Dan Bongino - Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump

Also by Dan Bongino

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Secret Service in an Era of Evolving Threats

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Agent Walked Away from It All

A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

Spygate:

The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump

2018 by Dan Bongino

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-1-64293-098-6

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-099-3

Cover design by Cody Corcoran

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press

New York Nashville

posthillpress.com

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all of the police-state Liberals, swamp-rat Republicans, and delusional Never-Trumpers who showed us what can happen when your claim on power is challenged. Without you, this book exposing your grotesque abuses of power wouldnt have been possible.

Imagine if every night a group of suited men in shades came to your door, asking you to join them in a spectacular new business venture. Maybe some other people stopped by later, selling products and dropping hints that theyre part of the business plan as well. The men in shades return, asking you again to sign up. If they pressed you enough, you might agree to join them so theyd leave you alone. But once you accept, they reveal theyre undercover FBI agents, and youve just conspired to take part in a Ponzi scheme, not a business venture.

Unethical, right? A so-called crime was orchestrated out of nothing. While police officers and federal agents approaching suspects in an undercover capacity is a tried-and-true investigative technique for gathering information, the order of events is critical. Typically, we would expect some basic evidence of a crime or a pressing intelligence need before asking officers, agents, and intelligence operators to approach a subject in an undercover or clandestine manner, not the other way around. When the same officers and agents contact innocent personswith no factual information or evidence of a predicate crime to justify the allocation of resourcesits an abuse of power, a violation of the trust given to law enforcement by the American people. Its a setup.

We believe this is what happened to the Trump team during the presidential campaign. As reported by investigative journalist Sara Carter, Senior Obama officials used unsubstantiated evidence to launch allegations in the media that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, according to newly discovered documents and communications obtained by Congress.

This scandal is complicated and messy, involving intersections among the Clinton campaign, the Obama administration, intelligence agencies, and foreign operatives. The streams twist across the political landscape, but each flows into the same river. Theres no simple story here, no conspiracy theorythats something were not interested in pursuing. We dont think all the actors in this scandal gathered in a smoke-filled room and hatched a plot. Theres no Doctor Evil at the helm. We do believe, however, that each entity, driven by its own motivation, played a role in creating a false narrative that almost caused Donald Trump to lose the election and continues to hound him in his presidency. Its a narrative that has disrupted the US democratic system, lessened the credibility of American law-enforcement agencies, and sown contention in civil society. For the sake of truth, justice, and, yes, the American way, we need to expose what really happened in the 2016 presidential electionand beyond.

IN EARLY SPRING 2016 , Donald Trump was rising to unbeatable status in the Republican primary. As GOP candidates braced for defeat, the Democrats prepared for attack. Nothing Republican opponents had done stuck to Trump. His supporters remained by his side, with numbers growing by the day. Something more needed to be done. The following is an account of how various pieces came together to create and perpetuate the belief that Trump was conspiring with the Kremlin to undermine the American democratic system and defeat Hillary Clinton.

When trying to prove wrongdoing, experienced investigators have a good tip: remember the names . Just keep in mind the names of significant subjects and note their reappearance at critical junctures. By doing this, the smoke will begin to clear, and the true culprits, tactics, and motives will come into focus. You will see the real scandal for what it was: an effort to cast a cloud of Russian collusion over Donald J. Trump to sabotage his campaign and delegitimize his victory.

PAUL MANAFORT

Paul Manafort couldnt have imagined the train wreck heading his way when he joined the Trump presidential campaign in the spring of 2016. If he had, the experienced political consultant and controversial lobbyist would have chugged along in the opposite direction. Instead, Manafort reentered the fray of American politics, carrying with him a history of questionable foreign interests and Russian entanglements that brought his campaign work to a screeching halt and shored up speculation that Trump was in cahoots with the Russians.

Manafort had a history of working on presidential campaigns, having advised those of Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bob Dole. In the 2008 presidential race, Senator John McCain considered hiring Manafort to manage the Republican convention. The political consultant, however, became too much of a liability when he and McCains top adviser, Rick Davis, arranged a meeting between the senator and Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who was pals with Russian president Vladimir Putin and had recently been denied a US visa due to suspicions of being connected to organized crime. At first, Deripaskas shaky status didnt deter Manafort and Davis from setting up a meeting with the senator at a swanky ski chalet in Switzerland, but when the association between the McCain team and Deripaska came to light, ties with Manafort were severed.

During this time, between 2006 and 2010, Manafort worked as an adviser to Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. Controversial and pro-Russian, Yanukovych won the fourth election after Ukraines independence from Russia; his opponent, however, claimed the 2004 election runoff was rigged. The questionable results incited a series of protests culminating in the Orange Revolution, where protesters wore orange against the frigid backdrop of the Ukrainian winter in support of Yanukovychs rival, Viktor Yushchenko. The peaceful demonstrations had their desired effect: the Supreme Court of Ukraine overturned the election and ordered a repeat of the second-round ballot. Yushchenko won 52 to 44 percent. As a result, Yanukovychs political image was in shambles, and his clout among foreign governments, such as the United States, took a heavy blow. It was Manaforts job to rehabilitate his image and the reputation of Yanukovychs Party of Regions.