President Donald Trump, right, accompanied by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks to members of the media as they arrive for a dinner at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Back in 2017 and 2018 as word began to leak out about the extraordinary surveillance…and equally extraordinary lack of a defensive briefing to candidate Trump…some people became convinced that we were seeing the work of a highly politicized and partisan intelligence apparatus working to defeat Donald Trump’s attempt to be president and then, when he won, one could see the same apparatus begin an attempt to force him from office.

Of course, the Vichy Republicans would hear nothing at all of this. To hear them tell it, everything was completely above board because the Obama regime would simply never do something wrong and the intelligence community would never ever break rules or lie to please their political masters.

The Mueller report left several rather large and surly gorillas in various corners. How did a hear-say report of a bullsh** session in a bar constitute probable cause to open any kind of investigation? Who did Christopher Steele talk to? What was the role of Bruce Ohr’s wife, Nellie? How did a Russian lawyer who had been banned from the US get permission to enter? Why did that lawyer meet with Fusion GPS honcho Glenn Simpson before and after the Trump Tower meeting? What about those leaks? What kind of validation was the Steel dossier given? How did a long time FBI informant end up being portrayed as a potential Russian contact? Why was there no mention of Fusion GPS’s links to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and why is there no mention that Deripaska had a relationship with the FBI? Why did the FBI at first dispute John Brennan’s characterization of Russia’s goals in the 2016 election meddling and then meekly roll over for him?

Yesterday, Attorney General Bill Barr wondered aloud about he provenance of the dossier:

Sen. John Cornyn: "Can we state with confidence that the Steele dossier was not part of the Russian disinformation campaign?" AG Barr: "No, I can't state that with confidence, and that is one of the areas that I'm reviewing." #BarrHearing https://t.co/cPdENpWzeg pic.twitter.com/NeWHuD3nta — The Hill (@thehill) May 1, 2019

This, of course, calls into question what the FBI and the CIA knew and when they knew it and if they were complicit in using a Russian information operations document and using it to create an investigation of a presidential campaign and a president. And Barr expressed some skepticism that we know the totality of the FBI’s efforts.

Barr also suggested the FBI counterintelligence probe into Russian interference would've been "a fairly anemic effort" if it only involved using an informant (Halper) and the FISA warrant, so he's examining what else the bureau did. https://t.co/gyKXXWTntS — Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) May 1, 2019

Now the stench has become so overpowering that even people who have a vested interest in protecting the status quo and not upsetting figurative apple carts are saying the obvious. There was an apparent scheme afoot to remove a duly elected president.

Here is House Minority Leade–and Speaker-in-Exile–Kevin McCarthy at a Washington Post event. The disembodied head he’s talking to is Robert Costa.

Start at 0:56. COSTA: Congressman Meadows was here, and others have talked about the President’s language. He uses the word “coup.” “Coup attempt.” That’s how he described the investigation. It was not only a hoax, but it was an attempt to have a coup d’etat of his own administration. Do you share that perspective that President Trump has? McCARTHY: I don’t think it’s President Trump’s. I think when you read the texts between individuals they use it as well. I believe, yes, a few individuals wanted… COSTA: They don’t use the word “coup.” McCARTHY: Their actions are a coup. COSTA: Their actions are a coup attempt? McCARTHY: Yeah. Very much so.

This is pretty strong stuff and it is very justified. From Bill Barr’s comments, it is clear that he has some of the same concerns. While this may not have started out as anything more than a way of sandbagging Trump’s presidential campaign, it is clear that it morphed rapidly into a means of getting rid of Trump. For instance, there is no way in hell that any part of the collusion hoax wasn’t known to be false no later than the day that Mueller was appointed special counsel. So why did the investigation drag on for two years? To show due diligence? Or to create Volume Two for use by a Democrat House committee?

I think the next three or four months are going to be some of the most amazing in American political history as the IG report is presented, as leak investigations are finalized, and as Barr makes decisions on how to deal with the prime movers in this grotesque narrative: Brennan and Comey.

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