Russiagate: The Real Scandal, Part 1 by PragerU

[00:02] It's the biggest political scandal in US

[00:04] history. There's no close second.

[00:07] Looking back, it all seems almost

[00:09] unbelievable, absurd. But at the time,

[00:12] millions were convinced that the 2016

[00:14] Republican candidate for president,

[00:16] Donald Trump, was secretly working for

[00:18] Russia. This was the Trump Russia

[00:21] collusion hoax, or Russia gate, a label

[00:24] borrowed from the 1970s Watergate

[00:26] scandal. The instigators of this

[00:28] deception were not foreign adversaries.

[00:31] They were domestic actors, a

[00:33] presidential campaign, senior

[00:35] intelligence officials, and perhaps most

[00:37] importantly, powerful media outlets.

[00:40] They all shared the same goal, defeat

[00:42] Donald Trump and elect Hillary Clinton,

[00:44] the Democratic Party candidate.

[00:47] Ironically, what became Russia Gate

[00:49] began as an insurance policy to protect

[00:52] Clinton. While serving as Secretary of

[00:54] State, Clinton used a private unsecured

[00:57] email server for official business, a

[00:59] clear violation of federal recordkeeping

[01:02] rules and a serious national security

[01:05] risk. In 2015, the FBI opened an

[01:08] investigation. Clinton's advisers knew

[01:11] this could become an electionthreatening

[01:13] scandal. If it blew up, she needed a way

[01:16] to redirect attention away from her own

[01:18] misconduct and toward her opponent.

[01:21] Among those who helped develop this

[01:23] strategy were senior members of

[01:24] President Barack Obama's national

[01:26] security circle, including CIA Director

[01:29] John Brennan. The strategy came to be

[01:32] known as the Clinton Plan. The idea was

[01:35] straightforward. If Clinton's emails

[01:37] became a liability, media attention

[01:39] would be redirected to the supposed

[01:42] culprit who stole and leaked the emails,

[01:45] Russia. And why would Russia steal them

[01:47] and make them public? To help Donald

[01:49] Trump win. Because the story went, they

[01:51] supposedly had compromising material

[01:54] with which to blackmail him. To

[01:56] construct this narrative, the Clinton

[01:58] team hired a former British intelligence

[02:00] officer named Christopher Steel. Even a

[02:03] cursory glimpse into Steel's past would

[02:05] have revealed that he was not to be

[02:07] trusted. They spy for hire of dubious

[02:10] credibility. He had worked both for the

[02:12] FBI and Londonbased Russian oligarchs,

[02:16] and he made no secret of his hatred for

[02:18] Donald Trump. Steel produced a

[02:20] collection of sensational memos, the now

[02:23] infamous Steel dossier. It contained

[02:25] lurid and unverified claims. Still, the

[02:28] idea that one of the world's most famous

[02:30] businessmen, now the Republican nominee

[02:33] for president, was secretly a Russian

[02:35] intelligence asset, was irresistible to

[02:37] Trump's political opponents. That sadly

[02:40] included most of the media. Never mind

[02:43] that Trump's celebritystudded career in

[02:45] television, real estate, and casinos

[02:47] meant that he was under constant

[02:49] scrutiny. Steel's material gave

[02:51] Clinton's team exactly what they wanted.

[02:54] A salacious narrative that could

[02:56] dominate the headlines. In early July

[02:59] 2016, Clinton's worst fears

[03:02] materialized. At a highly publicized

[03:04] press conference, FBI Director James

[03:07] Comey announced the findings of the

[03:09] FBI's investigation.

[03:11] Emails containing classified information

[03:14] were found on her unsecured server, a

[03:17] national security violation. Comey

[03:20] declined to recommend prosecution, but

[03:22] described Clinton's conduct as extremely

[03:26] careless. It was a public relations

[03:28] disaster, but the Clinton team was

[03:31] ready. Articles based on Steel's dossier

[03:33] began to seep into media outlets like

[03:36] The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and Slate,

[03:38] alleging Trump had secret ties to

[03:40] Russia. Then, shortly before the

[03:42] Democratic Party convention, a second PR

[03:45] disaster rocked the Clinton campaign.

[03:48] Wikileaks, an internet site popular with

[03:50] hackers, published embarrassing internal

[03:52] emails from the Democratic National

[03:54] Committee. The messages revealed

[03:56] favoritism toward Clinton over her

[03:58] Democratic rival, Vermont Senator Bernie

[04:01] Sanders. Embarrassing to say the least.

[04:04] Clinton's team, backed by a sympathetic

[04:06] press, claimed that Russia was behind

[04:09] the hack to help Trump. Wikileaks

[04:12] founder Julian Assange adamantly denied

[04:14] this. Nobody cared. The story was too

[04:17] hot. All anyone could talk about was

[04:19] Trump and Russia. Apart from the media

[04:22] madness, something else was happening.

[04:25] The FBI was using the bogus steel

[04:27] dossier and news reports based on it to

[04:30] justify surveillance of Trump's

[04:32] campaign. Just weeks before the November

[04:34] 2016 election, FBI Director James Comey

[04:38] obtained a warrant to monitor the phone

[04:40] calls, emails, and text messages of the

[04:43] Republican candidate and his adviserss.

[04:45] It was in effect a digital break-in, an

[04:48] updated version of Watergate. But this

[04:50] time, the perpetrators were not rogue

[04:52] operatives. They were senior officials

[04:54] within US intelligence and law

[04:56] enforcement, using taxpayer resources to

[04:59] spy on a presidential campaign. And

[05:01] highlevel figures in the Obama

[05:03] administration knew all about it.

[05:05] Brennan's own handwritten notes confirm

[05:07] that he briefed the president on the

[05:10] Clinton plan. And that perhaps is the

[05:13] real scandal of Russia gate, a sitting

[05:15] president authorizing or at least

[05:17] permitting an espionage operation

[05:19] against the opposition party's

[05:21] candidate. Of course, no one would have

[05:23] known anything about this had Clinton

[05:25] won as almost everyone expected, but she

[05:28] didn't. And so Russia Gate didn't end

[05:30] with the election. It was just getting

[05:33] started. I'm Lee Smith, author of The

[05:36] Plot Against the President for Prager

[05:38] University. Thank you for watching this

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