They straight up lied about Russiagate
For years since the 2016 United States presidential election, President Trump was accused of colluding with the Russians to steal victory, and this dominated the news for nearly all of his term. Mainstream news outlet CNN has a whole section dedicated to Russiagate. Source. Even late in 2020 mainstream news outlets were running headlines about Trump’s team colluding with the Russians ‘again’. Source. It was a big story overseas as well with Australia’s state funded ABC producing a 3-part series on the “story of the century”. Source. Numerous leading Democrats like President Jimmy Carter, Chuck Schumer, and Hillary Clinton also indicated Trump stole the election. Source. That Trump stole the election with Russian help was always claimed without evidence, and as we earlier reported it also appeared that Trump was right on a related issue, that his political opponents were spying on him. The latter, unlike Russiagate, the MSM was not so interested in. Nevertheless, we now have a decisive answer, thanks to the Durham report, published during Biden’s presidency.
CNN now reports: “Special counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election… the FBI used “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence,” to launch the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into Trump and Russia but used a different standard when weighing concerns about alleged election interference regarding Hillary Clinton’s campaign. … “at least on the part of certain personnel intimately involved in the matter” there was “a predisposition to open an investigation into Trump.” … “Indeed, based on the evidence gathered in the multiple exhaustive and costly federal investigations of these matters, including the instant investigation, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation” … Durham suggested that if the FBI had taken those steps, it would have found that US intelligence agencies did not have any evidence tying Trump to Russian leadership officials. … Durham points to specifically to “highly significant intelligence” the FBI “received from a trusted foreign source pointing to a Clinton campaign plan to vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin so as to divert attention from her own concerns relating to her use of a private email server.” … Durham notes that the FBI did not open an investigation into a purported plan by foreign operatives to target the Clinton campaign but rather took other steps in response to those concerns, which included providing defensive briefings for the then-Democratic presidential nominee and her staff. … The report is also critical of the Steele dossier, an explosive document that had been used by the FBI to bolster its case for probable cause to secure surveillance warrants against a former Trump campaign adviser. The Steele dossier contained unverified allegations about Trump’s connections to Russia, including his alleged business dealings, rumors of lurid trysts in Moscow and claims that his campaign collaborated with the Kremlin in 2016.” Source.
Okay then.
Oh, and the unintelligence intelligence agency known as the Federal Bureau of Disinformation Investigation, effectively a branch of the US government, just released a ‘sorry not sorry’ (also know as a ‘my bad but I don’t give a f*ck’): “The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time. Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented. This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect.” Source.
Okay then.
Extra: Over in the UK, it is reported that “Hillary Clinton’s plan to ‘vilify’ Trump by linking him to Putin was briefed to Obama and Biden before the election in 2016”, that “CIA director John Brennan briefed Obama and his top national security officials on the intelligence, including the ‘alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016, of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.’” Source. Okay then.
Extra: Any apologies forthcoming to Trump, and for figures charged in connection to Russiagate, like Roger Stone and General Michael Flynn?
Extra: Also, if our trusted leaders and media outlets lied about Russiagate (and many, many other things, like Hunter Biden’s laptop), the “story of the century”, what else are they lying about? Since they were wrong, and Trump was right, on the 2016 election, might the same be true about the 2020 election? Are they lying about climate change? Are they lying about Russia-Ukraine? Are they lying about COVID-19, and the COVID vaccines that they and their owners/funders manufacture, advertise, encourage, and even mandate? Well, duh. That’s why OTN exists. Follow the links above.
To all your questions in the last para, the answer is most likely "Yes".
Imo, one of the main purposes of the Russiagate claims were to distract attention from the Pizzagate claims. The talk of Russian election interfering appeared only after Russian agents were accused of hoaxing the Podesta emails. It was so-called "internet sleuths" analysis of these leaks which spurned the Pizzagate thesis.
As it now appears that Russiagate was a heap of steaming bs, where does that leave Pizzagate?
Uncovered.
PS I've got a report on Pizzagate on my Substack for anyone interested who hasn't seen it.