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Why the intelligence community was so eager to flog Trump-Russia innuendo.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Sept. 19, 2017 7:00 p.m. ET
By the standards of a few weeks ago, Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer now are actively colluding with a guy who actively colluded with Russia to win the White House.
OK, Mr. Schumer in particular has known Donald Trump for decades. He knew there was little real substance to the Trump-Russia accusations. It was Mr. Schumer who publicly warned Mr. Trump of the folly of making a political enemy of the intelligence agencies.
Which brings us to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. If he hasn’t been asking himself some big-boy questions, he should start now. The FBI handed over to Mr. Mueller a counterintelligence investigation—not a hunt for a Trump crime, but a hunt for the truth about Russia’s role in the election.
The problem with the word “collusion” is that when Russia stirs up U.S. politics in its own interest, its actions can be convenient for different parties. That includes a U.S. intelligence community with its own ideas about what needs to happen. And, more than ever, the story line that Kremlin efforts were aimed with winsome simplicity at helping Mr. Trump seems largely a fabrication of these U.S. intelligence agencies.
If so, the moment of true political corruption may have come with Mr. Trump’s improbable, unexpected victory, when the agencies suddenly switched their diagnosis of Vladimir Putin’s motives. On Oct. 31, voters hadn’t yet gone to the polls. The New York Times summarized the Obama administration view that Russia’s effort “was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump.”
Then came Mr. Trump’s unanticipated triumph, and the administration quickly revised its judgment from “Putin meddled” to “Putin meddled to elect Trump.” Stories in the Times and elsewhere, mostly citing Obama CIA chief John Brennan or people close to him, went further, hammering vaguely at the idea that Mr. Trump directly conspired with Russia.
The Trump dossier, in government hands for months, suddenly leaked into public view. Secret intelligence about Mike Flynn’s phone call with the Russian ambassador leaked into public view. Increasingly pathetic intelligence leaks tried to paint now-President Trump as betraying Israeli sources and “leaking” terrorism secrets to Moscow.
The media picked up and believed the fantastical claim that 17 intelligence agencies had agreed on the new explanation of Russia’s role. It turns out that handpicked personnel from three agencies drafted the finding. Handpicking is what you do when you want agents to come to a preordained conclusion.
Now ask yourself: Were the evolving claims about Russia’s motives based on any more solid intelligence than were the Trump dossier or Russia’s fake Loretta Lynch email? Or is the picture here of our intelligence officials serially grabbing after whatever flotsam serves their immediate needs?
Mr. Mueller’s recent apparent diversion into Trump business history and/or the tax practices of Paul Manafort isn’t just a hallmark of a special-counsel fishing expedition. This is a diversion from glaring matters at hand. Did FBI Director James Comey, as he reportedly told a closed congressional hearing, intervene in the Hillary email matter in response to likely planted Russian intelligence, setting off the chain reaction that may have shifted votes at the last minute to Mr. Trump?
The story of Mr. Comey’s reliance on possible Russian intelligence disinformation was widely reported by the Washington Post, CNN and others and then promptly dropped. No, this doesn’t mean Russia picked our president, if that’s the knowledge Mr. Mueller and some in the media think the American people need to be protected from.
It means that Mr. Comey and our blundering intelligence agencies, via their machinations to keep Mr. Trump out of the White House, may inadvertently have helped him win it.
What’s been going on ever since smells like a coverup. Remember, to Mr. Comey, Mr. Brennan and Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Mr. Trump was a buffoonish, irresponsible candidate. He also was certain to lose. To Team Obama, the threat that needed to be contained before Election Day wasn’t Russian meddling. The threat that needed to be contained was the Hillary email investigation.
Then came Mrs. Clinton’s shocking defeat, and Team Obama officials suddenly awoke to the realization that their actions might receive a scrutiny they never anticipated. That’s when Trump-Russia suspicions started to be flogged beyond their natural merits—to distract.
It simply isn’t true that everybody who puts on the uniform of his country is therefore the embodiment of Boy Scout values: trustworthy, loyal and brave. Mr. Mueller has a good reputation and we know nothing to gainsay it, but the coward’s way out is to accept the convenient precept that the only thing to see here is the possibility of Trump collusion. The public needs the truth from Mr. Mueller, not a coverup.
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