When the 2016 presidential election ended, the media somehow found the time to expose one of the greatest scandals of that or any other election cycle: active efforts of the Democratic National Committee favoring Hillary Clinton’s nomination and undermining the campaign of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Now it appears that former interim DNC Chairman Donna Brazile’s revelations about her party’s interference in the primaries may only have been a small taste of what really happened. The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee may also have been part of a broad effort to undermine Trump that involved the FBI, the Department of Justice, intelligence agencies, and—irony of ironies!—Russian spies. This anti-Trump cabal has escaped public notice almost entirely, given the media’s obsession with the transparently false narrative of Trump-Russia collusion.
This is all the more reason why Attorney General Jeff Sessions needs to shine a light on this outrageous and potentially criminal conduct.
Although there are many indicators of election meddling on the part of the Left, the most important is the existence of the so-called Steele Dossier, a compilation of unflattering facts, pseudo-facts, and blatant fabrications designed to undermine the Presidential campaign of Donald Trump. The dossier was the work of British spy-for-hire Christopher Steele, paid for initially by anti-Trump conservatives. Later, the DNC and the Clinton campaign bankrolled Steele’s efforts, and the dossier, to the tune of millions of dollars. The dossier was shopped around to various media outlets, which, to their credit, mostly scoffed at its contents.
The FBI, however, took the dossier seriously enough to use it to begin an investigation of the Trump campaign and to obtain a warrant against Trump associate Carter Page. The FBI even offered to pay Steele to continue his work. And from where did the most salacious and bogus claims in the dossier come? Russian spies supplied these tidbits, in exchange for cash from Steele, who ultimately received funding from Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.
Now, opposition research is perfectly legitimate. Paying the agents of a foreign state to reveal and/or concoct damaging information about one’s political adversary, however, is manifestly unethical, and it remains an open question whether the Democrats or the Clinton campaign committed crimes in the course of their effort to discredit and defeat Trump. That the party which engaged in this outrageous behavior would then turn around and baselessly accuse its opponents of doing the same thing is, well, breathtaking in its audacity.
Problem is, Democrats are set to get away with one of the greatest lies and most egregious acts of election meddling in American history. Like skilled conjurers, they have misdirected the attention of the American people towards the Trump-Russia hoax and away from their own misdeeds. They have pressed for a special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, who is charged with investigating Republican malfeasance exclusively. And they have fostered, with their allies in the media, a climate in which any and all accusations against Trump are assumed to be truthful while dismissing or ignoring similar claims against Democrats.
Absent a concerted effort by Republicans, the Left’s collusion with Russian spies, and its shameless election meddling, will go uninvestigated and certainly unpunished.
Democrats are right in one sense. This whole affair, including the debate over impeachment, is essentially a political matter. When and if the American people and their representatives decide that President Trump should be impeached, he will be. Whether he is actually innocent of any crime is beside the point.
Likewise, the question of whether the Democrats acted inappropriately in undermining the Trump campaign with false information obtained from Russian spies is essentially a political question. It is political in the sense that the only consequences that could dissuade Democrats from doing the same thing again consist of damage to their party or to its electoral prospects. If by contrast, no one cares that the Left solicited smears from foreign agents, then they will continue to do so, and they will do even worse, in order to advance their agenda of taking down Trump, and with him as many Republicans as possible.
For this reason, Attorney General Jeff Sessions must appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the election meddling of the Clinton campaign, the DNC, the Obama Administration, the FBI, the Obama Justice Department, U.S. intelligence agencies, Christopher Steele, and Russian spies. Not only do we need to know the truth about these activities, we also need to ensure that the American public understands the breadth and seriousness of their efforts to influence an election. We need to refocus the nation’s attention, at a time when the media is dead set against pursuing any storyline that does not support its declared mission of destroying Trump.
In short, we need a special prosecutor who will root out all efforts to undermine our electoral system, regardless of party. We need a champion of law and order, of fidelity to the constitution, of simple decency in the face of political skulduggery, and we need him now.