Is
Russiagate Really Hillarygate?
By Paul Roderick Gregory
The
role of Fusion GPS and one of its key
associates, a former Soviet intelligence
officer, must raise the question as to whether
the Steele dossier, which was orchestrated by a
suspected unregistered agent of Russia, was a
plant by Russian intelligence to harm Donald
Trump?
David Satter, one of our top experts on Russia
and himself expelled by the Kremlin,
writes:
Perhaps most important, Russian intelligence
also acted to sabotage Mr. Trump. The ‘Trump
dossier, full of unverified sexual and
political allegations, was published in
January by BuzzFeed, despite having all the
hallmarks of Russian spy agency
‘creativity.’ The dossier was prepared by
Christopher Steele, a former British
intelligence officer. It employed standard
Russian techniques of disinformation and
manipulation.
Much of
the credibility of the Orbis dossier hinges on
Steele’s reputation as a former M15 intelligence
agent. Satter writes, however, that “after the
publication of the Trump dossier, Mr. Steele
went into hiding, supposedly in fear for his
life. On March 15, however, Michael Morell, the
former acting CIA director, told NBC that Mr.
Steele had paid the Russian intelligence sources
who provided the information and never met with
them directly. In other words, his sources were
not only working for pay. Furthermore, Mr.
Steele had no way to judge the veracity of their
claims.”
If
Steele disappeared for fear of his life, we must
suspect that he feared murder by Russian agents.
The only secret he might have had to warrant
such a drastic Russian action would be knowledge
that Russian intelligence prepared the dossier.
According to a Vanity Fair
article, Fusion
GPS was first funded by an anti-Trump Republican
donor, but, after Trump’s nomination, Fusion and
Steele were paid by Democratic donors whose
identity remains secret. Writes Satter: “Perhaps
the time has come to expand the investigation
into Russia’s meddling to include Mrs. Clinton’s
campaign as well.”
As someone who has
read every word
of the Steele Trump dossier and has studied the
Soviet Union/Russia for almost a half century, I
can say that the Steele dossier consists of raw
intelligence from informants identified by
capital letters, who claim (improbably) to have
access to the highest levels of the Kremlin. The
dossier was not, as the press reports, written
by Steele. No matter how experienced (or
gullible) Steele might be, there is no way for
him to know whether his sources are clandestine
Russian intelligence agents.
In
Stalin's day, some of the most valued KGB (NKVD) agents
were called "novelists," for their ability to
conjure up fictional plots and improbable tales
to use against their enemies. Some of Steele's
sources claim detailed knowledge of the deepest
Kremlin secrets, such as Putin's personal
control of Clinton emails or negotiations with
Putin's head of the national oil company. If
they truly had such knowledge, why would they
"sell" it to Steele? The most likely explanation
is that the Steele dossier is the work of
Russian intelligence "novelists" charged by the
Kremlin with defaming Trump and adding chaos to
the American political system.
Mueller’s
Difficult Task
While
leaks from within the investigation focus on
possible obstruction of justice, Special Counsel
Robert Mueller’s writ – to investigate Russian
interference in the 2016 election – requires him
to consider “matters” that Dems would prefer be
left alone.
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Special Counsel Mueller has been given a broad
charge and no deadline -- a formula for trouble.
He is supposed to “investigate Russia’s
intervention in the 2016 election.” Given the
many accounts of Russian contacts of Trump
campaign officials and hangers-on, Mueller must
follow these leads, which apparently have lead
nowhere over a nine month investigation as
reported even
by Trump unfriendly sources like CNN. Mueller,
therefore, should not require much time to rule
out coordination between the Trump campaign and
Russia state actors. Mueller must be careful to
avoid detours into loosely related issue by
scalp-hunting investigators. Mueller also must
shut down leaks from within his office, if he
wishes his reports to be credible to the
American people.
Mueller must also conduct an investigation which
is perceived as fair to both sides. On the
Clinton/Democratic side, there are a number of
unanswered questions related to Russian
electoral intervention. Among them is the
question of whether the “wiped clean” Clinton
e-mails are in Russian hands (as asserted by the
Steele dossier), whether the tarmac meeting of
Bill Clinton and the Attorney General quashed
the investigation of Hillary’s e-mails, and
whether the Clintons and Russian uranium
interests engaged in quid pro quo and “pay to
play” operations.
The
most important unanswered question is whether
the Clinton campaign funded the Orbis Trump
smear campaign and did they understand the
campaign could be conducted by Russian
intelligence?
Mueller
must question Steele himself on his sources and
some of the sources themselves, investigate
whether they could be Russian intelligence
agents, and determine the role of Clinton donors
and campaign officials in the funding of the
anti-Trump dossier.
The
Fusion-Steele matter is explosive because it
suggests that Russia’s most damaging
intervention in the 2016 campaign may have been
its creation of the Steele Dossier, remarkably
paid for by the Clinton campaign! If so, the
Clinton campaign (not Trump) was the prime
sponsor of Russia’s intervention in the 2016
election.
Paul
Roderick Gregory is a research fellow at the
Hoover Institution, at Stanford, and energy
fellow and Cullen Professor of Economics at the
University of Houston. He is also a research
professor at the German Institute for Economic
Research Berlin. His specialties are Russia and
Comparative Economics. He has written more than
20 books on economics, Russia and comparative
economics.
www.paulgregorysblog.blogspot.com
This
article was first published by
Forbes
-
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
