It wasn’t the dossier
The hot Donnie-news today is what got the FBI started on the Russia investigation. It turns out it was Papadopoulos blabbing to an Australian diplomat.
During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.
About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.
Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role.
The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates conspired.
July 2016. That early.
The information that Mr. Papadopoulos gave to the Australians answers one of the lingering mysteries of the past year: What so alarmed American officials to provoke the F.B.I. to open a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign months before the presidential election?
It was not, as Mr. Trump and other politicians have alleged, a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired by a rival campaign. Instead, it was firsthand information from one of America’s closest intelligence allies.
Via one of Trump’s own people, babbling as he sucked down the gin. The FBI, on the other hand, did the opposite.
Once the information Mr. Papadopoulos had disclosed to the Australian diplomat reached the F.B.I., the bureau opened an investigation that became one of its most closely guarded secrets. Senior agents did not discuss it at the daily morning briefing, a classified setting where officials normally speak freely about highly sensitive operations.
There was debate about whether to go public or not, and the agency decided not.
Ultimately, the F.B.I. and Justice Department decided to keep the investigation quiet, a decision that Democrats in particular have criticized. And agents did not interview Mr. Papadopoulos until late January.
So we’re now living in Putin’s world.
Papadopoulos seems like he is a complete gumby. It’s pretty telling that Trump et al. thought highly enough of him to elevate him to a position of power and responsibility in the campaign.
“Ultimately, the F.B.I. and Justice Department decided to keep the investigation quiet, a decision that Democrats in particular have criticized”
They couldn’t keep quiet about emails from Hillary on Anthony Weiner’s computer though.
(And then Trump fired Comey anyway.)
If Hillary sent someone a chocolate chip cookie recipe, it would be spread around the country to be scoured for possible subversive elements. Were the ingredients too liberal? Did it include alfalfa sprouts? Was Christian baby part of the recipe? And they would have found something – because Hillary’s e-mails were an element of total fascination for this country.
Every millennial I know complained loudly and often about how awful Hillary was. When pressed for what she believed that was so awful, they said “she deleted e-mails”. They had no idea what was in those e-mails, whether they were anything more serious than my mythical chocolate chip cookie recipe, or what she believed at all. They just knew that the non-stop coverage about her e-mails was distasteful to them, so she was bad.
Meanwhile, much of the information that was released in the “October surprise” was hardly significant, and it was mostly stuff we already knew. But most people didn’t realize that, and thought there was something major there, like, I don’t know, pedophile rings run out of pizza parlors, lizard aliens conspiring to take over the United States, and Obama agreeing to give Iran millions of nukes for free.
“l…izard aliens conspiring to take over the United States…”
I’m afraid this one came true.