U.S. Can’t Move Past Russia Hoax Until Its Enablers Are Punished

The recent passing of former FBI Director and Special Counsel Robert Mueller has spawned predictably fawning coverage from America’s broken media. But lost in this fetish fest is any real acknowledgement of the incalculable damage Mueller’s invasive Trump-Russia collusion scam did to the country — and more importantly, how none of its key players faced any accountability for it.

To better understand the egregiousness of it all requires delving back into the scheme’s origins.

At the time, a 2016 presidential matchup between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and real estate billionaire Donald Trump may have seemed a bit unorthodox when compared to the typical national elections Americans were accustomed to. Little did the public realize that this sentiment extended far beyond normal politics, and that the prospects of a Trump presidency were something the D.C. establishment was not willing to tolerate — not Clinton herself, and certainly not the U.S. intel apparatus.

To prevent such a possibility from becoming reality, Clinton manufactured a narrative to tie Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Part of this baseless conspiracy involved her campaign’s law firm (Perkins Coie) paying opposition research firm Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on the New York billionaire. Enlisting the help of ex-British spy Christopher Steele, Fusion cooked up the “Steele dossier,” which contained unsubstantiated and salacious allegations about Trump and Russia.

Shopped by Steele to the FBI beginning in summer 2016, the dossier was ultimately used by the agency to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign official Carter Page in the lead up to the November election. What was equally significant about the dossier, however, was how it became foundational to the Obama administration’s hard launch of the Russia collusion hoax that Mueller and his team of anti-Trump partisans would later use to hamstring Trump’s first presidency.

Thanks to records declassified by Director National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard last year, we now know that the way in which the hoax was jumpstarted was way worse than originally thought.

After reports began circulating that Russia had attempted to interfere in the 2016 election, President Obama gathered his intel chiefs and ordered the creation of an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that would be used to further the Russia collusion narrative. His FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and DNI James Clapper delivered, with a rushed January 2017 ICA that came away with a “key judgement” that Russia “aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances” — a conclusion that was instrumental in the Trump-Russia hoax’s creation.

As it turns out, that “key judgement” was based on “One scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence” that was interpreted by “five people … five ways.” Meanwhile, intelligence contradicting this unsubstantiated “evidence” was left out of the ICA altogether, thus giving the impression that claims of Putin’s preference for Trump were unquestionably true.

The ICA’s “key judgement” was further bolstered by the intel chiefs’ decision to include the Steele dossier’s phony contents in the document. This was done at the behest of figures like Brennan, who overrode objections from intel officials that the dossier “failed to meet basic tradecraft standards,” and should not be included in the ICA.

Brennan and Clapper would go on to falsely claim (under oath) in the years that followed that the dossier was not formally included in or used as a “basis” for the ICA.

With the fire of their conspiracy lit, Democrats and their media allies — also willing participants in the hoax — had all they needed to delegitimize Trump’s victory and the will of 2016 voters. The drumbeats of Trump-Russia collusion were amplified for months on end, that by the time Trump fired Comey in May 2017, the narrative had been set.

The appointment of Mueller as special counsel in the aftermath of Comey’s firing became a core component of undermining Trump and his first administration. Over the next roughly two years, the special counsel — comprised of leftist partisans like Andrew Weissmann — engaged in egregious investigative conduct and likely leaked details of the inquiry to the media. The entire charade was designed to cast a cloud of impropriety over the administration and undermine the public’s faith in the 2016 election outcome.

The 2019 Mueller report and Mueller’s subsequent fumbling testimony before Congress ultimately affirmed what was clear all along — that there was no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia to steal the 2016 election. But by the time those events occurred, the damage to Trump and his first presidency had already been done.

[READ: Robert Mueller’s Legacy Is Self-Destruction Because He Failed To Stay In His Lane]

If you’re waiting for the part in which any of the major participants in this fabricated hoax are held accountable for their actions, you’re not alone. To date, none of the key players involved have faced any punishment for their appalling behavior.

And therein lies the problem.

America cannot successfully move past the Russia collusion hoax until its founders and lawbreaking participants receive the legal reckoning they deserve. They and their antics did indescribable harm to the republic, and the country’s democratic process that we’re still grappling with years later.

Mueller may be gone, but the destruction he left in his wake is beyond measure. Americans are right to demand justice for what he and his team did to the country. And until they get it, they have no reason to waiver in that desire.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood