Lots to digest here, so much to unpack.

It is a foregone conclusion that Russia attempted, with varying degrees of success, to hack, influence, interfere (you choose the best descriptor) with our 2016 election.  They no doubt made similar attempts in 2012 and 2008 and 2004, or so we are told.  In fact, other state actors such as China, Iran, North Korea have also been implicated as likely dabblers in the art.   I suspect the US has indulged in similar conduct around the globe.  What I don’t understand is how candidate Donald Trump could be criminally, civilly, or politically culpable over the hostile actions taken by an adversarial power, whose ambitions in this area were well known to our government at the time.  How is it that the harmful efforts undertaken by a rival force, driven solely by self-serving interests, can be blamed on a campaign that certainly lacked the intelligence apparatus to learn of it, and was devoid of any authority to shut it down?  

I’m not saying Team Trump didn’t welcome any beneficial external influences, assuming they even knew such meddling, given the calculus to measure the impact of these actions remains elusive.  But there’s no denying Trump’s campaign had more than a passing interest on any “dirt” that may be available against the Clinton campaign.  So too, did the Clinton campaign seek whatever damaging material on Trump that could be acquired on the open market.  It seems to me there was some “double-dealing” going on: someone was shopping the Steele dossier to one side, while another was peddling hacked DNC emails to the other.  

This would be a good time to draw some distinctions.  It is possible, but not proven, that Trump operatives may have learned that Wikileaks had obtained purloined emails damaging to the Clinton campaign and the DNC.  The extent to which Trump’s campaign was able to leverage the dissemination of those emails is unknown, as the revelations remain solely attributable to Wikileaks and its director(s) to this day.  Contrast that to the infamous Steele dossier, which may initially have had its roots in GOP primary circles, but quickly gained traction within the DNC and the Clinton campaign.  What is widely accepted in these two instances is that the Trump campaign provided zero remuneration to Wikileaks, its founder, nor any entity involved in the procurement of said emails.  The Clinton campaign though, directly through hired help, paid for the Steele dossier, saw to it that it was passed along to the FBI, who in turn, righteously leaked it to suspect media outlets and a privileged few in government.  Each handler of the Steele dossier came to learn in due time that the salacious report was unverifiable, much of which was conjured up and tailored to satisfy its asking price.  Yet these bad actors maliciously disseminated its contents within government and circulated it to various media outlets in order to damage the Trump campaign.  Now that it is understood that Russian operatives provided portions of the dossier to Christopher Steele, who then has colluded with the Russians to influence an election?

The second distinction lost on many is that while the Steele dossier has been roundly debunked and dismissed as fabrication, the emails hacked and leaked from Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta and DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz contained verified communications, much of it unflattering but nonetheless genuine. It resulted in some red-faced chagrin for the party, especially when it was revealed the DNC had betrayed Bernie Sanders and was in the tank for Hillary Clinton throughout the primaries.  So true information, albeit illegally obtained, resulted in some awkward moments for a campaign that was rigged anyway.  But the discredited Steele dossier found new life; not as a campaign-wrecker for Trump as hoped, but as the framework to kick off a counter-intelligence investigation in the Obama Justice Department.  Let that sink in a moment.

That counter-intelligence investigation was spearheaded by Clinton supporters in the Justice Department and FBI; the same cabal that cleared Hillary of criminal wrongdoing in her own email server scandal.  These bureaucrats then used this bogus dossier they knew to be no more than foreign-sourced opposition research paid for with dirty money from dirty hands to support FISA court warrants to electronically surveil the Trump campaign and staffers – what our current Attorney General calls “spying”.  Then came the clandestine entrapment operatives, the unmasking of private citizens ensnared by wiretaps, and the perjury traps, each abetted by orchestrated leaks.  Former Obama-era intelligence officials sanctimoniously slandered the President-elect, each claiming inside knowledge of a deep conspiracy.  Democrat lawmakers promised to produce proof positive of Trump complicity to collude with Russians in the interference of our election, and pundits spoke gravely of the existential threat to our democracy.

It culminated with the Mueller appointment as Special Counsel, and a two-year investigation that predictably delivered only more fevered rancor.  But Mueller did bring some closure on a couple of fronts: he did not find evidence of a criminal conspiracy to collude with Russians, and he affirmed that his investigation was not criminally obstructed by the president or the administration.  That is not to say the President’s opponents will not pursue further investigation into attempted obstruction of justice charges that were suggested by the vagaries in Mueller’s report, and the equivocations demonstrated in his testimony.

Fortunately, these efforts will soon be overshadowed by the Justice Department’s IG Report and the Grand Jury findings led by US Attorney John Durham into the genesis and conduct of the aforementioned unlawful counter-intelligence investigation perpetuated by those so eager to destroy a sitting president that they quite simply lost their way.

And they are destined to pay for it dearly.