A ton of ink, or pixels, as the case may be, has been spent on a particular text from FBI agent Peter Strzok to his paramour in the bureau, Lisa Page.
Before the 2016 election, as they plotted how to ensure Donald Trump was defeated, he texted: “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office – that there’s no way he gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
“It” apparently was the dossier of wild and unsubstantiated claims about Donald Trump. Written by ex-British spy Christopher Steele and financed by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, it relied on unnamed Russian sources.
The document then was used by Barack Obamas’ Department of Justice as evidence before a secret Washington court to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. And it was a catalyst for launching Robert Mueller’s special counsel probe, which had turned up no evidence of Trump campaign collusion with Russia.
Larry O’Connor, in an analysis for the Washington Times, wonders why the Clinton campaign didn’t use any of the negative information during the election campaign.
“This argument makes sense (which is why it is employed and repeated by mainstream media journalists and pundits whenever objections to Justice Department behavior in 2016 is raised on cable news) only if the sole intent of the FBI’s action in the summer of 2016 was to harm the Trump campaign.”
But that was “not the mission of the creators and commissioners of the Steele dossier.”
“It was, instead, to harm Mr. Trump if he won the election.”
O’Connor said some wrongly believe the “insurance policy” was a scheme to prevent Trump from winning.
“But this is not what insurance does. An insurance policy does not prevent a catastrophe from happening; it provides relief and restoration after the catastrophe occurs.”
O’Connor said Strzok “explains this explicitly in his text, but the mainstream media wish to ignore it.”
The now-fired FBI agent wrote: “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.'”
O’Connor explained Strzok wasn’t saying “in the unlikely event you get sick and could die.”
“He is saying this is insurance in case the worst possible thing happens. If you die. If Mr. Trump gets elected. The insurance policy is to repair the damage after Mr. Trump wins. Just in case Mr. Trump wins.”
He noted that newly found documents in a British case show Strzok’s idea “was conceived months before and put into action by none other than the Clinton presidential campaign.”
The Washington Times’ Rowan Scarborough reported last week that dossier author Steele told a British court that he was not hired to thwart Trump’s chances to win but to undermine the legitimacy of his presidency should he win.
He explained bluntly Clinton’s legal advisers engaged the activists at Fusion GPS and Steele “to provide legal advice on the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
Their objective was to challenge the validity of an election win for Trump.
“But the reason for the project in the first place, and the very real impact of Mr. Steele’s efforts, was to delegitimize and undermine the presidency of Donald Trump,” O’Connor said. “And with the help of an all-to-willing mainstream media, so far the insurance policy has paid off.”
