Hillary Clinton Colluded With Russians To Tamper With The 2016 Presidential Election!!!

That would be the screaming headline on the top of every media outlet today, if the mainstream media had any level of fairness and consistency with how they cover politics in Washington. But in the era of Donald Trump, #FactsFirst and Democracy Dies in Darkness, that’s an “if” about as big as Frederica Wilson’s hat closet.

Hillary Clinton‘s presidential campaign cooperated (through intermediaries) with sources close to the Russian government to obtain salacious and unverified dirt on Donald Trump for the sole purpose of disseminating that dirt to the media in an effort to change the course of the presidential election.

That’s a precise retelling of what we have now learned regarding the Clinton campaign’s efforts in financing the now infamous “Russian Dossier” at the center of the Comey/Trump/Mueller/Manafort soap opera that has paralyzed the political media in DC for almost a year now.

But that’s not how the media is reporting it. Why?

The Washington Post reported Tuesday night that the Clinton campaign and the DNC had hired Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Donald Trump in April 2016.

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research. After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the company in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS’s research into Trump was funded by an unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.

And, let’s be clear about an important item in the above referenced report. Yes, a yet-to-be-revealed Republican client initiated Fusion GPS’s oppo research on Trump, but the now-infamous “Dossier” created by former British spy Christopher Steele was not researched or created until after the Democrats took over the task. “After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele” the Washington Post reports. Meaning, yes, a Republican paid for oppo research, but they didn’t pay for Steele and the dossier, that was all Hillary.

Furthermore, according to ex-Acting CIA Director (and Clinton ally) Michael Morell, Steele paid his sources (operatives close to and involved with the Russian government) for the unverified dirt on Trump that found its way into the dossier.

“And then I asked myself, why did these guys provide this information, what was their motivation? And I subsequently learned that he paid them. That the intermediaries paid the sources and the intermediaries got the money from Chris. And that kind of worries me a little bit because if you’re paying somebody, particularly former FSB officers, they are going to tell you truth and innuendo and rumor, and they’re going to call you up and say, ‘hey, let’s have another meeting, I have more information for you,’ because they want to get paid some more.

Follow the money with me, would you please?

Clinton’s campaign pays Fusion GPS.

Fusion GPS pays Christopher Steele.

Steele pays sources connected to the Russian government.

The money may be laundered a couple of times, but there’s no denying Clinton campaign cash ended up in the hands of Russians in exchange for dirt on Trump.

What’s more, former Clinton campaign officials aren’t denying it, they’re bragging about it. Clinton campaign operative Brian Fallon told CNN’s Don Lemon it would’ve been malpractice not to fund the dossier. He took to Twitter to heap praise on Elias for hiring Fusion GPS for the dirty task.

I have no idea what Fusion or Steele were paid but if even a shred of that dossier ends up helping Mueller, it will prove money well spent — Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) October 25, 2017

And all this time I thought @marceelias was merely best election lawyer & voting rights lawyer in U.S. Proud to have shared foxhole with him — Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) October 25, 2017

Or, at least, that is the spin. Because when the New York Times chased down the very same story published by the Washington Post Tuesday, Elias denied he had anything to do with Fusion GPS or the Russian dossier.

When I tried to report this story, Clinton campaign lawyer @marceelias pushed back vigorously, saying "You (or your sources) are wrong." https://t.co/B5BZwoaNhI — Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) October 24, 2017

If this was standard campaign operations and there was nothing wrong with funneling money through intermediaries to sources connected to the Kremlin to affect the outcome of the presidential election, why did the man at the center of the scheme deny his involvement?

There are plenty more questions that need to be asked by political journalists and they deserve to be answered by Clinton campaign operatives. But one thing seems pretty clear: The hyperbolic conclusions already reached over the Trump campaign seem somewhat unsubstantiated compared to what we now know about the Clinton campaign and their connections to the Russian government.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.