Democrats’ Status Report On Russia Drops Multiple Truth Bombs

From the very beginning, it was obvious the House Intelligence committee was divided between Republican obstructionists for Trump and the truth finding Democrats on the matter of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

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At any other time, that would read like partisan rhetoric. With the Trump presidency, everything is the reverse of what it seems.

The committee’s work is not, by any stretch of the imagination, finished. Key witnesses weren’t interviewed, relevant documents weren’t received – let alone reviewed.

Most of the testimony was private, something that would change should Democrats regain control of the House on Election Day.

Some witnesses used their imaginations to invent new privileges to shield them from answering questions. Others simply lied.

When Devin Nunes (who was supposedly recused from all matters involving Trump and Russia because he “may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct.” In other words, he was leaking info to Trump.

Nunes never should have had a role in this investigation because he was on Trump’s transition team and if that wasn’t a basis then his violation of the law and other standards was. In fact, he shouldn’t have been a member of the Intelligence committee once it was clear he was breaking the law.

This investigation stood zero chance of being done with the integrity that Americans have a right to demand of their government.

And while we’re at it, there is no draft committee report. There is a partisan report by Republicans. And that report isn’t worth the paper it was written on because the Republican members alone drafted the report and announced that the committee would conclude its investigation without involving the Democratic members.

Process matters. It can make the difference between sham findings on a sham proceeding and legitimate findings following an investigation that follows the rules.

This brings us to the Status Report on Russia by the Democratic members of the committee and its key points which coincide with events already reported by the media.

The report is as thorough as possible given that key witnesses that weren’t interviewed, people who should be subpoenaed were not. Suffice to say if this was about President Barack Obama or a President Hillary Clinton, this would have been done. Key documents were never received, let alone reviewed.

What part of this says a completed investigation?

Democrats dispute the GOP’s big talking point of “no collusion”. Ranking member, Adam Schiff, said in response to the Republicans’ draft report, he saw “significant evidence of collusion between the campaign and Russia.” While most will point to the fact that collusion is not a crime, conspiracy is. If there’s collusion, as Schiff says there is, then it is the committee’s responsibility to follow the evidence – not bury it in a word salad.

Even if one wants to argue that Russia’s interference in the election didn’t affect the results, there is a bigger concern here. If Russia and the Trump campaign conspired to manipulate voters and possibly voting data to Trump’s advantage, that would mean Russia has leverage over Trump. That would explain everything from Trump’s behavior towards our allies to his refusal to admit that Russia was behind the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter, in Britain.

It would explain why Trump routinely bashes Americans and our allies but has yet to say anything remotely negative about Vladimir Putin.

The Democrats report refers to evidence that “the Russians previewed the release” of the stolen DNC and Clinton emails to George Papadopoulos, one of several former Trump campaign and White House officials currently under indictment and or investigation by Robert Mueller.

As Ryan Goodman of Just Security wrote, it’s legally important to know what the Trump campaign did after the Russians previewed the emails.

If Trump campaign officials consulted with the Russians on their plans to disseminate the emails, it could involve direct violations of campaign finance laws (see the statement below from leading election law expert Paul Seamus Ryan). If Trump campaign officials gave tacitassent or approval or support, it could directly implicate them in the “conspiracy to defraud the United States” by evading the Federal Election Commission—the very conspiracy for which Mueller has already indicted thirteen Russian nationals).

Combine that with the fact that Roger Stone was in regular communications with Julian Assange of Wikileaks in 2016.

Tom Hamburger, Josh Dawsey, Carol D. Leonnig and Shane Harris of the Washington Post cite two sources who say that Stone learned from Assange that Wikileaks obtained emails that would “torment” senior Democrats including John Podesta.

“The conversation occurred before it was publicly known that hackers had obtained the emails of Podesta and of the Democratic National Committee, documents that WikiLeaks released in late July and October. The U.S. intelligence community later concluded that the hackers were working for Russia.”

What about the evidence pointing to Michael Flynn’s conspiracy with Russia to undermine the very sanctions Obama imposed in response to Russia’s interference in the election. Remember when Sean Spicer explained Flynn’s conversations with Russian officials away as Christmas greetings? That was before Flynn was fired, before he was investigated by Robert Mueller and before Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI.

Trump likes to talk about how we don’t have a country if we don’t have borders. The thing is we don’t have a country when Russia decides who will govern us and has more influence over our policies than our elected legislators do.

Another area of concern is the relationship between Russia, the NRA, the Republican Party oh and Donald Trump.

The Democrats’ report raises several disturbing points. First, the GOP refused to interview several key witnesses who, by coincidence have NRA links. The report names Cleta Mitchell, Maria Butina, Paul Erickson, Johnny Yenason. Also, the committee didn’t even ask from documents from Bridges LLC, which the report describes as “a South Dakota-registered entity steered by Paul Erickson and Maria Butina. Oh and Butina has ties to a pro-gun Russia organization called “Right to Bear Arms.”

The committee didn’t bother to investigate the Mercer company, Cambridge Analytica’s role or Trump’s social media operations, and their ties to Russia.

The committee neglected inquiry with Cendyn a cloud computing company that hosted the Trump organization. The company could shed light on the possibility that the Trump organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank shared a data link that transmitted large volumes of data during the election. This is one of those big red flags that one would only ignore if they have something to hide.

Then there’s the mystery surrounding ties by several in Trump’s circle to Peter Smith. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/peter-smith-gop-operative-who-sought-clinton-emails-committed-suicide-report/article/2628644

He was the man who sought to find, authenticate and release Hillary Clinton’s so-called “missing emails” and committed suicide back in July 2017. Some of the people identified as having ties to Peter Smith include Kellyanne Conway, John Szobocsan, the Estate of Peter Smith and KLS Research LLC.

Also, Breitbart writer Lee Stranahan was supposed to be subpoenaed. He is also employed by Russia’s state media outlet Sputnik.

Why didn’t he respond to the Committee’s interview and production letter and as importantly, why did Nunes decline to use his subpoena power?

The report identifies several remaining questions, some of which continue to be explored by the press.

The Trump campaign’s knowledge of the DNC email hack, and of Wikileak’s plan to disseminate these emails. From media reports, it’s obvious the Trump campaign via Roger Stone and Wikileaks had regular communications. It’s simply not believable that Roger Stone didn’t disclose the nature of his communications with Assange to the campaign or to Trump himself.

We still don’t know if Michael Flynn was directed to call the Russia ambassador about U.S. sanctions. Again, given what we know about Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, it’s impossible to believe that Flynn acted on his own accord.

We still don’t have answers about the extent to which social media was used to spread Russian disinformation and continues to be used. An intelligence committee that puts country first would want to investigate this and find ways to prevent the Russians from continued efforts to spread fake new.

We also need to know about Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, which is controlled by Vladimir Putin. We must have an answer to whether the Russian government courted Trump or laundered funds through the Trump organization. Similarly, whether money allegedly laundered by Paul Manafort and Rick Gates is a point of leverage through which Russia tried to benefit from or exploit to get access to Trump’s campaign.

The questions of potential obstruction of justice, such as with Trump’s firing of James Comey need answers.

This is not politics as usual, nor can it be reduced to partisanship. Trump’s cronies shut down the Intelligence committee investigation to provide Trump with a basis to shut down other investigations by the FBI and the person he fears most, Robert Mueller. In short, this could be part of Trump’s sequel to a Saturday night massacre.

The Democrats are rightfully determined to follow the facts where they lead – as any patriotic America would rightfully expect.

Adalia Woodbury

Former contributor.