Six Degrees From Brookings: How a Liberal Think Tank Keeps Coming Up in the Russian Collusion Investigation
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The latest indictment by Special Counsel John Durham has created a stir in Washington as the investigation into the Russian collusion scandal exposed new connections to the Clinton campaign. The indictment of Igor Danchenko exposes additional close advisers to Hillary Clinton who allegedly pushed discredited and salacious allegations in the Steele dossier. However, one of the most interesting new elements was the role of a liberal think tank, the Brookings Institution, in the alleged effort to create a false scandal of collusion. Indeed, Brookings appears so often in accounts related to the Russian collusion scandal that it could be Washington’s alternative to the Kevin Bacon parlor game . It appears that many of these figures are within six degrees of Brookings.
The fact is that Washington remains a small town for the ruling elite where degrees of separation can be quite small as figures move in and out of government. Moreover, think tanks are often the parking lots for party loyalists as they wait (and work) for new Administrations. The Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation play a similar role for conservative figures.
However, even in Washington’s inbred environment, the layers of connections to Brookings is remarkable in the Durham indictments and accounts of the effort to create a Russian collusion scandal. The effort was hardly a secret before anyone knew the name of the former British spy Christopher Steele. On July 28, former CIA Director John Brennan briefed then President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s alleged “plan” to tie Donald Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” Notes from the meeting state the plan to invent a collusion narrative was “allegedly approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.” That was three days before the Russian investigation was initiated.
Durham is detailing how this plan was carried out and many of those referenced are within not six but two degrees of separation from Brookings.
Brookings played a large role in pushing the Russian collusion narrative, hiring a variety of experts who then populated media outlets like MSNBC and CNN stating confidently that Trump was clearly incriminated in a series of dubious criminal acts. While no such crimes were ever charged, let alone prosecuted, Brookings maintained a deep bench of enabling experts like Susan Hennessey (now a national security adviser in the Biden Administration ), Ben Wittes (who defended James Comey in his leaking of FBI memos) and Norm Eisen (who then become counsel in the Trump impeachment effort). This included the Brookings site, LawFare, which ran a steady stream of columns on how Trump could be charged for crimes ranging from obstruction to bribery.
However, that type of media cross-pollination is common. What is most surprising is how the indictment seems to map out roads that keep leading back to Brookings:
The latest indicted figure, Danchenko, worked at Brookings . He proved to be the key unnamed source for Christopher Steele and later admitted to the FBI that the information attributed to him was not just “unsubstantiated” but, after being reworked by Steele, was unrecognizable from the original gossip or speculation. Steele himself was introduced to Danchenko
It appears that Danchenko was introduced to former British spy Christopher Steele by Brookings employee Fiona Hill . If that name seems familiar, Hill secured a position on President Trump’s National Security Council and later became a key witness against him in the first Trump impeachment over the Ukraine scandal.
Steele also testified in London that his friend and then Brookings President Strobe Talbott was involved in briefings and inquiries on the development of the dossier. Talbott is also a former Clinton administration diplomat and Clinton friend who served in a high-ranking position under Hillary Clinton. (Another figure, Cody Shearer , who has been mentioned in accounts developing and spreading his own collusion claims , was the brother of Talbott’s late wife ).
When Steele was called to the State Department for a briefing on his dossier, Talbot sat next to Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who is currently at Brookings . The role of figures at Brookings in the dossier is still developing but all roads seem to lead back to the think tank.
Even when it became clear that false statements made in the secret FISA applications targeted Trump associate Carter Page, the secret court selected David Kris, who wrote for Brookings’ LawFare despite his prior denial that the FBI misled the court and criticism of Trump).
Brookings has long been viewed as effectively the research arm for Democratic figures and liberal causes. Yet, even in the Baconesque world of Washington insiders, it is rare to see a think tank connected on so many levels to a criminal investigation. Like much in our politics, these connections will mean different things to different people. For conservatives, Brookings looks like the mothership for this scandal with associates coordinating meetings and roles in the m etastasization of the scandal. For liberals, the connections simply show the influence of the liberal think tank and any highlighting of the think tank is gaslighting a new “ Trilateral Commission ” narrative.
With the exception of Danchenko, there is no evidence that any of these Brookings-related individuals have committed criminal acts or are suspected of such acts by Durham. However, these connections have already factored in the investigation and are likely to be addressed in any final Special Counsel report. Brookings Institution’s influence on the Russian collusion scandal will likely remain central to Durham’s unravelling of how the FBI was duped into the Russian investigation and the role of Clinton operatives in that effort. Notably, on September 9, 2015, Hillary Clinton appeared at Brookings and stressed there are “ a lot of long-time friends and colleagues who perch here at Brookings including Strobe .” The question is whether that perch will become increasing precarious as Durham continues his investigation.
Jonathan Turley
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It really was a big team effort. FBI payments to/firing of Steele, the actual lying FISA warrants, Bruce Ohr admissions on the hoax, Comey's stealing of classified info on Trump, McCabe lies -- and the entire Clinton email scandal, etc.
I wonder if Hillary Clinton will be questioned?
The US Senate concluded that the Trump campaigned "colluded" with Russia.
The idea that the Durham witch hunt will exonerate Trump from the Senate findings is one of the stranger things I have seen.
You're still a believer!
And the senate "concluded" Trump did something that apparently isn't in US Code.
And that's why the Mueller team, who knew right for the beginning that there was no collusion, focused on trying to show that Trump had obstructed justice.
that sentence is simply a lie
That's not good enough. Disprove it.
Mueller report: collusion findings are devastating for Trump - Vox
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Donald Trump and Russia establishes a damning series of facts about the Trump campaign’s connections to the Kremlin.
We learned that two Trump campaign officials, campaign manager Paul Manafort and Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates, were regularly providing polling information to a Russian national whom Gates believed to be a “spy.”
We learned that, after Trump publicly called on Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s emails, he privately ordered future National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to find them. Flynn reached out to a man named Peter Smith who (apparently falsely) told a number of people that he was in contact with Russian agents.
We learned that Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos attempted to arrange meetings between Trump and Putin, and that Trump personally approved Papadopoulos’s work on this front.
The report is very clear that Mueller’s investigation did not establish that the Trump campaign criminally conspired on illegal Russian election interference, or that it coordinated with Russia through either an active or tacit agreement.
But the report, combined with other publicly known facts — that Donald Trump Jr. arranged a meeting with the express purpose of obtaining Russian “dirt” on Clinton, and that Papadopoulos was offered similar dirt from a Russian agent, among others — paints a damning picture of the campaign. It was both actively seeking to cultivate a relationship with the Russian government and willing to work with it to acquire damaging information about its political opponents. That willingness included explicitly sharing information with or soliciting information from Russian operatives.
As the report takes pains to point out, “collusion” has no legal definition and is not a federal crime. So while the report did not establish conspiracy or coordination, it does not make a determination on “collusion” — and in fact, it strongly suggests that there was at least an attempt to collude by Trump’s campaign and agents of the Russian government.
The fact that it did not rise to the level of criminal activity does not mean it was not a serious breach of trust and a damning indictment of the president’s commitment to the health of the American legal and political system. The section of the report focusing on Russian interference in the election is not an exoneration of Trump’s innocence. It’s a devastating portrayal of his approach to politics.
The strong evidence of (something like) collusion
Although Attorney General William Barr said that there was “no collusion” in his press conference before the report’s release, Mueller is actually quite explicit that he did not address the question of “collusion.” This is because, to his mind, the term is not precise enough, nor does it fall within the ambit of what was essentially a criminal investigation.
“Collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law,” Mueller writes. “For those reasons, the Office’s focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law.”
So when Mueller concludes that he “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” he is not saying that there is no evidence of “collusion” at all, in any sense. What he is saying is that there is insufficient evidence to prove that the Trump administration was directly involved in Russian crimes like stealing Clinton’s emails.
But did the Trump campaign actively work with the Russian government to improve its electoral chances? If that’s the standard, then the report provides plenty of evidence to suggest the answer is yes.
Oh Vox!
Plenty of evidence?
Yet the likes of the Trump-hating Mueller team couldn't bring a single charge against Trump.
Donald Trump Jr colluded with the Russians by having the Jun 9th meeting.
He wasnt prosecuted because Mueller suggested Trump Jr was too stupid to realize what he was doing was illegal, and prosecution required intent.
that wasn't his job. hopefully, the unredacted and declassified report gets released, right after trumpski announces his 2024 candidacy.
No he didn't. That meeting was about adoptions, was ended early and there is a Fusion GPS connection to it.
Why would someone as radical as Merrick Galand not release it?
Is that what Mueller thought? I'm not sure Mueller thought anything. He was selected only to give the investigation the look of credibility. I'm quite sure it was Andrew Weissmann who did all the thinking.
Trump Jr, Manafort and Kushner went to that meeting with the expectation that they were going to receive dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. That is collusion .
It is hard to discuss these things with people that have virtually no grasp of the facts.
Probably because it would end the left's fever dreams of secret information that will "get Trump for sure" they've been pushing for 5 years. It never seems to occur to them that congressional dems had access to the entire redacted report and never even bothered to use any of it in one of their impeachments.
That's what they were told. If Fushion GPS was behind the idea of the meeting - it would be entrapment. I got a feeling we are about to find out more about Fusion GPS and Marc Elias, but before that there may be a few more indictments.
Many want to believe and here on NT we have the extreme left. They will defend the Clinton hoax to the death.
Against something that didn't exist in the first place. Either way, the "investigation" was into nothing and produced nothing.
I should remind you that “collusion” has no legal definition and is not a federal crime.
The whole Meuller investigation was the result of shock at the "FNG" beating the "shoe in" candidate and the mumblings of that "shoe in" candidate founded in fiction.
No, it is not a lie at all.
We're still waiting on those Durham indictments on the entire Obama administration!
yep. Right there in quite a few quotes and links. Funny people can't see that.........and they even knew it back then when it happened but just KNEW Mueller was gonna be able to twist it. As it turns out, once again, Nothing Burger.
Funny shit.
Of course it is. You should know.
John.....if stupidity was some kind of defense for a crime, 90% of criminals would go free. You can stop digging the hole is plenty deep.
Those lawfare columns did nothing but feed the hysteria we saw from the left. Did a tremendous amount of damage to our country.
Trump was under seige his entire term and Obama had been briefed on the lie before the inauguration.
It was collusion between the Hillary campaign and the obama regime.
We might just find out
NOPE!
Yes, we can!
many of us have known it started with with the Clinton campaign from the start.
And everyone should have faced up to the truth when the IG issued a report implicating at least one member of the special counsel's team for falsified evidence against Carter Page to secure a warrant that was used to spy on the Trump campaign.
They were to into the hysteria of trying to cover this all up that nobody really noticed. But it's come back to bite them in the ass.
They did a lot of elaborate planning and they had plenty of help.
And still got caught. It's like asking the kid with chocolate on their face if they at the candy and the kid denying it. It's comical in a way.
They try to deny the obvious here every day. I suppose the most glaring example was when some here tried to make it seem that the Cleveland Clinic Study said the opposite of what it said:
How can we ever forget that one!
Where is your proof?
Trump was in secret negotiations with the Russians to build Trump Tower Moscow right up to election day in 2021. He lied about it and even offered Vlad Putin a penthouse apartment as a bribe. So, there is that...
Well right up till election day he was still just Donald Trump, American citizen and businessman trying to take care of business. Is there a problem with that?
And I doubt he was actually, physically in the negotiations. He has/had people for that.
While he was in negotiations for a possible trump Tower Moscow (which never developed to frutition) , Trump was lying to the American people , saying he had no business dealings with Russia. Why was he lying? Because he presumed , naturally, that the American voter would be skeptical of a presidential candidate who was doing personal business in Russia.
So the DOJ can investigate anytime a President lies?
Biden lying about payments to illegal aliens is grounds for an independent counsel, than?
Lying? Was there a deal struck? Not just no but hell no. So no dealings but rather obvious low level negotiations with his "people" doing the negotiating. You can call it what you want but as soon as he won it died on the vine.
Want to go into who had more stakes in Russia? Clintons received millions for speaking engagements in Russia; not to mention the Clinton Foundation. Not to mention the pay for play when she was SOS.
So, negotiating a contract for a Trump hotel that never came to be. Or the Clintons taking large speaking fees; and the Clinton Foundation taking in millions from Russia. Nothing to see here folks, just move along. Follow the damn money for a change Democrats!
Prove it!
how? I don't think the white supremacist alt-media carried the story...
Keep saying "white supremacy." I want to keep reminding those idependents on what they voted for.
I'm pretty sure they figured it out right after charlottesville...
Oh? Tell us what that was about.
Do you know what Charlottesville was about Vic? I do.
sheet wearing trumpsters flexing their new clout and then being vindicated by the klan presidency.
So many people want to add their own agenda to Charlottesville. It was, or at least started out to be, a protest against removing a statue which would have only been a blip on the radar had some liberal asswipes just let it go on and pay it no attention.
Complete and total nonsense. It is astonishing how little you people know about what is going on in the world.
Unite the Right rally - Wikipedia
The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville , Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Far- right groups participated, including self-identified members of the alt- right , neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and various right -wing militias.
Far-right groups participated, including self-identified members of the alt-right , [12] neo-Confederates , [13] neo-fascists , [14] white nationalists , [15] neo-Nazis , [16] Klansmen , [17] and various right-wing militias . [18] Some groups chanted racist and antisemitic slogans and carried weapons, Nazi and neo-Nazi symbols , the Valknut , Confederate battle flags , Deus Vult crosses, flags, and other symbols of various past and present anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic groups. [24] The organizers' stated goals included unifying the American white nationalist movement [12] and opposing the proposed removal of the statue of General Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville's former Lee Park . [22] [25]
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It didnt start out as an innocent protest. It started out as a white supremacist rally and the protest was included as a fig leaf or "reason" for the white supremacist rally.
From your link...........
" The organizers' stated goals included unifying the American white nationalist movement [12] and opposing the proposed removal of the statue of General Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville's former Lee Park ."
You were saying???
So one can only have one reason and not multiple for a gathering? That's some funny shit right there JR.
I didn't think you knew anything about it. You finally proved something.
We need not hear from leftist posters on Wikipedia.
devangelical doesn't know, so I'll ask you what was Charlottesville about?
I have already said what it was about. This is not controversial by the way.
I'd rather hear what you think it was about.
Oh finally! John got it - it was about removing statues.
Here's the big question, John....get ready.....
Of those who wanted that statue removed and those who didn't, were there not good & bad people on both sides?
neo-nazis and the klan uniting in the trump base.
Vic, every single person , every one, who went to that park that day KNEW they were attending a white supremacist rally. It had been openly discussed in Charlottesville and in local media for weeks. The official permit for the rally was issued to a white supremacist group, and that was well known too. Giving white supremacists a city permit was a controversial issue within the city, and was in the media prior to the event.
Are you saying that "good people" knowingly went to and participated in a rally on the side of white racists? I dont really accept that description of the "protesters" that Trump gave. At the very least they were not "good" people on that day.
You are attempting to claim that innocent "good" people went to protest a statue removal, and unbeknownst to them a white supremacist rally broke out. That is absolutely not what happened.
Of course not John. That's not the issue, nor were they the only extremists that were there. The issue was statues and those who wanted them to stay or be removed.
Everyone but the fucking Trump haters knows that.
Yep.
Two extremist groups showed up and had it out and that's all they claim it was about - because they tried to lie about what Trump said.
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It was originally about a statue. The only reason you are focused on radical groups who showed up (and there were two - one from the left as well) is because you want to continue to ignore that there are good and bad people on both sides of the statue controversy.
I deleted my comment 4.2.24 because I did not phrase it properly. The purpose of the rally was to bring white supremacist groups from around the country together for a white power show of force. The statue was the fig leaf.
The night before all the violence, white supremacists marched at the site carrying tiki torches and shouting racist slogans. There are now iconic photos of it.
It was all over Charlottesville tv news. And you want to tell us that "good people" went there the next day to march with these guys? Please.
No John, the statue is what "triggers" them (to use a leftist term). Whenever it's about Confederate statues, they will get excited.
You may remember that somebody warned it wouldn't stop with Confederate statues... it would spread to all kinds of American statues.
As so often was the case, he was right.
BTW This group killed 25 people last summer:
And then we had democrats dress up their own in that manner and send them to the Youngkin campaign bus. Now we have an African American woman and a Hispanic American man being accused of being mouthpieces of white supremacy by the progressive left.
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But it’s “dialogue” allowed to the secular left here.
Who cares? That's not a crime.
d Vlad Putin a penthouse apartment as a bribe
Lol.. Imagine thinking you can bribe one of the richest people on the planet with a condo. I have no idea if this is true, but perhaps you've heard of this thing called advertising? It's where rich and powerful people are given money and benefits to associate with a brand. Do you think that's "bribery" too?
Actual bribery is a crime. Can you point to where anyone in the Trump org was indicted for bribing Putin?
BTW I think from here on, we should refer to the Steele Dossier as the Clinton Dossier