Democratic and media opposition to Donald Trump, both during the 2016 presidential campaign and during his term in office, was so intense, automatic and all-consuming that over time it was even given a name: Trump Derangement Syndrome. In a word, anything Donald Trump did or said was greeted by knee-jerk opposition on the part of those who suffered from it.
Thus, Trump’s claims of being victimized by “fake news” and an anti-Trump “deep state” cabal involving Bill Clinton and Barak Obama holdovers as well as Hillary Clinton – he referred to her repeatedly as “crooked Hillary” – were dismissed out of hand by Democrats and the media. Yet he continued to insist they were all behind a phony Trump-Russia collusion scenario which portrayed him as someone who had worked hand in glove with the Russians in order to secure his election at Hillary Clinton’s expense. It dogged him throughout his term and led up to his impeachment. But his protestations were summarily rejected despite the palpable lack of credible, negative evidence ever having been produced.
But then came the Durham investigation and the criminal trial of Michael Sussmann and some eye-opening testimony. Sussmann was a longtime lawyer for the Democratic Party and was charged with lying to the FBI when he called his old friend, FBI General Counsel Gerald Baker, and said that he had evidence of a Trump/Russian back channel he wanted to share with the FBI. But he said he was not acting on behalf of a client, but rather on his own behalf as a concerned citizen. Despite Sussmann’s well-known connection to the Democratic establishment and his then current role as a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Baker apparently dismissed any concern that Sussmann’s was a partisan effort. He thereupon took the information and put it into the FBI system. And thus was an unfounded investigation launched.
Don’t forget that we’re talking about the FBI and in the context of a possible investigation of a presidential candidate in the middle of a campaign. And Sussmann just picks up the phone and gets to pitch his story despite his known Democratic credentials? Is that really the way these sorts of things are supposed to happen?
And according to sworn testimony at trial by her own campaign manager, Clinton personally approved the initial release of the bogus information to the media, According to other testimony career FBI investigators soon concluded that there was no basis for any investigation and wanted to terminate it. But they were told that that couldn’t happen because the FBI brass was “fired up” about going forward.
As this is being written, the jury has not come in with a verdict in the Sussmann case and the testimony has not gone unchallenged. But all things being considered, it is clear to us from even the above thumbnail sketch that Donald Trump was definitely on to something.
