Newly declassified FBI files have further confirmed that the real “collusion” scandal surrounding the 2016 election didn’t take place between Russia and the Trump campaign, but between top Obama White House officials, Hillary Clinton campaign staffers, congressional Democrats, and a blatantly weaponized intelligence community.
As most readers will well remember, the Democrat-media machine claimed that then-candidate Donald Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. But years of investigations – including the exhaustive Mueller probe – found no evidence of collusion.
In reality, the actual scandal was how the “Russiagate investigation” came about in the first place. The allegations against Trump were built on the now-discredited Steele Dossier, a Clinton-funded opposition research hit job that was used to justify the Obama FBI spying on Trump’s campaign. Ultimately, Russiagate was exposed as a hoax: an abuse of power by partisan actors in government and media who weaponized false allegations to try to undermine a duly elected president.
But until now, the exact names of many of those involved have been kept from the public – thus shielding bad actors from accountability. However, a new report from RealClearInvestigations (RCI) alleges that, based on recently declassified FBI documents, there is now sufficient evidence to believe that allies of disgraced ex-FBI Director James Comey and California Senator Adam Schiff leaked classified information to friendly reporters at The New York Times and The Washington Post.
That classified information – which was itself based on fake intelligence – fueled Pulitzer-winning stories that falsely portrayed Donald Trump as a Kremlin pawn. As RCI reports, while the identities of the leakers have long been hidden, an analysis of the documents strongly suggests that people close to Comey and Schiff, among others, were feeding reporters information to advance the Russiagate hoax.
One of the most striking disclosures involves Schiff, who notably led Democrats’ first failed impeachment effort against Trump while he was still a member of the House. FBI interview summaries reviewed by RCI show that a longtime committee staffer told agents that Schiff personally authorized releasing classified information to damage Trump. Although the name is redacted, multiple sources told RCI the staffer was Robert Minehart, a veteran aide who had served Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee since 2005.
The informant alleged that Schiff told aides to create a “Russia team” in early 2017. Its purpose was to leak material that could “topple the administration.” The staffer even said he documented a February 2017 meeting where Schiff allegedly gave the order by emailing himself a memo the next day.
The FBI files describe Schiff staff members allegedly passing leaks through spouses and friends to obscure the source, a practice that blurred the lines between congressional oversight and partisan media operations. Schiff has “categorically” denied the allegation, with his office dismissing the informant as a “disgruntled former staffer.” But FBI records show the individual made his claims while still employed, and colleagues vouched for his professionalism.
The allegations fit Schiff’s posture at the time. As the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee during the beginnings of Russiagate, he became a fixture on television arguing that Trump was compromised, playing a very public role in a Democrat-media hoax that hung like a dark cloud over the first three years of Trump’s presidency.
Also, according to RCI, Comey allies, including former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, arranged several “investigator-level” briefings with Times editors in spring 2017 where classified information was discussed.
The resulting coverage flatteringly portrayed Comey as “by the book” and above politics, even though later investigations found serious misconduct in both the Clinton email probe and the Trump-Russia investigation.
The classified material that Comey and Schiff staffers allegedly leaked to the media played a pivotal role in propping up the fake Russiagate narrative. The New York Times and The Washington Post were the primary outlets responsible for repeating every lie illegally fed to them by intelligence agency officials and Democrat staffers as gospel truth – coverage for which they received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. As many critics have noted, the outlets have not corrected the record or identified the officials who misled them and the public.
The FBI, meanwhile, opened seven leak investigations in 2017, targeting figures from Schiff and fellow California Democrat Eric Swalwell to senior Obama officials. None led to prosecutions. But those investigations – led by some of the same individuals who were allegedly involved in releasing the classified information in the first place – limited subpoenas, ignored encrypted apps, and gave lawmakers a pass for potentially breaking the law under an astonishingly loose interpretation of the “speech or debate” clause of the Constitution. The bureau effectively hobbled its own investigations to protect insiders.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reopened the issue by declassifying hundreds of pages of FBI files, bringing Russiagate back into the public eye.
But the legacy outlets which once drove the Russiagate hoax have offered little coverage of these new disclosures – even though they more than anyone else have a responsibility to correct the record. The Post and Times, which had no problem receiving Pulitzers for their reporting, have been totally silent.
But while the editorial boards of those papers have been mute, former reporters have not. Ex-Washington Post reporter Susan Schmidt told RCI that the new documents are “slam-dunk evidence of a conspiracy.” Former Times Pulitzer winner Jeff Gerth, meanwhile, argued that the press refuses to revisit its coverage because doing so would be seen as helping Trump.
Regardless, the true legacy of Russiagate is the wreckage left behind: the erosion of public trust in elections, the FBI, and the press. The real collusion had nothing to do with Russia at all, but had everything to do with public servants who abused their power to illegally leak fake intelligence to the press to try to rig an election – and it almost worked.
The danger now is that Washington shrugs and moves on, as it has with so many other scandals. Massive breaches of trust are exposed, yet no one in power pays a real price. If the officials and enablers behind it skate free, the damage will deepen. Americans will conclude, with reason, that there are two systems of justice — one for insiders, and one for everyone else.
Accountability matters now more than ever. The declassified files give us a roadmap. Whether prosecutors have the courage to follow it will determine if the country sees long-overdue perp walks, or just another cover-up to protect the powerful.
Sarah Katherine Sisk is a proud Hillsdale College alumna and a master’s student in economics at George Mason University. You can follow her on X @SKSisk76.
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