The narrative that Trump colluded with Russia to impact the 2016 presidential elections has unraveled. Now the focus is shifting to the Obama administration’s handling of the alleged Russian interference, and whether Clinton supporters helped spread false narratives that launched what President Donald Trump has called “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.”
The new controversy came to light on June 21, when former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson testified before the House intelligence committee about Russian interference in the election.
Johnson went over a few points that have become common in these hearings but often receive little media coverage. He stated that he knows of “no evidence” that votes were altered or suppressed; that he had seen no information, other than public reports, that Trump or his team played any role in the scandal; and that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had not allowed the intelligence committee to investigate the alleged Russian breach of its networks.
But something new emerged this time. Media reports had said the Obama administration had known in August 2016 of Russian meddling. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, asked Johnson: “Why did it take the administration so long to make a public statement that a foreign adversary was trying to influence the American election? The statement didn’t come until October.”
The dossier filled with claims about alleged ties between Trump and Russia was spread throughout the media, U.S. intelligence agencies, and the U.S. government in August 2016. Its contents were debunked after Buzzfeed published it in January, and three owners of Russian banks named in the report have filed a defamation lawsuit against Buzzfeed.
The dossier was allegedly commissioned by Fusion GPS, a research firm that has numerous personal and financial ties to Clinton and other Democrats, according to the New York Post, which noted on June 24 that the Senate Judiciary Committee is threatening to subpoena the firm “after it refused to answer questions and provide records to the panel identifying who financed the error-ridden dossier, which was circulated during the election and has sparked much of the Russia scandal now engulfing the White House.”
It notes Fusion GPS “was on the payroll of an unidentified Democratic ally of Clinton when it hired a long-retired British spy to dig up dirt on Trump,” and that among its many ties, property records show that in June 2016, “Clinton allies bankrolled Fusion GPS.”
“These weren’t mercenaries or hired guns,” a congressional source familiar with the dossier probe told the New York Post. “These guys had a vested personal and ideological interest in smearing Trump and boosting Hillary’s chances of winning the White House.”
The dossier was reported by Buzzfeed immediately after a Senate intelligence committee hearing on Russian meddling in the 2016 election and just before Trump’s first news conference after he won the election, on Jan. 11. The reporting on the dossier put Trump on the defensive and provided grist for media reports attacking him.
At the press conference, Trump called the dossier “fake news” and later tweeted that CNN and Buzzfeed were “fake news organizations” for having reported allegations drawn from the dossier.
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