The Russia scandal certainly has changed quickly, hasn't it?

I've thought for some time that the "Trump colluded with Russia" story was fake and consisted of nothing. My theory basically consisted of the following: The left/media heard Trump talk in unusually respectful terms during the campaign about Vladimir Putin. At the same time, they knew Trump had at least explored some business interests in Russia. Dopey media narratives don't need to consist of much, and to me that seemed like more than enough for them to concoct one of their "questions are swirling" scenarios and beat the drum daily about Trump colluding with the Russians. Fake, I figured, but plausible enough for their standards.

---

What I honestly didn't anticipate was the extent to which the Clintons and the FBI might be complicit in manufacturing the whole thing, and not only that, but in actually setting up the Russian connections only to turn around and try to pin them on Trump. This story has turned massively within the past week. Last week the story of the investigation seemed to be that it was turning up nothing and it seemed pointless to continue it. The biggest concern was that independent counsel Robert Mueller would do what independent counsels tend to do, which is to ensnare people in "process crimes" that would never have happened at all had they not stemmed from the investigation itself. This week we know an awful lot more, and we've dealt with it several times this week but let's put it all in a single capsule here: We now know that Hillary for America and the Democratic National Committee helped pay for the Trump dossier compiled by Christopher Steele of Fusion GPS, most or all of which appears to have consisted of fake allegations against Donald Trump. We know that John McCain gave the Trump dossier to the FBI. We know the FBI used the dossier to justify opening up the investigation of whether Trump colluded with Russia, and we know it's at least possible that the FBI used the dossier - knowing it was fake - to justify its request to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to wiretap Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Carter Page. We know that Hillary for America failed to disclose on its FEC spending reports that its payments to the law firm Perkins Coie were for the purpose of funding Steele's oppo research on Trump. We know that for months Hillary pretended to think the dossier had nothing to do with her campaign.

---

---

And not only that, but we also know that the FBI, under the leadership of Robert Mueller and James Comey, took a curiously hands-off approach to the dealings of the Clintons with Russia. Holman Jenkins explains in the Wall Street Journal:

After the Cold War, in its own interest, the U.S. wanted to build bridges to the Russian nuclear establishment. The Putin government, for national or commercial purposes, agreed and sought to expand its nuclear business in the U.S. The purchase and consolidation of certain assets were facilitated by Canadian entrepreneurs who gave large sums to the Clinton Foundation, and perhaps arranged a Bill Clinton speech in Moscow for $500,000. A key transaction had to be approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department. Now we learn that, before and during these transactions, the FBI had uncovered a bribery and kickback scheme involving Russia’s U.S. nuclear business, and also received reports of Russian officials seeking to curry favor through donations to the Clinton Foundation. This criminal activity was apparently not disclosed to agencies vetting the 2010 transfer of U.S. commercial nuclear assets to Russia. The FBI made no move to break up the scheme until long after the transaction closed. Only five years later, the Justice Department, in 2015, disclosed a plea deal with the Russian perpetrator so quietly that its significance was missed until The Hill reported on the FBI investigation last week. For anyone who cares to look, the real problem here is that the FBI itself is so thoroughly implicated in the Russia meddling story. The agency, when Mr. Mueller headed it, soft-pedaled an investigation highly embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton as well as the Obama Russia reset policy. More recently, if just one of two things is true—Russia sponsored the Trump Dossier, or Russian fake intelligence prompted Mr. Comey’s email intervention—then Russian operations, via their impact on the FBI, influenced and continue to influence our politics in a way far more consequential than any Facebook ad, the preoccupation of John McCain, who apparently cannot behold a mountain if there’s a molehill anywhere nearby.

---

---

When Hillary is straddling the edges of legality - or blasting right past them - the FBI under Mueller and Comey tended to look the other way

You see the pattern here? When Hillary is straddling the edges of legality - or blasting right past them - the FBI under Mueller and Comey tended to look the other way, or deal with it very quietly. But when presented with a dossier of questionable veracity about Donald Trump, they marched straight to the FISA court for wiretap approvals. Step back and look at the big picture and what do we have? Here's how it looks: The Clintons were well-connected to Russian sources and business interests. They knew how to shake them down for both money and information, and they had a pretty good idea how to create degrees of separation so it wouldn't appear they were behind the research that would rely heavilly on Russians connected to the Kremlin. Not only that, but they had an idea they could concoct disinformation that appeared to link Trump to the Kremlin, and not only sell it to the public through the media but also plant it within the FBI to spur an investigation that would cast a cloud over Trump's candidacy. Hillary did not anticipate that Trump would beat her, but now that he has, that cloud hovers over his presidency as well. And all of this, it now appears, was manufactured by the Clinton campaign and their allies within the FBI. I yield to no one in my belief that Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt person on the face of this or any planet, but I will admit I'm surprised by the depth of her involvement in this - not because I don't think she's evil enough to do it but because I just figured her sycophants would do it for her without having to be asked. And I'm troubled beyond words by how complicit it now appears the FBI has been in this whole thing. Robert Mueller was originally appointed FBI director by George W. Bush. I don't think of him as a partisan Democrat, and for all I know he isn't. But he does appear to be a swamp creature of the highest order. He's tight with James Comey, who we should recall was tight with Patrick Fitzgerald - the original out-of-control independent counsel. They may not be partisan per se, but they are clearly bought into the Beltway mindset that's horrified by Trump and considered Hillary the safer choice because at least she is one of them.

---

---

The corruption of this woman is simply astounding

It would be darkly fascinating to learn exactly how much sway the Clintons hold over people like this, and how much that matters when they're deciding how seriously to take a criminal matter that would jeopardize one or both of them. Why would Loretta Lynch, who clearly should know better, take a meeting with Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac when she's in the middle of investigating his wife? It's so inappropriate, it's astonishing. Unless there are just reasons you can't even say no to one of the Clintons. And what about the role of the media in all this? They've bought the Trump-colluded-with-Russia narrative uncritically since day one, and have worked hard to sell it to the public, all the while showing little interest in matters like the uranium deal that Hillary approved. Reporters are now complaining that Hillary's campaign lied to them about paying for Fusion GPS. What do they expect Hillary's campaign to do? Lying is what these people do. And why were the media so willing to accept the lies? Is it because they were ideologically predisposed to protect Hillary and attack Trump? I know. The question answers itself. And here we are months later with a Russia narrative that's been turned on its head, as it now appears it was Hillary, not Trump, who was colluding while trying to set up Trump to look guilty of the very shameless acts she was committing. The corruption of this woman is simply astounding. The fact that this has been readily apparent for decades, and yet her political viability survived the entire time, really doesn't reflect well on this country.

---