Andrew McCarthy — Was the Steele Dossier the FBI’s ‘Insurance Policy’?

In conclusion, while there is a dearth of evidence to date that the Trump campaign colluded in Russia’s cyberespionage attack on the 2016 election, there is abundant evidence that the Obama administration colluded with the Clinton campaign to use the Steele dossier as a vehicle for court-authorized monitoring of the Trump campaign — and to fuel a pre-election media narrative that U.S. intelligence agencies believed Trump was scheming with Russia to lift sanctions if he were elected president. Congress should continue pressing for answers, and President Trump should order the Justice Department and FBI to cooperate rather than — what’s the word? — resist. —

This is longish and detained, but important in light of the implications. Was the crime actually an attempted by the deep state to influence the election and afterward to negate it? This suggests it was on the part of the FBI.

Did CIA director John Brennan and DIA chief James Clapper know about it. Seems unlikely they would not.

This would be the real undermining of American "democracy" if so. If this is even plausible, the Trump administration and Congress should find out and inform the American public.

That is unlikely to happen since the ruling class never outs itself. A few people might be implicated, but the whole thing is likely to go the way of the G. W Bush administration policy of torture.

National Review
Was the Steele Dossier the FBI’s ‘Insurance Policy’?
Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review

See also

Consortium News (Dec 15, 2017)
The Scary Void Inside Russia-gate
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University and a contributing editor of The Nation