldman, and described Fusion as a 'shadow media organization helping the government,' funded by a 'group of Silicon Valley billionaires and George Soros'."
The media outlet reached Adam Waldman, who confirmed Deripaska's story, while Jones, Fusion GPS, and a representative for Soros did not responded The Daily Caller's request for a comment.
The newly released House Intelligence Committee report also refers to Daniel Jones in a footnote (page 113). Jones, who is currently leading the Penn Quarter Group (PQG), a research and investigative advisory based in Washington, D.C., told the FBI in March 2017 that "PQG was being funded by 7 to 10 wealthy donors located primarily in New York and California, who provided approximately $50 million." Jones further added that PQG was cooperating with Fusion GPS and Steele in order to "continue exposing Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election."
Russia Presented as Main 'Culprit' Behind US Internal Mess
While the report obviously takes the heat off of Donald Trump, it at the same time, pins the blame on Russia for alleged "interference" in the 2016 presidential elections. De facto, it repeats the unsubstantiated narrative of the Hillary Clinton campaign which it has pushed ahead since summer 2016 to dump Trump.
"The Russian active measures campaign against the United States was multifaceted," the document claims. "It leveraged cyber-attacks, covert platforms, social media, third-party intermediaries, and state-run media."
Presenting no solid evidence to back the accusations and leaving no room for discussion, reasoning or counter argument, the document makes Russia the main culprit behind the year-long internal political infighting between various power clans in the US: "Russia's active measures campaign achieved its primary goal of inciting division and discord among Americans. For more than a year, US politics have been consumed by bitter recriminations, charges, and counter-charges about the attacks," the report insists.
How Trump May Win Re-Election in 2020
So, what impact will the House Intelligence Committee's probe results have on the situation in Washington in the context of upcoming 2018 congressional elections and 2020 presidential race?
"Barring health emergencies, and even in the event of a massive stock and credit markets correction, President Trump will win re-election in 2020, possibly by a landslide," Charles Ortel suggested. "Before then, Democrats have a tougher road than Republicans in Senate races in that about 10 Democratic Senators are up for re-election in states that Trump won solidly in 2016."
"In a scenario where markets crack before November 2018 (as they did before November 2008) economically responsible Democrats (there are very few of these) and the 'Try-Something-Other-Than-Capitalism' wing of the Democratic Party may pick up seats in this upcoming midterm election," he presumed, adding that "should markets remain strong, and should jobs and incomes continue rising, Democrats are set to be crushed again."
"Most of these seem un-tethered by reality, and trapped in pockets like NY, CA, DC where elites listen to themselves, but not to the mass of American voters," Ortel added.
The views and opinions expressed by Charles Ortel and Ekaterina Blinova are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.