George Stephanopoulos laid a trap for Donald Trump, and he managed to get Trump to almost step in it. Stephanopoulos had to do some gymnastics to get it, but the ultimate result was msn hysteria over a remark that Trump made about receiving information from a foreign source.
It left conservatives wondering: If that's so wrong, how come there was no outrage from their side about what Obama, Hillary, the DNC, and the deep state have done with foreign information?
John Solomon is one of those rare reporters who actually might be objective. In a recent piece at thehill.com he asks the rhetorical question: Aren't delirious Democrats now accusing Team Obama of treason?:
Sound familiar? That is EXACTLY what the Obama administration did in 2016. It’s something no one in the media or the political space grasped during the tsunami of breathless reaction that followed the interview.
In July 2016, the Obama administration accepted unsolicited information from Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat who just happened to have helped arrange a $25 million government donation to the Clinton Foundation years before. Downer said that he had witnessed a Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, bragging about some dirt that the Russians supposedly had on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Though Downer’s claim was reported two-plus months after the alleged event, and was only hearsay gathered at a London tavern, the Obama administration gave it to the FBI which, in turn, thought it was weighty enough to justify opening a counterintelligence case against the lawfully elected Republican nominee for president.
In other words, the Democratic administration accepted dirt from a foreign friendly and used it to justify investigating its GOP rival.
And then, OMG, they did it again just a few weeks later.
In October 2016, less than three weeks from Election Day, the Obama Justice Department approved a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on the Trump campaign through its former adviser, Carter Page. The primary evidence supporting the warrant? A dossier written by a foreign friendly named Christopher Steele, a retired MI6 intelligence agent from Great Britain. Of course, the Justice Department and the FBI forgot to tell the courts that Steele actually was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign, but that’s a small detail for the purpose of this column.
For the second time in three months, the Obama administration took dirt on Trump from a foreign ally — this time, from one in Europe — and weaponized it for a criminal investigation.
Ordinary Democrats wring their hands and wish their party could win without cheating. But a win is a win.
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1:36 PM 6/17/2019
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