Lee Smith Exposes Russia Gate as a Nonviolent Coup Attempt Against Donald Trump's Presidency

[00:02] After Donald Trump won the 2016

[00:04] election, Russia Gate, or the Trump

[00:06] Russia collusion hoax, should have

[00:09] disappeared into the dust bin of

[00:10] history. Just another dirty campaign

[00:12] trick that failed. That's what should

[00:15] have happened. But it didn't. Far from

[00:17] being dead, the baseless conspiracy

[00:19] theory that Trump was a Russian agent

[00:21] was revving up. If it failed to derail

[00:24] Donald Trump's candidacy, it could still

[00:26] derail his presidency. so believed

[00:29] outgoing President Barack Obama, CIA

[00:32] Director John Brennan, and FBI Director

[00:34] James Comey, among others. There was no

[00:37] time to waste. This was November, and

[00:39] Trump would take office at the end of

[00:41] January. The plotter's first move was to

[00:44] make a flashy display of expelling

[00:46] Russian diplomats and shutting down

[00:47] Russian intelligence gathering

[00:49] facilities in Maryland and New York.

[00:52] This conveyed the impression that the

[00:54] Obama administration had proof, as the

[00:56] New York Times put it, that the Russians

[00:59] had enabled the publication of the

[01:00] emails it harvested from the Clinton

[01:03] campaign to benefit Trump's campaign.

[01:06] The administration had no such proof. It

[01:09] was all for show. Around the same time,

[01:12] Obama ordered CIA Chief John Brennan to

[01:15] produce an intelligence community

[01:16] assessment, or a Russia's role in the

[01:20] election. It had to be done before the

[01:22] end of his term, that is before Trump's

[01:25] inauguration. But there was a problem.

[01:28] The intelligence officers assigned to

[01:30] the task couldn't find any evidence of

[01:33] significant Russian interference.

[01:35] Brennan rejected their report and

[01:37] ordered them to write a new one. The

[01:40] revised version conveniently presented

[01:42] unconfirmed rumor as fact. This revised

[01:47] a was released to the news media. They

[01:49] swallowed it whole. hook, line, and

[01:51] sinker. The problem wasn't just biased

[01:54] reporting, and it wasn't just that the

[01:57] media had missed the real story. How US

[01:59] intelligence agencies and the Obama

[02:01] White House were undermining the new

[02:03] administration. No, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN,

[02:08] the New York Times, and the Washington

[02:10] Post were essential players in the

[02:13] anti-Trump plot. Day after day, they

[02:16] published leaked intelligence slanted to

[02:18] advance the Russia gate narrative and

[02:20] destabilize the nent Trump

[02:22] administration. To site just one

[02:25] example, the Post targeted Trump's

[02:27] incoming national security adviser,

[02:29] Michael Flynn, and a January 2017

[02:32] article, the paper asserted that Flynn

[02:34] had spoken with the Russian ambassador.

[02:36] The story was sourced to a classified

[02:38] intelligence intercept, which someone

[02:41] had illegally leaked to the media. This

[02:43] should have been the big story, not

[02:45] Flynn's call. The presidential

[02:47] transition team is supposed to speak

[02:49] with foreign officials. But because

[02:52] Obama and his aids had created a frenzy

[02:54] around anything related to Russia, the

[02:56] media turned the Flynn story into a

[02:59] national crisis and the retired

[03:01] three-star general was forced from the

[03:03] White House. The drum beat of Russia

[03:05] stories continued nonstop. All built

[03:08] around two plot lines. that Russia got

[03:10] Trump elected and that Trump was

[03:12] beholden to Russia's president, Vladimir

[03:14] Putin. Democrats demanded a special

[03:17] counsel investigation into Russian

[03:19] interference in the election. Attorney

[03:22] General Jeff Sessions, who like Michael

[03:24] Flynn, had been accused of improper

[03:26] communications with a Russian diplomat,

[03:28] should have shut down any talk of such

[03:30] an investigation. Instead, he yielded to

[03:34] pressure. On May 17, 2017, Robert

[03:37] Mueller, the former director of the FBI,

[03:39] was appointed special counsel. Mueller

[03:41] hired a staff of nearly 60 people,

[03:44] including FBI agents, forensic

[03:47] accountants, and other personnel. This

[03:49] was in addition to 15 lawyers. The

[03:52] investigation ran for two years and cost

[03:54] over $30 million.

[03:57] Over 500 witnesses were interviewed,

[04:00] including 50 people connected to the

[04:02] Trump campaign. Many of the witnesses

[04:04] had to spend thousands, in some cases

[04:06] millions of dollars to defend

[04:08] themselves. Michael Flynn had to sell

[04:11] his house to pay his legal bills. 2800

[04:14] subpoenas were issued. Nearly 500 search

[04:18] and seizure warrants were executed. 230

[04:21] orders for communication records were

[04:23] obtained. And 13 requests for evidence

[04:26] were made to foreign governments. Leaks

[04:28] from Mueller's office dominated cable

[04:30] news 24/7. Network news shows barely

[04:34] covered anything else. Pundits

[04:36] pronounced the walls were closing in.

[04:39] All would soon be revealed. They claimed

[04:42] Trump was doomed. In the end, it all

[04:44] amounted to nothing. Mueller concluded

[04:47] that there had been no criminal

[04:48] conspiracy between Trump and Putin.

[04:50] Aside from buying a few hundred,000

[04:53] worth of Facebook ads, the Kremlin

[04:55] hadn't done much of anything. Contrary

[04:58] to the media narrative, the CIA's own

[05:00] intelligence suggested that the Russians

[05:02] preferred Clinton to Trump. She was a

[05:05] known commodity. They didn't know what

[05:07] to expect from the Republican and

[05:08] assumed like everyone else did that

[05:11] Clinton would win. Russia Gate was

[05:13] conjured out of thin air. The Clinton

[05:16] campaign and Obama's inner circle

[05:18] promoted it and the media relentlessly

[05:21] amplified that narrative. Russia Gate

[05:23] was in essence a nonviolent coup

[05:26] attempt, a brazen plan to overthrow a

[05:29] dulyeleed president. The scary thing is

[05:33] it almost succeeded. I'm Lee Smith,

[05:36] author of The Plot Against the President

[05:38] for Prager University. Thank you for

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