In today's show, Dan hit really hard on the fact that the Obama administration said that Flynn talked about sanctions with Russia on the phone during the transition period. About the 10th time he said it, something clicked for me. This wasn’t the only time they’ve used ‘sanctions’ in some way or another to set up the Trump team.
Prong number one of the conspiracy set up is COLLUSION, “starting with” the Papadopoulos/Downer meeting. Supposedly, Papa-D brings up “Russians have dirt on Hillary”. And he gets the honey pot treatment with “Putin’s niece”, and the FBI is spying on him for some reason way before they have a case open on him.
The use of SANCTIONS in the second prong (not necessarily in chronological order) of the conspiracy to set up the Trump campaign goes back to the Steele dossier, and their first failed attempt at a FISA on Carter Page, and the Trump Tower meeting.
The famed “Trump Tower meeting” Happened on June 9th, 2016. It used both prongs of the set up. They used emails to set the meeting up, and mention Russian government officials wanting to help Trump and saying that they have dirt on Hillary; COLLUSION. This falls in line with media/DNC conspiracy theory fake news story one, that Russians hack Trump’s opponents and want to help Trump win. Conspiracy theory two also happens during the meeting. They had nothing on Hillary, but bring up SANCTIONS with the Magnitsky Act and Americans adopting Russian kids. I can’t think of an earlier time that sanctions were used as a weapon against the Trump campaign.
The “Steele dossier” 2016-094 (19 July) says that Carter Page should convince Trump to lift SANCTIONS against Russia about their incursion into Ukraine, and they could work together on energy projects. It also mentions that they had ‘kompromat’ on Hillary and could help Trump out, COLLUSION. Neither of those things are a crime for a FISA, so they had to change the story in dossier later.
In dossier 2016-101 (10 August), the bring up Flynn, finally, in a list of targets from the Russian government to work with along with Carter Page; COLLUSION.
In dossier 2016-134 (18 October), they finally change the Page story to include the crime needed for a FISA. They say that Page would be paid a multi-billion dollar bribe for lifted SANCTIONS on Russia. They also name drop Cohen again, as an important figure in COLLUSION, and drip info about ‘Russian connected’ family members of the Trump campaign, insinuating allegiances to Russia.
In dossier 2016-136 (and apparently 135) (20 October), the bring up Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer, in a meeting in Prague to meet with Russians back in August; COLLUSION. Problem is, a different Michael Cohen was the one in Europe, not Trump’s lawyer. Manafort was also mentioned, as dead weight to the whole enterprise.
In dossier 2016-166 (13 December), they reference the August meetings with Cohen, again, COLLUSION. They say that the meetings have been taking place since March, and that Cohen was the main guy under Trump dealing with the hacking program. They first mention the “Romanian Hackers”, and claim that they’re headed for Bulgaria to hide.
Shifting to Flynn, they’re spying on his phone calls, trying to get him as part of Crossfire Hurricane. They claim he talked SANCTIONS with Kislyak, pointing to the call on December 29th, and that he’d lied about that to both the FBI and Pence in January. The Logan Act has never been successfully prosecuted, and even if he had discussed sanctions, his job as NS Advisor for Trump was a legit function for discussing almost anything.
It was just a continuation of the two-pronged attack against Trump, collusion for the politicization and election swaying that was publicly revealed, and the fake bribes and more for sanctions, to legally harass the Trump team behind the scenes, and to keep spying on them.
They couldn't keep up the fake collusion narrative about the Trump campaign and Russia with Flynn being Trump's National Security Advisor. He'd gotten a letter from the British government saying that Steele's "reporting" was baloney. That HAD to lead to questions about what was going on. He'd been the DNI under Obama, he knew how the whole system worked, and he'd have uncovered it 3 years ago, if they hadn't targeted him for removal.
