Explosion over the Washington Swamp

On Friday morning, President Trump declassified the memo prepared by the Intelligence Committee of the House. This document was originally marked "Top Secret." Of course, there is nothing new for the inquisitive reader in this memo. Everything that is described there has long been widely discussed in America. But none of the participants in these discussions have ever had any evidence. Now this evidence, gathered during the closed sessions of the Intelligence Committee, has become public. As a result, we know that the chain of events associated with the case of Trump's "criminal collusion with Putin" looks like this:

Trump's political opponents during the primaries hired the firm Fusion GPS, which specializes in opposition research, to dig up some dirt on Trump

After Trump won the primaries, Fusion GPS lost the customer, but just for a short while

The new customers of the dirt on Trump become the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC

The new customers requested dirt on Trump from Fusion GPS, not only in the American domain but also in the international arena

To add international dimension, Fusion GPS hired a subcontractor – former resident of British intelligence in Moscow Christopher Steele, known for his open anti-Trump beliefs

Christopher Steele hired some former agents of the Russian intelligence services (against whom he once fought during the Cold War)

The agents of Russian intelligence services concoct a dirty file on Trump (linguistic analysis confirmed that this dossier was written in "Russian English" with minimal editing by native English speakers)

It is still unclear as to what extent these Russian agents were the "former" agents of the Russian intelligence services (that is, to what extent this dossier is fiction, and to what extent is it the deliberate work of the KGB/FSB disinformation effort)

Trump's dossier, compiled by the Russians, gets to the FBI through the Assistant Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, who received it from his wife. At that time, she was working for Fusion GPS and was a part of the anti-Trump research team

The FBI used this dossier as one of the key arguments in the secret intelligence court FISC to obtain a warrant to wiretap the Trump campaign In other words, the Obama administration used a dossier concocted by Russian agents to legitimize its surveillance of their political opposition. According to the memo, FBI leaders knew precisely where the dossier came from, but in the application to the FISC, they presented the dossier as a proven fact, and not as opposition research. It was not just a mere bureaucratic mistake -- the FBI used the dossier in such a way not once, but at least four times. As a result, the Trump campaign was under surveillance by the FBI before the elections, after the elections, and even after the inauguration of President Trump. Also, it became clear from the memo how the sale of this dirty product was conducted. Christopher Steele organized a "leak" of information from the dossier to the media. The article published in Yahoo News added some missing details, so it appeared like independent confirmation of the Russian dossier. In other words, the FBI submitted false information to the FISC about the authenticity of the Trump dossier. And as a "confirmation," they used an open publication organized by the authors of the dossier themselves. Corruption in the highest echelons of power of the Obama administration is now no secret to anyone. American intelligence agencies, like all other intelligence agencies around the world, have always been content with the level of "Gray Eminences." They were very close to any political power, but they have never formally become the heads of state. So, it was since ancient times, and it became an unwritten tradition until Putin came to power in Russia. The coming to power of an intelligence officer aroused envy in all intelligence services in the world. After all, they consider themselves to be real rulers, and whoever is currently formally at the head of the state is unimportant. An additional irritant was that Putin came to power legally (meaning that if his coming to power was a coup led by intelligence agencies, then it was bloodless). The first director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, was at the helm for almost 50 years. During this time, the FBI turned from a small agency that dealt with federal crimes to one of the leading political forces of Washington. Hoover transformed the FBI from a criminal investigation agency into a criminal and political investigation agency. The files he collected over the years (both real and imaginary) made the FBI a powerful lever of political influence. Probably, Hoover could have become president if he wanted to. But he played the role of the "Gray Eminence" until the end. However, Putin violated the unofficial taboo. Since the 1930s, thanks to the "active measures" of the Soviet intelligence services of the OGPU-NKVD-KGB-FSB, many American institutions have picked up the virus of socialism (in schools, universities, Hollywood, the State Department, etc.) But during Cold War, an unusual "exchange of viruses" took place -- the KGB picked up the virus of American pragmatism and capitalism, and the FBI/CIA picked up the virus of socialism. The American virus turned out to be so strong that the intelligence services of Russia succeeded in what the intelligence services of all countries dreamed about -- gaining political power in their country. The Soviet virus was strong enough for the entire Democratic Party to be affected, but the CIA and the FBI were only partially infected. Another significant difference is that the American virus spread from the bottom up, that is, from rank-and-file Soviet agents to the top-level officers. On the contrary, the Soviet virus propagated from top to bottom, that is, the neo-Marxist worldview was implanted in America by appointing political activists, donors, and agitators of the Democratic Party to critical high-ranking posts. Eventually, the coming to power of Putin pushed the top of the preconditioned American intelligence services to the idea of ​​a bloodless coup to remove the unwanted President Trump from the Oval Office. They showed such scrupulous tactics in this matter to ensure all their steps were based on formal legal grounds. They did not dare install the “listening equipment” without the court's warrant. But the Washington swamp miscalculated. The publication of the memo removes the veil only over one episode of the war that U.S. intelligence agencies are waging against the sitting president. Soon, other memos will follow, including the expected report of the Inspector General about power abuses at the FBI. The Watergate scandal lasted more than two years, while this Obamagate outrage is a little more than a year. The explosion of the memo over the Washington swamp is only the first blast. It’s not going to be a long wait for more bombshell revelations in this matter. Gary Gindler is a conservative Russian-American blogger at Gary Gindler Chronicles.