Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, April 8, 2019
The Mueller report’s conclusion of no Trump-Russia collusion contradicted a story line in which the Democrat Party and its corporate media partners were heavily invested.
That media narrative was pushed not by fringe voices but by The New York Times, CNN and most other establishment print, electronic and digital platforms. Americans were told on a 24/7 basis for more than two years, that President Donald Trump and his aides likely conspired with the Kremlin during the 2016 election campaign.
Little attention was paid to the a different collusion theory, parts of which are thoroughly documented by court filings, investigative reports citing a Pentagon whistleblower and documents obtained by the legal watchdog group Judicial Watch.
In his book “Deep State Target”, former Trump aide George Papadopoulos said he was targeted by the FBI and Western intelligence. The FBI dispatched a spy, longtime Washington academic and advisory figure Stefan Halper, to induce him into committing a crime, Papadopoulos alleges.
The MSM largely ignored the Halper story.
Papadopoulos tweeted on April 6: “Deep state asset, Stefan Halper, paid me $3,000; tried to have a honey pot seduce me; and wanted to know my work in Israel and the energy business in general. Mueller then threatens to charge me as an Israeli agent. Who sent this guy and why?”
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI because, according to a court filing, at the time he was being considered for a spot on the White House National Security Council staff. He served two weeks in prison.
After he was identified as an FBI informant in 2018, Halper “has remained out of sight,” Washington Times reporter Rowan Scarborough noted.
Related: Pentagon official exposed not only Halper’s role but his links to Russian intelligence, Aug. 28, 2018
“Trump supporters say that if election collusion happened, then it was done by the Democrats who paid (Christopher) Steele $160,000 to obtain information from Kremlin intelligence sources and then inject the allegations into the American political and law enforcement process” via the unverified anti-Trump dossier, Scarborough said.
Meanwhile, Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican, told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” that he is preparing to send 8 criminal referrals to the Justice Department this week concerning leaks of “highly classified material” and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the FISA court.
Nunes, who did not divulge any names included in the referrals, said he has been working on the criminal referrals for over two years, but waited until Bill Barr was confirmed as attorney general to make his move.
“We’re prepared this week to notify the attorney general that we’re prepared to send those referrals over,” Nunes said. “First of all, all of these are classified or sensitive. … Five of them are what I would call straight up referrals – so just referrals that name someone and name the specific crimes. Those crimes are lying to Congress, misleading Congress, leaking classified information. So five of them are those types.”
Nunes added: “There are three [referrals] that I think are more complicated. … So on the first one, is FISA abuse and other matters. We believe there was a conspiracy to lie to the FISA court, mislead the FISA court by numerous individuals that all need to be investigated and looked at that, and we believe the [relevant] statute is the conspiracy statute. The second conspiracy one is involving manipulation of intelligence that also could ensnarl many Americans.”
Nunes continued: “The third is what I would call a global leak referral. So there are about a dozen highly sensitive classified information leaks that were given to only a few reporters over the last two-and-a-half-plus years. So you know, we don’t know if there’s actually been any leak investigations that have been opened, but we do believe that we’ve got pretty good information and a pretty good idea of who could be behind these leaks.”
Your Intel Brief: Geostrategy-Direct __________ Fix The Media Now