Let’s begin in the realm of the fanciful.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that powerful, connected people in the intelligence community and in politics worried that a wildcard Trump presidency, unlike another Clinton or Bush, might expose a decade-plus of questionable practices. Disrupt long-established money channels. Reveal secret machinations that could arguably land some people in prison.
What exactly might an “insurance policy” against Donald Trump look like?
He would have to be marginalized at every turn. Strategies would encompass politics, the courts, opposition research and the media. He’d have to become mired in lawsuits, distracted by allegations, riddled with calls for impeachment, hounded by investigations. His election must be portrayed as the illegitimate result of a criminal or un-American conspiracy.
To accomplish this, bad actors in the intel community could step up use of surveillance tools as a weapon to look for dirt on Trump before his inauguration. They could rely on dubious political opposition research to secretly argue for wiretaps, plant one or more spies in the Trump campaign, then leak to the press a mix of true and false stories to create a sense of chaos.
Once Trump is in office, a good insurance policy would call for neutralizing the advisers seen as most threatening, including his attorney general. The reigning FBI director could privately send the implicit message that as long as Trump minds his own business, he won’t be named as a target. When the president asks the FBI director to lift the cloud and tell the public their president isn’t under investigation, the FBI director could demur and allow a storm of innuendo to build. Idle chatter benefits the plot. There would be rampant media leaks, both true and false, but none of them would benefit Trump.
All would be well unless the president removes the FBI director. Then, a rider on the insurance policy would kick in. After months of assuring Trump he’s not under investigation, he must now become a focus to keep him away from the Justice Department and the FBI; once an investigation opens, all of Trump’s attempts to affect policy or to dig into allegations against the intelligence community could be portrayed as obstruction of justice.
How to open an investigation after all these months? Appoint a special counsel. (Easy to get the right one, with Trump’s attorney general out of the way.) How to get public and congressional support for a special counsel? Through a partnership between the fired FBI director and the media; he could secretly leak to The New York Times anti-Trump versions of memos he wrote, inventing the pretext for a special counsel probe. The chosen special counsel should be an insider with his own legacy to protect. Anti-Trump FBI officials who secretly vowed to “stop” Trump could be assigned to the investigation.
As crazy as it all sounds, it becomes slightly more plausible when we examine the record and find self-described conspiracies to develop “insurance policies.”
On Aug. 15, 2016, after FBI counterespionage chief Peter Strzok and his FBI girlfriend Lisa Page met with Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Strzok texted Page that they couldn’t take the risk of Trump getting elected without having “an insurance policy” in place.
Another figure, Benjamin Wittes, chose the same phrase. In October 2016, in his Lawfare blog, Wittes wrote: “What if Trump wins? We need an insurance policy against the unthinkable: Donald Trump’s actually winning the Presidency.”
As it happens, Wittes has acknowledged being a good friend of fired FBI Director James Comey. It’s not hard to imagine that the two men share some beliefs, and even discussed some of the issues involved. In fact, Wittes spoke to a New York Times reporter about Comey’s interactions with President Trump, right after Robert Mueller‘s appointment as special counsel.
So, in his 2016 blog post, Wittes wrote that his vision of an “insurance policy” against Trump would rely on a “Coalition of All Democratic Forces” to challenge and obstruct Trump, using the courts as a “tool” and Congress as “a partner or tool.” He even mentioned impeachment — two weeks before Trump was elected.
This appears be a plagiarized copy of an article written by Sharyl Attkisson
It appears a lot of people were really worried about Trump becoming President despite the fact that ALL the polls projected a massive Hillary blowout. Time and time again, the media reported there was no possible Electoral College path for Trump.
Were they wrong… or lying?
If they were lying, everyone… the media, the administration, the FBI… everyone knew the REAL likelihood that Hillary might lose and a non-club member could very well be the next President of the United States, and he might not play the game. THAT’S a conspiracy in and of itself. True, this has exposed the liberal corruption of the IC, DOJ, FBI and, of course, the media, but there is a vast, yet unexposed, part of the government where both parties agree to only pretend to disagree and only they things get done that enriches them both.
Trump has the opportunity to turn this nation back into what it was supposed to be instead of an exclusive club. THEY need an “insurance policy” to prevent that from happening.
@Deplorable me: DM, please check out this site. https://apelbaum.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/the-mechanics-of-deception/
It is mind numbing in many ways. It is long and requires only adept scholars to fully understand. (This eliminates several people who post here.) It is unbelievable in the scope of the investigation. Apelbaum connects all of the dots. He identified all of the people. He showed their relationships. He even identified their writing patterns to the Trump dossier. I have read it 3 times and every time I see additional information. Nunes needs to follow up on this. It is very damning.
@Randy: Trying to keep up with the characters and machinations involved in this act of sedition is daunting.
I think that’s called propaganda.
@Deplorable me:
fake news on the slut’s win. demorats in FL new the slut was gong to loose two weeks before the election