The Democratic Party's History of Weakness and Collusion with the Russians: Part II

"The Democratic Party has opportunistically colluded with Russia when it suited its domestic policy purposes, has been consistently weak on Russian affairs, and has undermined an America First policy"

Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton from accusing Trump of being a “Russian asset.” But a closer look at Clinton’s track record as Sec. of State and through the 2016 campaign raise many more questions about her Russia affinity than about Donald Trump’s.

Clinton kicked off her time as Obama’s Sec. of State with a “reset” button that actually translated as “overcharge.” It was meant to symbolize a fresh slate for US-Russia relations. A mistake in judgment? Yes. But was it also an “inside joke”? Hmm.

In 2010, former President Bill Clinton received a $500,000 check from a Kremlin-linked bank for a speech. At the same time, Clinton would sign off on a Uranium One deal that gave Russia access to 20 percent of the U.S.'s deposits. No conflict of interest?

The FBI actually intercepted evidence of Russian agents of influence targeting Hillary Clinton but looked away on the Uranium One matter. Clinton later lied that she wasn’t a target for Russian active measures. A high-ranking FBI counter-intel official said that wasn’t the case.

Hillary Clinton would pivot to act like she was suddenly a staunch opponent of Russia, but as we shall see, she would come to rely on Russian disinformation during her 2016 presidential campaign against Donald Trump.

Obama’s admin. was punctuated by weakness and deference towards Russian foreign policy objectives. In April 2009, Obama announced his vision for a “nuclear-free world.” Then he announced intentions for a new START treaty & Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Music to Moscow’s ears.

On April 8th, 2010, the new START treaty was signed, which would entail a strategic drawdown in nuclear weapons stockpiles. While maintaining nuclear parity is not a bad thing on its face, the treat was 'hopelessly lopsided' and allowed Russia to 'cheat.'

Furthermore, the START treaty did nothing about Russia’s 10:1 tactical nuke advantage or MIRVs. Russia has been a flagrant violator of IRNFT, as well as Chemical Weapons Convention, particularly when Putin certainly poisoned Litvinenko & Sergei Skripal.

Obama nonetheless would swap a number of captured Russian spies, including the notorious spy-turned-lingerie-model Anna Chapman (pictured below), for a handful of Russian sources, including the above-named Sergei Skripal.

In 2012, President Obama was caught on live mic telling then-President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia he would have “more flexibility” to negotiate on ballistic missile defense after the November election. This isn't exactly 'tough on Russia' optics.

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Even before Obama was caught on a hot mic telling Putin puppet Medvedev that he would have more “flexibility” on missile defense after the 2012 presidential election, he had already canceled long-promised missile defense systems to our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic.

In early 2014, in the aftermath of the Orange Revolution that saw Kremlin stooge Yanukovych flee the capital, Putin infamously sent in his “little green men” to take over the Crimean parliament.

“In March, Crimea voted overwhelmingly in favor of leaving Ukraine in a referendum that Europe and the United States said was illegal and triggered sanctions.”

“On March 21, Putin signed legislation that completed the process of absorbing Crimea into Russia, defying Western leaders like then U.S. president, Barack Obama, who have since faced heavy criticism for being too soft with the Russian invasion.” Sound familiar?

Still in 2014, pro-Russian paramilitary forces in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine fired anti-aircraft missile that took down Flight 17.

The Obama admin. had denied Ukraine access to “radar jamming and detection equipment necessary to evade and counter [Russian] anti-aircraft systems” — like the system Putin’s cronies had used to shoot down Flight 17.

Remember: Obama and Biden did not arm Ukraine. Trump did.

“The downing of Flight 17 is of a piece with Putin’s lawless aggression. Having already absorbed Crimea, he seeks to further dismember a European country... So far, he hasn’t paid enough of a concrete price, despite repeated warnings from President Obama.”

But Obama’s disarming of Ukraine extended back to before he was even president. As a Senator, he had actually taken a special interest in making sure that the country would be relatively defenseless against the Russian bear.

“As a U.S. senator, Barack Obama won $48 million in federal funding to help Ukraine destroy thousands of tons of guns and ammunition – weapons which are now unavailable to the Ukrainian army as it faces down Russian President Vladimir Putin....”

“In August 2005, just seven months after his swearing-in, Obama traveled to Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine with... Senator Dick Lugar, touring a conventional weapons site...

The two senators secured U.S. funding to help destroy the weapons instead of leaving them intact.”

The Russians would continually flaunt US foreign policy interests under Obama. Another glaring example is Putin’s support for Syrian strongman Assad, despite the latter’s flagrant violation of human rights. There was no “red line” when it came to Russia—or Syria for that matter.

In 2016, Obama proposed “a new agreement on Syria to the Russian government that would deepen military cooperation between the two countries against some terrorists in exchange for Russia getting the Assad regime to stop bombing U.S.-supported rebels.”

“One big flaw is that it’s clear that the Russians have no intent to put heavy pressure on Assad,” said former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford. “And in those instances when the Russians have put pressure on, they’ve gotten minimal results from the Syrians.”

The Russians also constantly worked at cross-purposes with the US on the issue of the Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr. But even as Moscow appeared on its face to agree to contain Iranian nuclear ambitions and halt weapons sales, the Russians continuously cheated.

In 2009, Moscow kicked off its relations with the US by playing hardball right out of the gate.

“Moscow, which plans to start up a nuclear reactor at Iran’s Bushehr plant by the end of the year, has used its veto in the United Nations Security Council on a number of occasions to water down or defeat U.S.-led efforts to impose tougher sanctions on Iran.”

NYT reported: “Obama had sent a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggesting he would back off deploying a system in eastern Europe to intercept & destroy missiles, a move Russia sees as a military threat, if Moscow helped stop Iran from developing long-range weapons.”

“As it sought support for international sanctions on Iran, the Obama administration gave Moscow two concessions: lifting American sanctions against the Russian military complex and agreeing not to ban the sale of Russian anti-aircraft batteries to Tehran.”

“The administration dropped sanctions... against the Russian state arms export agency and three other Russian entities previously found to have transferred sensitive technology or weapons to Iran."

This came just 3 days after the US & Russia agreed on UN sanctions against Iran.

The Russians would eventually cheat on this concession.

“Russia on Tuesday confirmed its decision to deliver S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran, but said it could not yet announce a date,” AFP reported in 2015.

In 2015, Asst. Sec. of State Victoria Nuland urged the Ukrainian Rada to pass a “special law” that would give greater autonomy to the pro-Russian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. Obama was accused of ‘selling out’ Ukraine to Putin.

“[A] member of Poroshenko's parliamentary faction, explained that the ‘special law’ might enable a future legislature to grant the rebellious, pro-Russian regions in eastern Ukraine powers amounting to legal secession.”

Prescient warning, wasn't it?

In November 2014, Russia had nonetheless agreed to build “up to eight nuclear reactors in Iran.” The reactors would use Russian-supplied fuel (though in 2021 Iran requested permission to use domestic fuel).

It was in the 2016 presidential campaign, however, that Democratic collaboration with the Russians to achieve domestic policy goals reached a new high. The most damning example of this was the Hillary Clinton campaign & DNC’s use of Russian disinformation to target Donald Trump.

The lynchpin of the Hillary Clinton campaign’s “Russia hoax” was the Steele dossier. The collection of ‘raw intelligence’ was assembled and packaged by former British spy Christopher Steele. He relied largely on a Russian primary sub-source named Igor Danchenko.

"Danchenko [is] a Russian native based in the United States who worked at the Brookings Institution — a Washington think tank whose former president, Strobe Talbott, is a college friend of Bill Clinton’s who worked in the Clinton State Department."

"At Brookings, Danchenko worked with Fiona Hill, later a member of President Trump’s National Security Council... It was through Hill that Danchenko became acquainted with Steele, who ran a London-based intelligence firm upon leaving MI-6, the British spy service."

"Fiona Hill... testified behind closed doors in October 2019 that Steele’s dossier 'very likely' contained Russian disinformation. Hill told the House Intelligence Committee in November 2019 that the Russians targeted both candidates in 2016."

Asst FBI Director "Bill" Priestap to OIG: “We absolutely understood that the information in the so-called dossier could be inaccurate... We also understood that the information could have been provided by the Russians as part of a disinformation campaign.”

“The Trump administration has declassified several footnotes from a report... hinting anew at the possibility that Russia may have sown disinformation in a dossier used to investigate a former Trump campaign aide.”

"The newly released inspector general report confirms that the FBI would not have been able to spy on former Trump aide Carter Page if it weren’t for Hillary Clinton-funded allegations."

Yes, the Steele dossier was used for FISA surveillance warrants.

“The dossier was a critical document to justify a FISA warrant against Mr. Page and this DOJ memo clearly indicates that the reliability of the dossier was completely destroyed after the interview with the primary sub-source in January 2017.”

“You feel good about the sourcing here?” asked Glenn Simpson of the Clinton-connected firm Fusion GPS.

"Steele’s reply, Simpson later wrote, was 'elliptical but firm' — he was relying on a range of Russian officials and a Trump associate."

Danchenko would be indicted and charged with lying to the FBI on five separate counts. One of the key lies involved a purported Russian source named Sergei Millian, Hans Mahnke notes.

“The fact that Danchenko lied to Steele about meeting Sergei Millian is the key to blowing everything up. Without it Steele would’ve never made Millian the ‘source’ for so many lies: the pee tape, the ‘well-developed conspiracy of cooperation’, Wikileaks and Alfa Bank."

Alarmingly, Olga Galkina, a Russian PR exec. who fed Danchenko info, believed she had been promised a job in the State Department had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election. Galkina assessed Danchenko as a possible FSB asset. Yet, she wanted to do business with him anyway.

Hillary Clinton has also referred to Russia as one of the reasons that she would ultimately lose the 2016 election. Clinton argued that Russian interference played a deciding role and that Putin “helped elect Trump.”

Hillary Clinton, whether intentionally or unwittingly, therefore furthered Russian foreign policy's ultimate goal of undermining trust in U.S. elections and promoting social division. She was aware of Russia's aims, but made the distorted claims for losing the election anyway.