A new analysis suggests the debunked Russia-collusion allegations pursued by Democrats against President Trump ran right through the desk of the alleged whistleblower whose complaint triggered the impeachment campaign against the president.
Writing for the Gateway Pundit, Lawrence Sellin, a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and a veteran of action in both Afghanistan and Iraq, wrote that just as Trump was gaining a lead over his Republican primary opponents in 2015, then-Vice President Joe Biden headed to Ukraine to announce a $190 million program to "fight corruption in law enforcement and reform the justice sector."
Biden, Sellin noted, explicitly linked a $1 billion loan guarantee to the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin.
Shokin had been investigating possible corruption at the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, which was paying Biden's son, Hunter, $83,000 a month to be on the board, despite the fact he had no experience in the industry.
Just days later, the reported whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, held a meeting in Washington with strategic officials.
Among them was Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center, a George Soros organization that was 59% funded by Barack Obama's State Department and the International Renaissance Foundation. Another was Catherine Newcombe, who supervised the Department of Justice's legal assistance programs in Ukraine.
Then Paul Manafort, endorsed by Roger Stone, took over as Trump campaign chairman.
"Based on events occurring during the same period, were Obama Deep State operatives aware of Manafort’s intent and already intending to use his past questionable practices and links to Russia against Trump?" Sellin asked. "Such awareness of Manafort’s plans could have been obtained either through FBI surveillance, which began in 2014 and ended in early 2016, or through information provided by Manafort associates. Among them were Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Manafort and was a FBI and Department of State asset, not a Russian agent as later painted by the Mueller investigation.
Then came the whistleblower, a CIA worker, who "chaired a meeting of FBI, Department of Justice and Department of State personnel.
There were two reasons for the meeting, Sellin said: "To coerce the Ukrainians to drop the Burisma probe, which involved Vice President Joseph Biden’s son Hunter, and allow the FBI to take it over the investigation. [And] To reopen a closed 2014 FBI investigation that focused heavily on GOP lobbyist Paul Manafort, whose firm long had been tied to Trump through his partner and Trump pal, Roger Stone."
Sellin said the Democrats' plan was to "contain the investigation of Biden’s son and ramp up the investigation of Paul Manafort."
The report lists attendees at several meetings reportedly organized by Ciaramella that included Ukrainian officials, legal specialists, anti-corruption specialists, DOJ experts in crime, U.S. embassy officials from Ukraine and others.
Sellin wrote: "It appears that Paul Manafort became a vehicle by which the Obama Deep State operatives could link Trump to nefarious activities involving Russians, which eventually evolved into the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. Remember, the key claim of the follow-up Steele dossier, the centerpiece of the Mueller investigation, was that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was the focal point of a 'well-developed conspiracy between them [the Trump campaign] and the Russian leadership.'"
He further noted that Nellie Ohr, the wife of senior DOJ official Bruce Ohr, worked with Christopher Steele on the anti-Trump dossier and was a conduit to her husband of information about the "black ledger" that later used in the prosecution of Manafort.
"Bruce Ohr and Steele attempted to get dirt on Manafort from a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, efforts that eventually led to a September 2016 meeting in which the FBI asked Deripaska if he could provide information to prove that Manafort was helping Trump collude with Russia," Sellin wrote.
"Given his close association with the pro-Russia Ukrainian government, it would be safe to assume that one motivation to pursue Paul Manafort so vigorously also stems from the humiliation and anger the Obama administration experienced due to the failure of its Russia 'reset' policy and its impotence in the face of Russia’s seizure of the Crimea."
Sellin said the targeting of Manafort, Carter Page and others was to obtain evidence about Trump without documenting that he was being investigated.
"After the election, to cover their tracks, James Comey, representing the FBI and the Department of Justice, misleadingly told Trump that the investigation was about Russia and a few stray people in his campaign, but they assured him he personally was not under investigation.
"They lied," Sellin wrote.