The Sleazy Origins of Russia-gate

Before the election, a longtime Clinton operative briefed me on aspects of Steele's investigation, including the "golden shower" allegations, and urged me to at least publish the accusations as a rumor citing the fact that some major news organizations were looking into the charges, an offer that I declined.

In a different setting -- when Gov. Bill Clinton was seeking the presidency and Republican "oppo" researchers were pushing various wild and salacious allegations about him -- the Clinton team dismissed such claims and the motivations of the people behind them as "cash for trash."

Following the Storyline

Yet, Schiff's opening statement at the hearing on March 20 relied heavily on Steele's narrative and the supposed credibility of the ex-British spy and his anonymous Russian sources, even to the point of naming Americans who presumably joined in a scheme to collaborate with the Russians to help rig the U.S. election, an act that some commenters have compared to treason.

The California Democrat said, "Russian sources tell [Steele] that [Carter] Page [a Trump foreign policy adviser who made a public trip to Russia in early July 2016] also had a secret meeting with Igor Sechin, CEO of Russian gas giant Rosneft. ... According to Steele's Russian sources, Page is offered brokerage fees by Sechin on a deal involving a 19 percent share of the company."

These "Russian sources" also tell Steele, according to Schiff, that "the Trump campaign is offered documents damaging to Hillary Clinton, which the Russians would publish through an outlet that gives them deniability, like Wikileaks. The hacked documents would be in exchange for a Trump Administration policy that de-emphasizes Russia's invasion of Ukraine and instead focuses on criticizing NATO countries for not paying their fare share."

Schiff continued: "Is it a coincidence that the Russian gas company Rosneft sold a 19 percent share after former British Intelligence Officer Steele was told by Russian sources that Carter Page was offered fees on a deal of just that size? Is it a coincidence that Steele's Russian sources also affirmed that Russia had stolen documents hurtful to Secretary Clinton that it would utilize in exchange for pro-Russian policies that would later come to pass?"

However, is it also not possible that Steele and his profit-making colleagues made their reports conform to details that already were known or that they had reason to believe would occur, in other words, to match up their claims with independently known facts to give them greater credibility? That is a classic way for con-men to establish "credibility" with marks who are either gullible or simply want to believe.

Also, clever prosecutors in presenting a "circumstantial case" -- as Schiff was doing on March 20 -- can make innocent coincidences look suspicious. For instance, though Trump's resistance to escalating tensions with Russia were well known through the primary campaign, Schiff made a big deal out of the fact that Trump's people opposed a plank in the Republican platform that called for shipping lethal military supplies to Ukraine for the government's war against ethnic Russian rebels in the east. Schiff presents that as the quo for the quid of the Russians supplying purloined emails from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks (although WikiLeaks denies getting the emails from the Russians).

In his opening statement, Schiff said: "In the middle of July, Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign manager and someone who was long on the payroll of pro-Russian Ukrainian interests, attends the Republican Party convention. Carter Page, back from [a business meeting in] Moscow, also attends the convention.

"According to Steele, it was Manafort who chose Page to serve as a go-between for the Trump campaign and Russian interests. [Russian] Ambassador [Sergey] Kislyak, who presides over a Russian embassy in which diplomatic personnel would later be expelled as likely spies, also attends the Republican Party convention and meets with Carter Page and additional Trump Advisers J.D. Gordon and Walid Phares. It was J.D. Gordon who approved Page's trip to Moscow.

"Ambassador Kislyak also meets with Trump campaign national security chair and now Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions would later deny meeting with Russian officials during his Senate confirmation hearing. Just prior to the convention, the Republican Party platform is changed, removing a section that supports the provision of 'lethal defensive weapons' to Ukraine, an action that would be contrary to Russian interests.

"Manafort categorically denies involvement by the Trump campaign in altering the platform. But the Republican Party delegate who offered the language in support of providing defensive weapons to Ukraine states that it was removed at the insistence of the Trump campaign. Later, J.D. Gordon admits opposing the inclusion of the provision at the time it was being debated and prior to its being removed."

Problems with the Conspiracy

So, not only is Schiff relying on Steele to provide key links in the conspiracy chain but Schiff ignores the surrounding reality that Trump had long opposed the idea of escalating the confrontation with Russia in Ukraine -- as, by the way, did President Obama who resisted pressure to send lethal military hardware to Ukraine.

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