Hillary Clinton should apologize for biggest political hoax since Titus Oates
By: Michael Barone (MSN)
And there it is.....................
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
It's the biggest political hoax since Titus Oates's allegations of a "Popish plot" to assassinate King Charles II in 1678. Oates's charge of a Jesuit conspiracy swept through London and led to the execution of four innocent men before Oates was proved a fraud.
© Provided by Washington Examiner
The full consequences of the great political hoax of our time — the charge that Donald Trump was colluding with Russia — are not yet fully apparent.
Yet they are surely serious. We have heard from many Democrats and those in media that Trump's charges that he actually won the election of 2020 tend to delegitimize the government and distort the political process. They have a point.
It stretches things to call the streaming of Trump supporters into the Capitol January 6 an "insurrection," but as I wrote at the time, Trump's words that day "were uttered with a reckless disregard that they would provoke violence, which any reasonable person could find impeachable."
But Trump is not the only losing candidate who has cast doubt on an election result recently. And while he has faced the derision of most of the news media and the disagreement of some in his party, that wasn't true of the utterly baseless charges that Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin's Russia.
It took some time for Oates's Popish plot to be revealed as a hoax and for many who believed it to acknowledge it as such. The Russia collusion hoax now seems to be unraveling, but we have yet to see many confessions of error from Democrats or their friends in the press.
The latest in the unraveling comes in special counsel John Durham's indictment of Democratic lawyer Michael Sussman for lying to the FBI general counsel when he denied he was acting "for any client" in forwarding bogus documents that supposedly showed communications between Trump's business and a Russian bank.
Sussman is entitled in court to the presumption of innocence. But the facts alleged in the 27-page indictment are powerful evidence of a concerted attempt by the Hillary Clinton campaign, including those reporting to the candidate herself, to delegitimize the candidacy and, after his surprise victory, the presidency of Donald Trump by charges as false as those of Titus Oates.
"Here is where the prosecutor appears to be going," writes former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy in the New York Post. "The Trump-Russia collusion narrative was essentially a fabrication of the Clinton campaign that was peddled to the FBI (among other government agencies) and to the media by the agents of the Clinton campaign — particularly, its lawyers [including Sussman] at Perkins Coie — who concealed the fact that they were quite intentionally working on the campaign's behalf."
The agents include the investigative firm Fusion GPS and the purported Russia expert Christopher Steele. During the campaign, the FBI obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act wiretapping warrant on Trump adviser Carter Page, and therefore access to the whole campaign. After Trump took office, an FBI lawyer lied to the FISA Court to renew the warrant; he was indicted by Durham and pleaded guilty, though astonishingly he was given no jail time.
The Clinton campaign's duplicitous encouragement of an FBI investigation led to an October 2016 Slate story — the beginning of a multi-year media charges that Trump was colluding with Russia. Clinton herself immediately tweeted a statement by her foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan, now Joe Biden's National Security Adviser, stating, "We can only assume that federal authorities will now explore this direct connection between Trump and Russia."
What followed was more than two years of frenzied pursuit by Democrats such as Rep. Adam Schiff, by the New York Times and MSNBC, and countless others of a completely bogus charge of Russia collusion. The case only collapsed with special counsel Robert Mueller's report in April 2019 and his congressional testimony that July.
Few peddlers of this hoax have since apologized. New York Times editor Dean Baquet at least admitted that "we're a little tiny bit flat-footed" in August. Have we heard as much from the likes of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow or Rep. Adam Schiff? If so, I missed it.
Donald Trump is charged with violating the political norm of not challenging a close election result. The thought is that if you question an election result, you weaken the legitimacy of (and unnecessarily distract) a president and you weaken the United States.
It's a norm that Richard Nixon observed in 1960 and that, after litigating unsuccessfully, Al Gore observed in 2000. It's not a norm that Hillary Clinton has observed in 2016 or in the years since.
She and her advisers damaged the nation by promoting false charges against a duly elected president. She owes the nation an apology, just as Titus Oates owed England an apology 343 years ago.
Tags
Who is online
96 visitors
As well as many of the "locals" her in NT town.
The biggest hoax since Titus Oates?
Who the hell is Titus Oates? I doubt if 1 in 1000 Americans have ever heard of this person.
Thats how out of touch with reality Michael Barone is.
Obviously Mr. Barone had to search for one of the most egregious examples he could find and that one is the only one that remotely compares to the subject hoax.
He should have dug deeper
here's a good start:
and for those who don't want to bother...ever heard of Piltdown Man? Papillon?
Ever heard of the Vikings Runes in Oklahoma?
No, that I have not heard of. That was a hoax, too?
Now you are mad at conservatives for being too educated. You need Barone to dumb things down so progressives can follow his point?
Trump was colluding with the Russians to build Trump Tower Moscow right up to election day of 2016...
He even tried to bribe Vlad Putin with a penthouse.
Don Jr. and Giuliani admitted to it on the record...
Trumpards are in denial of what Trump admits to!
Don't bother, JBB. They're not interested in true facts
Then they are guilty of trying to mislead us!
That is pretty low down despicable. Is it not?
yes it is
Lol...This article shows who isn't interested in true facts.
Not a single substantive attempt from the left to deal with what the Clinton campaign did.
He was trying to make a deal as the businessman he was at the time and not yet PotUS. As you said, right up to election day 2016. What progress was made AFTER election day 2016? I suggest ZIP.
And what does a hotel deal have to do with an election? NAFTA just more TDS riddled dreaming.
Donald Trump repeatedly said during the 2016 campaign that he had no business dealings with Russia. He was lying, because he knew that if people thought he was trying to make money in Russia he would be susceptible to Russian influence and then they wouldnt vote for him.
But I guess you dont care that Trump lied about it for months.
It is impossible to deal rationally with Trump supporters .
Haven't there been multiple seeds on this subject? Nobody is getting through to them, John
Yeah, I just saw they seeded the same exact article twice. [delete]
There's no need to get so upset. Many people perpetuated the hoax Clinton created. There were those in the media, government and oh ya, some right here!
Did the tower get built? No? Then he had no business dealings with Russia. Only his minions in negotiations...........if that.
Well thanks for pointing that out. I had no idea the other was seeded as I am not on here at midnight like some die hard "no other lifers" are.
Don't even waste your breathe on it. They investigated Trump ad nauseum and all they had was a Clinton created fiction to use.
They even pulled the wool over people's eyes in the 2020 election.
Now we have them front and center - LET THEM SUCK ON BIDEN & CLINTON!
Trump & Company were having clandestine secret meetings with known agents of the Russian government and lying about it to the American people and to journalists. What were our Intelligence agencies supposed to do? Look the other way and not investigate any further?
LIES
No more than you care that Hillary Clinton and her campaign paid for a bogus political hit job and passed it off to the FBI who used it as evidence to get FISA warrants to spy on a political opponent.
TDS driven Democrats and leftists are not just impossible to deal with; they are living in their own alternate Trump driven realities.
Is that all you have? You told us you did it all!
No problem, I have done the same thing myself on occasion.
Except that our intelligence agencies were already investigating Trump's Russia dealings long before Marco Rubio initially funded the Steel Report or Clinton even got involved...
There have been dozens, if not more, articles and documents on here detailing the Trump campaigns connections with Russia. There have also been books written about it and a plethora of articles easily found online.
Im not going to go back and reinvent the wheel for your amusement.
Willful ignorance has no cure.
Prove that Trump himself was in those meetings. You can't because it was his minions of business doing the negotiating. Not him personally. Give it up.
If there was any viable, illegal Trump link to Russia, Weissmann & co would have pounced on it. You can leave all the leftist nonsense on the bookshelf.
Was it going to be Michael Cohen Tower in Moscow or Trump Tower in Moscow?
When underlings are doing business in Russia on your behalf then you are doing business in Russia.
How stupid are Trump supporters if they believe Trump had no business dealings with Russia?
Trumps son colluded with Russia. Jun 9th 2016 Trump Tower. The intention of that meeting was to collude with Russia.
Mueller didnt indict Trump Jr and Kushner and Manafort for that because he determined they were too stupid to understand that what they were doing was wrong.
Except they weren't on his behalf. They were on the behalf of the Trump organization and NOT Trump personally. You see the difference?
I thought you said "Im not going to go back"? The fact is you want to talk about allegations made against Trump. In fact that is ALL YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT!
Ok John, since that is all you weant to talk about (that in which you derail so many seeds & articles), I have a few big questions for you. You mentioned that "Trumps son colluded with Russia. Jun 9th 2016 Trump Tower." Ok John here you go:
1) Did Trump's son plan that meeting?
2) If it wasn't Trump's son's idea, who's idea was it?
Nope
The Trump Organization - Wikipedia
The Trump Organization is a group of about 500 business entities of which Donald Trump is the sole or principal owner.
And.................................Oh wait........And?
He agreed to meet someone who he expected to be a representative of the Russian government in order to receive "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.
That IS collusion. And it didnt bother Trump Jr at all.
He was not indicted , in part, because Mueller said he didnt have consciousness that what he was doing was wrong. In other words, Trump Jr thought it was okey dokey to get dirt on their campaign opponent from a foreign government.
Here John, learn something:
"The co-founder of Fusion GPS, the firm behind the unverified Trump dossier, met with a Russian lawyer before and after a key meeting she had last year with Trump’s son, Fox News has learned. The contacts shed new light on how closely tied the firm was to Russian interests, at a time when it was financing research to discredit then-candidate Donald Trump.
The opposition research firm has faced renewed scrutiny after litigation revealed that the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid for that research. Congressional Republicans have since questioned whether that politically financed research contributed to the FBI’s investigation of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – making Fusion’s 2016 contacts with Russian interests all the more relevant.
The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting involving Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya occurred during a critical period. At that time, Fox News has learned that bank records show Fusion GPS was paid by a law firm for work on behalf of a Kremlin-linked oligarch while paying former British spy Christopher Steele to dig up dirt on Trump through his Russian contacts.
But hours before the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016, Fusion co-founder and ex-Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson was with Veselnitskaya in a Manhattan federal courtroom, a confidential source told Fox News. Court records reviewed by Fox News, email correspondence and published reports corroborate the pair’s presence together. The source told Fox News they also were together after the Trump Tower meeting.
Simpson’s presence with Veselnitskaya during this critical week in June -- together with revelations about Fusion’s simultaneous financial ties to the DNC, Clinton campaign and Russian interests -- raise new questions about the company’s role in the 2016 election.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the Trump Tower meeting as part of his probe of Russian interference in last year’s election.
Simpson and Fusion GPS were hired by BakerHostetler, which represented Russian firm Prevezon through Veselnitskaya.
Veselnitskaya has said she sought the Trump Tower meeting in order to lobby the candidate’s team against Russian sanctions, but the initial approach included an offer of compromising information on candidate Clinton.
Lawyers representing Fusion and Veselnitskaya did not respond to requests for comment lodged on Friday.
Senate Judiciary Committee investigators interviewed Simpson for more than 10 hours on Aug. 22. A spokesman for the committee had no comment on whether Simpson confirmed his contact with Veselnitskaya during the closed-door session.
The DNC and Clinton campaign hired Fusion in April 2016 through lawyer Marc Elias, who was general counsel for the Clinton campaign. Fusion, in turn, paid Steele $168,000 for the dossier, memos from which were shared with the FBI in the summer of 2016.
Fusion officials said last week Steele's money came from $1.02 million it received in fees and expenses from Elias' law firm Perkins Coie. Prior to contracting with the DNC, Fusion had been conducting research into Trump and other Republican candidates on behalf of the conservative website The Washington Free Beacon.
NBC News first reported that Veselnitskaya and Simpson were both at a hearing centered around another Fusion client, Russian oligarch Denis Katsyv. His company, Prevezon Holdings, was sanctioned against doing business in the U.S. for its alleged role in laundering more than $230 million. Fox News obtained audio records from that hearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The wrongdoing had been uncovered by Russian lawyer and whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who was beaten to death in a Russian prison in 2009 after being arrested for probing Prevezon and other companies with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In December 2012, the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act was passed into U.S. law, freezing Russian assets and banning visas for sanctioned individuals. Fusion’s Simpson is believed to have been working with Veselnitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet counter-intelligence officer turned Russian-American lobbyist, to overturn the sanctions.
Akhmetshin also attended the June 9 Trump Tower meeting, along with about a half-dozen others including Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, publicist Rob Goldstone, Natalia's Russian translator Anatoli Samochornov and Ike Kaveladze from a Russian-American real estate agency.
Mueller’s interest in Fusion is unclear, but the House Intelligence Committee, which is conducting one of several related congressional probes, recently struck a deal to gain access to Fusion’s bank records after initially issuing a subpoena. The records show that the DNC funded Fusion’s dossier effort.
Over the weekend, Fusion GPS sought a new restraining order after the House panel requested additional records that could reveal if Fusion was paying media companies or reporters for planting stories.
"What we are finding out is that there is a lot of Russian influence in Washington, and a lot of money flowing in to influence our political process in Washington," Marc Thiessen, a Washington Post columnist and former Bush administration official, said. "It's going into Hillary Clinton. It's going to Fusion GPS. It's going into a lobbying campaign up on Capitol Hill against Magnitsky."
Meanwhile, a request from Veselnitskaya and Katsyv for a new "temporary immigration parole" to return to the U.S. for a Nov. 9 Prevezon hearing in New York was denied, according to court documents reviewed by Fox News.
A Senate Judiciary Committee spokesman told Fox News they are "encouraged" that Veselnitskaya has "signaled a willingness to cooperate" with the committee.
Cohen and Felix whatshisface were negotiating on behalf of Donald Trump, no one else.
Do you really think you are going to win this semantical game?
A lot of gobbledygook.
Vic, Trump Jr believed he was colluding with a representative of the Russian government. That is what he had been told in an email he agreed to.
Please explain to me how Trump Jr could think he was colluding with Russia and there still be no collusion.
If I say something to you that I believed at the time is a lie , but later we find out that what I said was actually true, did I lie to you or not?
LIES!
Already have............
No, I call it fact.
Vic, Trump Jr believed he was colluding with a representative of the Russian government.
It doesn't matter what he believed if he was entrapped. Why didn't Bill Ayers go to jail? Why didn't Daniel Ellsberg go to jail? You don't believe in legal technicalities or as the ACLU used to call them legal protections? Then there is the matter of what the participants said the meeting was about.
Are you glad you brought it up?
Mueller considered bringing charges related to the meeting.
=================
When Kushner, Manafort, and Trump Jr. showed up at the meeting in Trump Tower, they anticipated receiving damaging information on Hillary Clinton. That alone was enough for the special counsel to consider bringing charges.
Ultimately, Mueller’s office determined “the government would not be likely to obtain and sustain a conviction.”
Oh they'd be unlikely to prove it? You fucking bet they wouldn't!
All of which prove jack shit of nothing. Trump didn't collude with Russia period. Even your precious Mueller Report stated as much.
Any more that the Clintons were colluding with anyone with their pay for play Clinton Foundation money laundering scheme being funded by Russian oligarchs, Saudi sheiks, and anyone else with pockets deep enough and wanted to get access to Hillary when she was SoS. Funny how all the funding dried up the second she lost the election. No play, and the pay went away damn fast.
There were countless books and articles written on the Clinton Foundation and their questionable charitable practices, money laundering, and pay for play access to Hillary while she was SoS. Think that they were expecting the same treatment when she was going to become PotUS? It was guaranteed she was going to win, and they wasted all of that money funding the Clinton's personal piggy bank!
Oh, and how many millions did Bill make giving speeches to foreign interests while his wife was SoS; and before his wife lost the election?
But Trruuummmmppppp!!!!!! Truly pathetic after all of this time; and the amount of lies and created BS by the media to keep their lemmings hooked on a narrative that has been repeatedly proven false!
So he considered charges and realized he couldn't show a crime was committed.
You think this helps your argument how?
Vic, if Trump Jr believed he was colluding with Russia, and he did, he was colluding with Russia .
If someone robs a bank and then they get off on a technicality, it doesnt mean they didnt rob the bank.
End of story.
The redacted Mueller Report documents a series of activities that show strong evidence of collusion. Or, more precisely, it provides significant evidence that Trump Campaign associates coordinated with, cooperated with, encouraged, or gave support to the Russia/WikiLeaks election interference activities. The Report documents the following actions (each of which is analyzed in detail in Part II):
During the course of 2016, Trump Campaign associates failed to report any of the Russian/WikiLeaks overtures to federal law enforcement, publicly denied any contacts with Russians/WikiLeaks, and actively encouraged the public to doubt that Russia was behind the hacking and distribution of stolen emails.
Guide to the Mueller Report’s Findings on “Collusion” (justsecurity.org)
So your opinion is that it was ok for the Trump campaign to receive dirt on Hillary Clinton from a representative of the Russian government, because that is what Donald Trump Jr thought he was doing.
Is it your opinion that it was okay for the Clinton campaign to actually receive dirt from representatives of the Russian government ?
How you can be so incensed at Trump Jr and downplay what the Clinton campaign did is beyond me.
But Mueller said he didn't believe he was colluding with Russia. So then he wasn't colluding with Russia...
Mueller never said that.
From your link:
Yes. Trump Jr knew he was colluding with Russia. He just didnt think there was anything wrong with it.
There is no such crime as "colluding." That word came from Christopher Steele and his grand work of fiction. What you mean is "Conspiracy,"
No, Trump Jr did not conspire with any Russians.
If he had he would have faced the consequences that Hunter Biden should be facing.
Have a good day John. Just remember we have Biden now and we have real topics for each and every day!
I've become convinced you don't know what colluding means. Doing business is not, "colluding"
Mueller looked into collusion. You should read his report. No Americans colluded with Russia regarding the 2016 election.
Does anyone wonder why Glenn Simpson hasn't been indicted?