Consider the predicament members of the Obama administration were in after Donald John Trump won the 2016 election.  Their undertaking to destroy and stop the Republican nominee for the presidency had failed.  The powerful criminal and intelligence agencies of the federal government had engaged in behavior we would expect from corrupt third-world countries.  They abused the FISA court system to spy on Trump campaign associates and hence Trump himself.  They listened in on phone calls.  They arranged baited meetings using foreigners in attempted set-ups.  They leaked to the press.

But none of their manifold efforts produced any evidence that Trump or any member of his campaign team had colluded with the Russians to influence the election.

When we stand back and look at the manner in which the Obama administration went after the Trump campaign, it is truly bizarre.  For the government to take such unprecedented action against a political opponent, you would expect to see a credible, verifiable tip as the catalyst.  You would expect the tip to be really, really credible and specific, considering the gravity of making the entire Trump campaign team criminal suspects of the opposition party government.

Judicial Watch recently published the document the FBI used to justify the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign.  The tip the FBI relied on was from "Alexander Downer, the former Australian high commissioner to the United Kingdom, [who] has publicly acknowledged providing a memo to the FBI about Papadopoulos."  George Papadopoulos was a young, low-level volunteer to the Trump campaign who was set up by the FBI.  Papadopoulos never met or communicated with anyone from the Russian government; he met with U.S. government informants orchestrated by the FBI.

The accusations against Papadopoulos were vague, suggestive, and circular.  It appears that the FBI was at the center of the involvement of Alexander Downer, Joseph Mifsud, Stefan Halper, and Azra Turk in creating the flimsy appearance that Papadopoulos was a colluder with Russia for the Trump campaign.

At this point, we know there was never an articulable, actionable tip about any collusion.  After the so-called tip, what existed was a handful of Trump campaign people, and Trump himself, who previously had some level of legitimate business dealings with Russia.  Carter Page had even been an informant for the FBI, a fact that was hidden from the FISA court.

Lawful contacts with Russia, however, was enough for the Obama administration to run with.  After Hillary/DNC emails had been breached, the reset-button Russians were blamed.  To this day, the allegation has not been substantiated.  The DNC refused to turn over its computer servers for law enforcement investigation — even to its pals running the FBI.  Was Guccifer responsible?  Did Seth Rich deliver the emails to Julian Assange of WikiLeaks?  Who knows?  In our context, it doesn't matter.  What matters is unsubstantiated Russian claims were made, and Trump and some of his team had actually been to Russia.  Imagine that.

Hillary Clinton and the DNC paying millions for an opposition-research dossier put together by a foreigner with unsubstantiated and fanciful claims by, take a breath, Russians! is the stuff of novels.  Paid-for claims against Trump by Trump-haters (including dossier author Christopher Steele) from Russian sources to be used to prove that Trump is the colluder is so far-fetched that it couldn't possibly be true — except it happened in real life.  Add to the mix our FBI deceitfully used the unverified and now discredited political dossier to obtain not one, but several warrants to spy on Carter Page in the most intrusive way the law allows — essentially viewing Page as a traitor to the United States (but not informing the Republican nominee that he might have a traitor in his midst).

With the combination of the information-age overload and the Democrat Party news media controlling what's the news and narrative, major stories go unnoticed as a blip on the radar screen when red nuclear warning lights should be flashing.  The Clinton/DNC paid-for dossier and FBI's involvement should shock the conscience of every American. But does the average American even know what happened?

Just reporting the facts, the Epoch Times presents the clearest summation I have heard or read:

The dossier, a collection of allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign designed to sway the 2016 election, was produced by [Christopher] Steele under a contract from Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm hired in 2016 by Perkins Coie, which was, in turn, paid for the job by the Democratic National Committee and the campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The FBI used the dossier to obtain an intrusive spying warrant on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.  As a result, Page was subjected to at least six months of illegal surveillance.

People should be going to prison for a long time for that alone.

So, after the results of November 8, 2016 were finalized, the guilty actors in the Obama administration were in full-on panic mode.  Even with full-press cover by their reliable friends in the news media, the facts could still make their way to the light of day.

Hence, we have former NSA Susan Rice's inexplicable email to herself on Trump's inauguration day, reiterating a White House meeting three weeks prior on January 5, 2017.  Rice uses the email to justify her deceit and suppression of secrets to the incoming national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.  We are supposed to believe that Flynn couldn't be trusted with knowledge of the Obama administration's Trump/Russia collusion fantasy because Flynn was possibly a traitor and Russian agent himself — even though not a scintilla of evidence existed to support the conspiracy theory.

In the recently unredacted email, Rice asserts:

Director [James] Comey affirmed that he is proceeding 'by the book' as it relates to law enforcement.  From a national security perspective, Comey said he does have some concerns that incoming NSA Flynn is speaking frequently with Russian Ambassador Kislyak.  Comey said that could be an issue as it relates to sharing sensitive information [with Flynn].  President Obama asked if Comey was saying that the NSC should not pass sensitive information related to Russia to Flynn.  Comey replied 'potentially.'  He added that he has no indication thus far that Flynn has passed classified information to Kislyak, but he noted that 'the level of communication is unusual.'

Susan Rice conspicuously writes that FBI director James Comey affirmed that he had been doing everything by the book just as Obama wanted.  Nice words, but we know they are not true.  Incidentally, if everything had been done "by the book," there would not have been a brainstorming meeting in the White House on January 5, 2017 with the cast of unsavory players.

James Comey expressed concerns to Obama about Flynn's frequent conversations with the Russian ambassador.  But we know of only one call, and it was routine — and the FBI had been listening to Flynn's phone calls nonetheless, so Comey knew exactly what was said by Flynn to Kislyak.

As others have noted, Gen. Flynn was the person in the campaign and new administration most likely to discover and connect the dots of the Obama administration's unprecedented corruption.

They couldn't just tell Flynn about what they had been up to.

In fact, in the summer before the 2016 election, Flynn had become a target.  The Daily Caller reports that in the weeks before the election, the FBI offered to pay the infamous Christopher Steele "significantly" to dig up dirt on Gen. Flynn.

The James Comey perjury trap was set for Flynn just days after the inauguration without any predicate for a criminal interview.  Prior to the set-up, in a meeting between FBI director Comey, counterintelligence director Bill Priestap, and Dep. Director Andrew McCabe, we get a little window into their motives.  The notes released by the Justice Department show Bill Priestap asking, "What's our goal?  Truth/Admission or to get [Flynn] to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"

So, yes, the disgraced former FBI director did proceed by the book — the book of illegality and dirty tricks.

Monte Kuligowski is a Virginia attorney.