No Effort Too Low: the Clinton Effort to Brief the Electoral College on 'Russia Collusion' Before Their Vote

Nick Arama reporting for RedState

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, right, shakes hands with Clinton campaign chair 

John Podesta, left, as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton watches in New York, 

Monday, Sept. 19, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Media owes a big apology to Americans for spreading the Russia collusion hoax without evidence for a lot of the claims for the past few years. 

But they also owe Americans a big apology for the failure to put the proper focus on the huge story behind it – the Democratic involvement in the effort to take down the president. 

The media has know about the involvement of the DNC and the Clinton team in paying a foreign national for Russian information against Trump since 2017, and that the information was then weaponized through the FBI and the media. 

This information was once again confirmed by the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz. The IG also noted that according to the chief sub source, the man who provided the information to Steele, the dossier was basically garbage based on rumor and barroom talk. 

So where is the investigation of the Democrats and the Clinton team? Where are the reports about the Democrats colluding with foreign national Christopher Steele and the Russians for information meant to undermine Trump? 

And where is the media calling this out, an action that is perhaps completely unprecedented in the history of the nation? 

You may have thought you knew how bad it was. 

But here’s a little known story, that shows it was even worse than you may have thought. 

We know that information was leaked to media about Steele’s information with some of it running prior to the election. For example, information about Carter Page was run by Yahoo in September and the the Clinton campaign used that to attack the Trump campaign on “their connections to Russia,” which information Democrats had in fact paid for. 

We may never know how much that effected the election. Fortunately, it didn’t cost Trump the election, even with all that he won. 

But even after he won, the Democrats were working on trying to undo his win with allegations of Russia collusion. 

Remember the furor and how upset the Democrats were after Trump won and how they were trying to suborn/convince electors to vote against Trump in December? 

The Clinton campaign even then was trying to push the claim of Russia collusion to influence the electors.

Here’s the about the effort on Dec. 12, when the vote was Dec. 18. Clinton was doing everything she could, even at that point, to derail Trump with the information.

Hillary Clinton’s top political adviser John Podesta said the campaign is supporting an effort by members of the Electoral College to request an intelligence briefing on foreign intervention in the presidential election.

“The bipartisan electors’ letter raises very grave issues involving our national security,” Podesta said in a statement Monday. “Electors have a solemn responsibility under the Constitution and we support their efforts to have their questions addressed.”

“Each day that month, our campaign decried the interference of Russia in our campaign and its evident goal of hurting our campaign to aid Donald Trump,” he said. “Despite our protestations, this matter did not receive the attention it deserved by the media in the campaign. We now know that the CIA has determined Russia’s interference in our elections was for the purpose of electing Donald Trump. This should distress every American.”

The ten electors pushing for a briefing included one Republican and nine Democrats including Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, Christine. In the request,Christine Pelosi claims the electors should have the right to deliberate information including the contacts the Trump team allegedly had with Russians pointing specifically to whether there were pending investigations by the FBI and U.S. intelligence specifically mentioning Carter Page. 

The Democratic National Committee, the other folks who funded Steele, also chimed in pushing the story about the electors’ call for a briefing. Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, called Trump a “danger to the republic” and said that it was more important for the electors to choose someone other than find out Trump was “the Kremlin’s chief ally.” 

Now there was no precedent for such a briefing of the electors and this never happened. Republicans were in charge of Congress at the time. 

But can there be any doubt as to what would have been included in an intelligence assessment? As we saw later in January 2017, the intelligence community assessment included the dossier in the appendix. 

They literally were trying to play the Russia collusion hand to the last breath, directly to the electors. They denied any involvement in the dossier up until their connection was revealed in 2017.

Fortunately their effort failed.