Russiagate: The Real Scandal, Part 1 | 5-Minute Videos

It’s the biggest political scandal in US history. Millions were led to believe that a presidential candidate was a secret Russian agent. The media ran with it. Intelligence officials fueled it. But behind the headlines was something even more alarming. Lee Smith, author of The Plot Against the President, tells the story.

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Transcript:
Russiagate: The Real Scandal, Part 1
Presented by Lee Smith

It’s the biggest political scandal in US history. There’s no close second.

Looking back, it all seems almost unbelievable — absurd. But at the time, millions were convinced that the 2016 Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump, was secretly working for Russia.

This was the Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax or “Russiagate,” a label borrowed from the 1970s Watergate scandal.

The instigators of this deception were not foreign adversaries. They were domestic actors—a presidential campaign, senior intelligence officials, and, perhaps most importantly, powerful media outlets.

They all shared the same goal: defeat Donald Trump and elect Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party candidate.

Ironically, what became Russiagate began as an “insurance policy” to protect Clinton.

While serving as secretary of state, Clinton used a private, unsecured email server for official business — a clear violation of federal record-keeping rules and a serious national security risk. In 2015, the FBI opened an investigation.

Clinton’s advisors knew this could become an election-threatening scandal. If it blew up, she needed a way to redirect attention — away from her own misconduct and toward her opponent.

Among those who helped develop this strategy were senior members of President Barack Obama’s national security circle, including CIA Director John Brennan.

The strategy came to be known as the “Clinton Plan.” The idea was straightforward: if Clinton’s emails became a liability, media attention would be redirected to the supposed culprit who stole and leaked the emails: Russia. And why would Russia steal them and make them public? To help Donald Trump win. Because, the story went, they supposedly had compromising material with which to blackmail him.

To construct this narrative, the Clinton team hired a former British intelligence officer named Christopher Steele.

Even a cursory glimpse into Steele’s past would have revealed that he was not to be trusted. A “spy for hire” of dubious credibility, he had worked both for the FBI and London-based Russian oligarchs—and he made no secret of his hatred for Donald Trump.

Steele produced a collection of sensational memos — the now infamous Steele Dossier. It contained lurid and unverified claims.

Still, the idea that one of the world’s most famous businessmen — now the Republican nominee for president — was secretly a Russian intelligence asset was irresistible to Trump’s political opponents. That — sadly — included most of the media. Never mind that Trump’s celebrity-studded career in television, real estate and casinos meant he was under constant scrutiny. Steele’s material gave Clinton’s team exactly what they wanted: a salacious narrative that could dominate the headlines.

In early July 2016, Clinton’s worst fears materialized. At a highly publicized press conference, FBI Director James Comey announced the findings of the FBI’s investigation: emails containing classified information were found on her unsecured server, a national security violation. Comey declined to recommend prosecution but described Clinton’s conduct as “extremely careless.”

It was a public relations disaster. But the Clinton team was ready. Articles based on Steele’s dossier began to seep into media outlets like The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and Slate, alleging Trump had secret ties to Russia.

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