This article appears in the June 29, 2018 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
WHY RUSSIAGATE WAS LAUNCHED
Trump ‘Unbound’: Door Opens
for U.S. To Join the New Paradigm
[Print version of this article]
June 22—The worst nightmare of those British and U.S. intelligence operatives responsible for the fraud known as “Russiagate” appears to be on the verge of coming true. Reports coming from Trump administration sources confirm that planning for a Trump-Putin summit is well-advanced, possibly to take place as soon as the second week of July, either before or after the NATO summit in Brussels on July 11-12. National Security Council (NSC) spokesman Garrett Marquis tweeted on June 21 that at the end of June, National Security Advisor John Bolton will “travel to Moscow to discuss a potential meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin.” The Russiagate scandal was launched precisely to prevent Trump from developing a collaborative relationship with Putin, which would break with the anti-Russian policy of his predecessors.
The Times of London immediately reacted with a nasty article citing numerous unnamed British officials as being upset by the news. A “senior western diplomatic source” said a Trump-Putin summit would cause “dismay and alarm,” while a Whitehall source told The Times, “Everyone is perturbed by what is going on and is fearing for the future of the alliance,” referring to NATO. The Times charges that Trump’s call at the G-7 meeting for reinstating Russia had the effect of “wrecking Mrs. May’s efforts to further isolate Mr. Putin after the Salisbury poisonings.” Not surprisingly, The Times did not mention that the British charge against Russia in the Skripal affair remains unproven, and was one of a series of provocations by London against Russia and Putin, to deter a Trump-Putin get-together.
Similar anti-Trump, anti-Putin comments have been heard in the U.S. Ned Price, a former spokesman for the NSC under Obama, tweeted on June 21 that for Trump to meet with Putin “before or after the NATO summit is a slap in the face to the alliance. . . . And that’s probably just as Trump intended.” Members of both parties in the Congress have criticized Trump for moving to fulfill his campaign pledge to achieve a good, positive collaborative relationship with Putin. Senator Charles Schumer, the Senate Minority leader, attacked Trump for his call at the G-7 summit in Quebec to bring Russia back into the G-7, saying he is “turning our foreign policy into an international joke.” Republicans have been less outspoken than Schumer in attacking the decision to work with Putin, but many warn that Putin cannot be trusted—which is the same line many elected officials have—including Schumer and Republican Senators such as Marco Rubio, Bob Corker and John McCain—in criticizing Trump for meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, and for pursuing a collaborative friendship with China’s President Xi Jinping.
Congressional anti-Russian hysteria was behind the August 2017 vote in the U.S. House and Senate for sanctions against Russia over unproven allegations of election meddling. The votes of 419-3 in the House and 98-2 in the Senate were condemned by Trump, but he signed them anyway, as a veto would have been easily overturned. Despite positive meetings with Putin on the sidelines of summits in Hamburg and Vietnam, the President has been constrained, until now, by the Russiagate investigation which has targeted him, his family and his campaign, to prevent him from building on those encounters.
Trump ‘Freed’
The constraints now seem to have been broken by Trump, who is acting as “a sovereign U.S. President,” in the words of Helga Zepp-LaRouche. In a statement released on June 17, “History Is Now Being Written in Asia—The EU Summit Must Follow the Example of Singapore,” she hailed the breakthrough of the Trump-Kim meeting, pointing to it as proof that formerly “unfriendly” nations can make historic agreements, in the new optimistic strategic environment shaped by the “New Silk Road Spirit.” This model could be employed, she wrote, to change the direction of Europe, away from the failed policies of the European Union, based on the axioms of the old paradigm, which have been in place for the last three decades, with U.S. presidents playing a leading role in their enforcement.
It was Trump’s engagement with China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, which opened the door for the process which led to the success of the Singapore summit. The first major step in this direction was Trump’s decision to take the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement, a central part of President Obama’s “Asia Pivot,” which was designed to undermine the emerging role of China, and to counter its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The adoption by many world leaders of the Chinese “win-win” approach of pursuing policies of mutual benefit, is demonstrating that peace and prosperity can result from this kind of engagement.
At the same time, the visible unraveling of the fraudulent narrative of Russiagate, has given Trump room to follow through on his own diplomatic initiatives, in spite of at-times strident opposition, even within his administration. This is the theme of a June 15 article by Susan Glasser in the New Yorker magazine, on Trump’s decision to proceed with the summit with Putin. “There’s no stopping him,” a senior administration official told her. “He’s going to do it. He wants to have a meeting with Putin, so he’s going to have a meeting with Putin.”
Glasser compares Trump’s resolve to meet with Putin with his decision to meet with North Korea’s Kim. It was “a major policy move carried out in spite of his advisers, not because of them, and with little genuine support from either Republicans or Democrats.” He “has increasingly acted like a President unbound,” she concludes, “undeterred by the troublesome politics that would make a Putin summit unimaginable at this point in any other Presidency.”
Russiagate Hoaxsters Now on the Defensive
The release last week of the report by Department
of Justice’s (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz on corrupt practices by officials of the DOJ/FBI in their handling of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server is further enabling Trump to break out of containment. The charges that Russia “meddled” in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and that Trump and his campaign “colluded” with the Russians, were hatched with collaboration between the highest levels of British intelligence and U.S. intelligence community officials under President Obama. The narrative was prepared, as admitted by the FBI’s number-two counterintelligence official, Peter Strzok, to “stop” Trump’s election, or to provide an “insurance policy” were he to win.
Strzok’s comments were made in a text message to his mistress, former FBI attorney Lisa Page, and are part of the evidence of DOJ/FBI bias against Trump contained in the IG’s report. Referring to the text saying “we’ll stop” Trump, the IG wrote it is “not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s [Trump’s] electoral prospects.” The texts “demonstrated extremely poor judgment and a gross lack of professionalism.” He concluded that the communications are “deeply troubling” and “cast a cloud” over the Clinton investigations. The IG’s report did not include an investigation of DOJ/FBI improprieties in Russiagate, though it should be noted that many of those involved in the Clinton case, including Strzok and Page, were also assigned to Russiagate, and the two were initially part of special counsel Mueller’s team. Further, Strzok was the FBI liaison to CIA Director John Brennan, who has been identified as the leading U.S. player in initiating the Russia/Trump investigation. Strzok and Page were removed from Mueller’s team when the existence of their texts was first revealed by Horowitz.
In addition to Strzok and Page, a deputy to disgraced former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe—who is awaiting possible criminal charges for his role in leaking classified intelligence on Russiagate to the media — three other FBI officials were identified as exhibiting extreme hostility to Trump.
As to the actions of former Director of the FBI James Comey, who was fired by Trump, the IG found Comey to be “insubordinate” in his handling of the Clinton email case, and in violation of protocol, as he “usurped” the authority of the Attorney General. The report says “we find it extraordinary that . . . Comey engaged in his own subjective ad hoc decision-making,” and his actions have “negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the Department [DOJ] as fair administrators of justice.” The exposure of Comey’s corruption has severely damaged Mueller’s case against Trump for “obstruction of justice.” Trump’s firing of Comey is justified by his abuse of his office, and not as an effort by Trump to shut down the investigation. However, despite the evidence produced, the IG’s report shockingly concludes that Comey was not “politically biased in his actions.”
This conclusion was lambasted in Congressional hearings on June 19-20, as numerous Republicans pointed to the absurdity of any claim that personal bias did not impact decisions made in pursuing the phony charges against Trump. For example, Horowitz was challenged by Rep. Mark Meadows (R) to look into charges that FBI agents altered documents related to the Clinton email and Russia probes. Horowitz told the Committee he had received information on this, and would follow it up. If confirmed, it could wreak havoc on Mueller’s investigation, as there is already evidence that some FBI agents involved in the questioning of Trump’s first National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to “lying to the FBI,” were not convinced that Flynn had lied. Peter Strzok, who was involved in the interrogation of Flynn, has agreed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions.
Trump has repeatedly referred to this investigation as a “witch hunt,” leading his opponents in both parties, as well as the mainstream media in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe, to attack him as “paranoid” and “delusional.” His repeated calls for a summit with Putin, to shift away from a post-Cold War provocative containment of Russia to a new era of cooperation, have been cited by the anti-Trumpers as evidence of his debt to Putin. They demand instead that he inflict further punishment on Russia, in the form of crushing sanctions and NATO deployments on its borders. According to these opponents, any concession to Putin, or even a meeting with him, proves the charges that Trump owes his election to the misdeeds of the Russian President, or that he is subject to blackmail by him—all based on the deceitful and salacious memos drafted by former MI6 operative Christopher Steele.
The initiating role of British intelligence in the scandal is now in the spotlight. LaRouche PAC issued a petition and memo calling for an end to the “Special Relationship” between the U.S. and the U.K., and a declassification of all documents relating to contacts between the intelligence agencies of the two nations. This in particular aims at the role of anti-Russian officials John Brennan, the former CIA director, and James Clapper, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, who both played leading roles in launching Russiagate, and continue to attack Trump and Putin, now as “commentators” on mainstream news outlets and on op-ed pages.
LaRouche PAC’s demand that the British role be investigated is being taken up increasingly in non-mainstream publications. Indicative is an article by Alexander Mercouris on June 15 under the headline “Letter from Britain: An Establishment Blinded by Russophobia,” published by Consortium News. He opens by writing, “Hostility to Russia is one of the most enduring, as well as one of the most destructive realities of British life.” After detailing the collusion between MI6, GCHQ, and other British institutions with the CIA and FBI, he concludes that this hostility is not only a “constant and enduring fact of British political and cultural life,” but it “appears to be a predominantly elite phenomenon.”
The strategic direction chosen by President Trump, of collaboration with the emerging economic powerhouse associated with the BRI, offers the prospect of consolidation of a New Paradigm, and the defeat of the dangerous war and financial speculation paradigm of the City of London and their American neocon, neo-liberal followers. Trump’s initiatives have opened the door for the New Paradigm. As Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche concluded in her memo, “Needed now, are the people to make it happen.”
