“Russiagate continues to survive like a science fiction monster, resilient to bullets,” writes former CIA analyst Ray McGovern in a piece on the website Consortium News, noting the longevity and usefulness of the conspiracy in continuing to stoke hostility towards Moscow among the American public.
The notion that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election or played a role in hacking leaked Democratic Party emails has persisted even after sworn testimony from the cyber security firm CrowdStrike confirmed the lack of evidence for the claim.
“The mainstream media has been incredibly adept at suppressing all this stuff,” McGovern noted on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Wednesday. “No matter what we write in Consortium News or other outlets – it's on antiwar.com now, too – or however much you and I share this information, we're fighting an uphill battle.”
“Why is this important? Just to remind folks who might not reflect on this, Russia has been demonized to the point where Donald Trump has been blamed on the Russians – think what you will of that,” he continued.
“And all kinds of other things have been blamed on the Russians to the point where if these not very emotionally stable people in the White House decide to go after the Russians in Ukraine or even get involved against the Russians in Syria or elsewhere in the Middle East, most of the American people say, ‘oh yeah, those damn Russians, didn't they give us Donald Trump?’”
The ingrained hostility towards Russia from the American public – and from Democratic Party supporters, in particular – has served as a useful tool in justifying continued US involvement in Ukraine’s proxy war against the country.
Former CIA head James Clapper, who presided over the agency’s illegal surveillance of the Donald Trump campaign during the 2016 election, has been instrumental in perpetuating the narrative. Clapper has made his distrust of Moscow clear, appearing to suggest nefarious qualities are somehow hardcoded into the DNA of Russian people.
“[Clapper claimed] the historical practices of the Russians [make them] almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique,” McGovern recalled, calling him a “Russophobe extraordinaire.”
“I was the CIA director… we lied, we cheated, we stole,” declared former CIA director Mike Pompeo during a candid moment in 2019. “We had entire training courses.”
A gene for dishonesty has yet to be found. But if one exists, Pompeo’s comment suggests it is most likely to predominate among CIA officials like Clapper, who have been responsible for the overthrow of dozens of world leaders and the deaths of millions of civilians.