McCain had a private meeting with FBI Director James Comey to hand him a dossier on Trump in a ploy to make him look bad, claims Daniel McAdams, executive director of Ron Paul Institute. Now McCain is attempting to disassociate himself from it, he added.

US Senator John McCain said last week's leak of an unverified report on Russia having compromising information on Donald Trump was “totally wrong” and that someone must be held responsible for it.

RT: John McCain, who passed the unverified information to the FBI himself now claims that those behind its leak must be responsible for it. What's your take on that?

Daniel McAdams: We should be clear what McCain’s role was in this. McCain is a chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, an extraordinary powerful individual in Washington DC. I think that what happened is that McCain is caught in the center of this controversy. Now he is trying to play the innocent. “Oh, I just did my duty,” he said. “I had no way of knowing whether this was valid damning information.”

But what he did in his role as the Chairman of the Committee was he validated that information. He contacted James Comey, the director of the FBI, to have a personal and private meeting to hand him this dossier. That action in itself validates or gives the impression that the document is validated to the FBI. So I think he is caught in the trap of his own making. He was trying to be involved in a ploy to make Trump look bad. He was caught at it, and now he is trying to backtrack and save his hide.

RT: Why do you think in this case it kind of looks like McCain is even taking Trump’s side here?

DM: I don’t think he is taking Trump’s side at all because he made the point, he said this is “damning information.” He never said this is untrue, or this is not true, or this is a lie. He’s trying to have it both ways because what he wants more than anything is a new Cold War with Russia. He is furious with Trump because Trump has said over and over again that he wants to have improved relations with Russia.

McCain just today released his own new defense budget: five years – five trillion dollar defense budget; a lot of that is aimed at Russia. It is great for the American military-industrial complex, which is what keeps John McCain in office. So that is one of the reasons he does this. One of the reasons why he cannot stand Donald Trump and he could not stand to have any change in Washington’s anti-Russia policies… If anyone is hurting American democracy, it’s people like John McCain and whoever hired this person to dig up this supposed dirt to create this dirt…

They’ve created the narrative that Trump is somehow in the pay of the Russians. Even Mike Morell, the [former] acting CIA Director, said the incoming President of the United States is an “agent of Putin.” This is unprecedented. They’ve established this to de-legitimize – whatever you think about Donald Trump, this is to de-legitimize him. Most people will remember the salacious details of this dossier; they won’t remember all the finer points about how it came about, McCain’s role in it. They don’t remember this; they remember the headlines. So I would say as a propaganda ploy this will probably be very successful.

RT: Why do you think in this case it kind of looks like McCain is even taking Trump’s side here?

DM: I don’t think he is taking Trump’s side at all because he made the point, he said this is “damning information.” He never said this is untrue, or this is not true, or this is a lie. He’s trying to have it both ways because what he wants more than anything is a new Cold War with Russia. He is furious with Trump because Trump has said over and over again that he wants to have improved relations with Russia.

McCain just today released his own new defense budget: five years – five trillion dollar defense budget; a lot of that is aimed at Russia. It is great for the American military-industrial complex, which is what keeps John McCain in office. So that is one of the reasons he does this. One of the reasons why he cannot stand Donald Trump and he could not stand to have any change in Washington’s anti-Russia policies… If anyone is hurting American democracy, it’s people like John McCain and whoever hired this person to dig up this supposed dirt to create this dirt…

They’ve created the narrative that Trump is somehow in the pay of the Russians. Even Mike Morrell, the acting CIA Director, said the incoming President of the United States is an “agent of Putin.” This is unprecedented. They’ve established this to de-legitimize – whatever you think about Donald Trump, this is to de-legitimize him. Most people will remember the salacious details of this dossier; they won’t remember all the finer points about how it came about, McCain’s role in it. They don’t remember this; they remember the headlines. So I would say as a propaganda ploy this will probably be very successful.