Made up all along, they and everyone who pushed the story have to keep pretending it's real, or else they'll expose a scandal that will make Watergate look like shoplifting
What if 'collusion with Russia' was manufactured by Obama's DOJ to justify wiretapping Paul Manafort?
Let me state right at the outset: I don't believe in conspiracies. They're implausible to organize and impossible to pull off in a city where no one has any real loyalty and no one can keep their mouths shut.
Massive lies sold to the American public are not the result of powerful people gathering in a room, hatching a plan and then protecting their secret with their lives. That's not possible. It's also not necessary. The Beltway is a community of followers, and no one is more guilty of serial following than the establishment news media, their protests to the contrary notwithstanding. All you have to do is establish a narrative you successfully position as respectable - even if it's a total lie - and they will push it for you. You don't have to send them instructions to do so. They will just do it because it's what they do.
Two stories that are beginning to intersect rather uncomfortably
When people are easily manipulated, you don't bring them into the inner circle and trust them to be part of your plan. You don't need to. You just manipulate them, and watch as they respond to your cues every single time.
This brings us two stories that are beginning to intersect rather uncomfortably.
The notion - alleged for more than a year but still lacking in any real evidence - that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to tip the election
The revelation this week that the FBI wiretapped Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, and that suspicion of his collusion with Russia was the reason given to the FISA court that authorized the wiretap.
Let's make some observations about all this:
When President Trump tweeted earlier in the year that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower, the entire Beltway establishment, including the media, treated this like an absolutely outlandish claim. Yet Manafort lives in Trump Tower, and the FBI wiretapped him. The claim was almost certainly true. Yet even today, they're trying to say the newly brought-to-light facts don't justify Trump's claim. Nonsense. Of course they do. Yet the Beltway media are terrified to acknowledge this.
Multiple investigations into "collusion with Russia" have turned up absolutely nothing to substantiate the notion that this happened. The work of special counsel Robert Mueller is continuing, but so far there is not even a shred of evidence to back up the idea. Yet the idea continues to be treated as if it's a serious notion.
A Democratic administration wiretapped the chairman of the Republican presidential nominee's campaign, not only during the campaign but after Election Day. Do you know what Watergate was about? It was about the Committee to Re-Elect the President sending burglars into the Watergate Hotel to plant listening devices in the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Other than the fact that the parties are switched, what's the difference? Probable cause of criminal activity, you say?
Made up a crime they knew didn't exist, all so they could get a wiretap warrant to listen in on their political opponents
But what probable cause was there really? Manafort had lots of contact with Russia in his background, because he had business interests there. That is neither criminal nor particularly unusual. What exactly was it about these connections that amounted to probable cause and justified a FISA warrant?
We don't know. We don't know who approved the initial FISA application. We don't know who approved the extension of it after it expired following the election. We don't know the evidence that was presented or the rationale that was offered for why this demonstrated Manafort might be acting as an agent of a foreign state.
Which means we don't have the information we would need to eliminate the following possibility: The Obama Justice Department never really believed the Trump campaign was "colluding with Russia," nor did they really believe Paul Manafort was involved in anything criminal. They simply wanted to do what Richard Nixon did, but with a legal rationale to cover themselves and make it appear it was part of a legitimate criminal investigation.
In other words, they made up a crime they knew didn't exist, all so they could get a wiretap warrant to listen in on their political opponents.
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Why is the Beltway doubling down on these increasingly flimsy narratives?
Do I really believe this? I'm starting to.
We haven't seen any real evidence to justify the suspicion that led to the original FISA warrant. And the DOJ won't answer any of Congress's questions about how this process came about or why, or who was involved with it.
But the Beltway remains committed to two notions, both of which are quickly unraveling:
That the Russia collusion story is based on anything substantive whatsoever.
That Trump was wrong about Trump Tower being wiretapped.
Why are they doubling down on these increasingly flimsy narratives?
Remember I told you at the start: You don't need a conspiracy to get all of Washington to pitch a lie to the public. You just have to get the Beltway crowd to believe that a certain narrative is the acceptable way to think. There are lots of reasons official Washington would love these storylines. They look bad for Trump. They provide fodder for leaks. They justify an independent counsel investigation that can cast a pall over the administration for years. And they make Democrats look like the ones who are tough on Russia, when just five years ago Barack Obama was whispering to Dmitri Medvedev that he would be "flexible" with them as soon as he was safely past this pesky last election he had to deal with.
Media accomplices in a massive lie sold to the American people
What if it becomes apparent now that the whole thing was a charade? That no one ever really believed "collusion with Russia" was a thing, but it was saleable and it gave the Obama DOJ - the same people who whitewashed Hillary's felonious e-mail practices - the pretext they were looking for to bug Trump's campaign manager? Is there a risk of this being once and for all exposed?
The manufacturers of this fiction may very well think there's not much, for the simple reason that the Beltway media become as invested in their own narratives as politicians do in theirs. CNN doesn't want to admit it chased this story for more than a year and it was all phony. MSNBC doesn't want to admit that. Neither to the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC or the Worst Web Site in the World. They'll look like chumps and liars and fools. Worse, they'll look like accomplices in a massive lie sold to the American people.
Because that's exactly what they would be.
Is "collusion with Russia" real? Did it ever actually happen? If so, where's the proof? Did the FBI really think it was going on? If so, how did they sell it to the FISA court? Or did Manafort's Russia ties simply provide a pretense to concoct this narrative so they could spy on him?
Prove it, you say? No. You prove it. Who colluded with Russia to influence the election? How did it work? Who was involved? What were the relationships? Who drove it? Who paid money to whom? How did it make a difference?
Can you tell me any of this? Does anyone know? Because I sure as hell haven't seen it so far.
You prove to me that any of this is real. Because if you can't, then my suspicion sounds pretty damn reasonable. And if that's the case - that the Obama Administration concocted a false legal rationale for wiretapping the chairman of the Trump campaign - that is a bigger scandal that Watergate could ever have hoped to be.
