The Week the Russia Conspiracy Theory Fell Apart

The Russia conspiracy theory so beloved by the media and the Democratic Party fell apart this week — though it was easy to miss, amidst the chaos at the White House and the collapse of Congress’s effort to repeal Obamacare.

Investor William Browder testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday that Fusion GPS, the firm that had been responsible for creating and pushing the so-called “Russia dossier” against Donald Trump, had been paid by the Russian government to push for the repeal of the human rights sanctions in the Magnitsky Act of 2012. In other words, the Russian government may have been paying to smear Trump with false and salacious accusations.

Until now, the media and the Democrats have proceeded under the assumption that Russia intervened in the 2016 election by hacking the email server of the Democratic National Committee, as well as the private email of Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, and releasing their emails via Wikileaks. They have further claimed — with no evidence — that the Trump campaign may have colluded with the Russians in obtaining or releasing the emails.

The entire theory rests on the ridiculous claim that Trump had invited Russia to hack Clinton and the Democrats when he joked last July about the Russians releasing the emails Clinton had deleted from her illicit private server.  (The left-wing HuffPost observed Thursday as the anniversary that Trump “asked for Russian help in the election.”) That joke prompted then-CIA director John Brennan to convene an investigation of alleged Russian interference.

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In fact, it turns out that Russia may have been trying to undermine Trump. And it may have done so in collusion with the Democrats. The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberly Strassel noted Thursday that Fusion GPS has ties to the Democrats — and will not reveal who paid it for the dossier. Strassel asked: “What if it was the Democratic National Committee or Hillary Clinton’s campaign?” The money could have passed through intermediaries, she added.

That means the real story of collusion in the 2016 election could be that Democrats were working with Russia. And that would make sense, given their long history of appeasing the Russians, under both Clinton and Barack Obama.

Or the truth could be that Russia was trying to embarrass both parties, to weaken the eventual winner. Browder told the Senate Judiciary Committee that it is common for Russia to back both sides in elections, simply to create chaos.

Regardless, the Russia conspiracy theory has now collapsed. There is no evidence that Russia was colluding with the Trump campaign. But there is evidence Russia was working against it. And the truth is only beginning to emerge.

 http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/07/28/week-russia-conspiracy-theory-fell-apart/

Ned Ryun: Democrat-Aligned ‘Disinformation Firm’ Fusion GPS Took Money from Senior Russian Officials

American Majority  Founder and Chief Executive Officer Ned Ryun followed the latest twists and turns in the story of Fusion GPS on Friday’s Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam.

Ryun said Thursday was a day of “massive” developments in the case, which is moving in a direction very different from what Democrats obsessed with alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump 2016 campaign expected. He spotlighted Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder, who has been “very involved” with the Magnitsky Act sanctions.

“Fusion GPS was used against him and was used to lobby against the Act,” said Ryun. “The reason that Senate Judiciary wanted him to come in front of them and testify was to talk about some of Fusion GPS’s behavior.”

“There was some pretty staggering stuff that came out yesterday, Raheem. One was, Lindsey Graham asked him under oath, ‘Do you think that there were Russians involved in funding Fusion’s work?’ His response under oath was, in the spring and summer of 2016, they were receiving money indirectly from senior Russian government officials,” Ryun reported.

Kassam restated that Fusion GPS, a “Democrat-aligned group,” has now “admitted to receiving money from the Russians.”

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“The thing that I want people to understand is, Fusion GPS calls itself an oppo research firm. They are a disinformation firm. Much of what they do is not based in reality or fact. They are hired guns to destroy the opponents of those that are paying Fusion money,” Ryun said.

“The second thing that I thought was staggering was when Chuck Grassley asked him, ‘Do you think that reporters were being paid money to push Fusion’s dossier and other lines of attack against them, regarding the Magnitsky Act?’” Ryun continued. “And he responded and said, ‘I am convinced that there are, in fact.’ He said, ‘There is one journalist that I am almost 100 percent convinced was receiving money because he was acting so far outside the bounds of journalistic ethics.’”

“It’s not only about these guys’ work with the fake Steele dossier and not filing as foreign agents while working on behalf of the Russian state and, again, being the genesis for this whole Trump-Russia collusion fairly tale,” he said.

“The fact that these guys have gone in and found a weak spot in the media, and manipulated it, either through pushing fake stories to the twenty- and thirty-somethings who are overwhelmed, needing information, feeding them fake stuff – or, in fact, have been potentially paying journalists to push their stories, and then people are reading this, going, ‘Well, this must be fact; it’s in this newspaper.’ You know what? Manufactured news, fake news, is real. I think that was one of the very interesting parts of the testimony yesterday,” said Ryun.

Kassam turned to the controversy over new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci and his vicious, colorfully worded comments about several of his colleagues to New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza.

“First of all, this is not helpful to pushing forward the president’s agenda,” Ryun observed. “My frustration with this is the fact that he stepped on very good stories from yesterday. Forget the Fusion GPS testimony; he also stepped on the fact of the Awan brothers and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.”

“He stepped on the fact that now Devin Nunes, House Intelligence chairman, has said that there were Obama administration officials who made hundreds of requests to unmask U.S. citizens that, quite frankly, had nothing to do with real intelligence,” Ryun continued. “Again, that brings up, ‘Oh, so it must have been politically motivated.’”

“And at the same time, also stepped on the story of the House Judiciary Committee sending a letter to Attorney General Sessions and DAG Ron Rosenstein to ask that they open a second investigation into James Comey and Loretta Lynch in regards to their colluding on manipulating the Hillary Clinton email server,” he added with frustration.

Kassam found it amazing that White House officials are having public fights in New Yorker magazine while bombshell stories that could devastate their political opponents detonate in the background, all but ignored by the press and public.

“I want to encourage every senior official inside the West Wing that they ask themselves, before they speak with anybody outside the West Wing, whether it’s press or anybody else, ‘Is what I’m about to say in the best interests of the president?’” Ryun advised. “And if no, then they don’t say it.”

He agreed with Kassam’s suggestion to expand that directive into saying only what’s good for the American people “because, again, I believe President Trump’s agenda is about that.”

“Just get out of the way of the narratives,” Ryun advised the White House. “We have a treasure trove. Again, you wouldn’t know it from the mainstream media’s coverage.”

“A seismic shift took place yesterday, and the narratives are changing not only on the Trump-Russia collusion story, but, again, it goes back to the Hillary Clinton email server, real questions about Debbie Wasserman Schultz and these guys that had access – I want to stress this, Raheem – these guys, the Awan brothers, had access to the House Select Intelligence Committee servers and were accessing them without permission. This is a huge story,” he said.

Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Eastern.

http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2017/07/28/ned-ryun-democrat-aligned-disinformation-firm-fusion-gps-took-money-senior-russian-officials/