TRUMP INVESTIGATES THE FBI
Janusz Bugajski
In an effort to clear his name of foreign collaboration, President Donald Trump has instructed the Justice Department to investigate the FBI probe into Russia’s intervention in the US presidential elections. This is an unprecedented scrutinyinto US intelligence and law enforcement agencies that will only assist Moscow in its attack on American democracy.
Trump desperately wants to prove that the FBI wrongly investigated him. But instead of vindicating the President, the new investigation may actually disclose that Moscow’s intelligence services are more devious and that Trump and his advisors are more credulous than many supposed.
The FBI investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that there was no provable criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. However, it also declared that both sides benefited from Moscow’s hacking of Democratic Party EMails and Russian disinformation campaigns on social platforms. However, while the Mueller report assumes that the Kremlin simply wanted Trump to win the elections, the truth is much more nuanced.
Russian intelligence services primarily sought to exacerbate partisanship and polarization in American society and nurtured various conspiracy theories during the election campaign. What better way to deepen political divisions then by publicly discrediting both presidential candidates. Although the Kremlin focused on Hillary Clinton, as it was convinced she would win the elections and sought to delegitimize her presidency, it also devised a back-up plan in case Trump was the surprise winner.
Indeed, the entire Trump “Russia collusion”narrative could be a conspiracy purposively manufactured not, as the President claims, by “angry Democrats” but by Russian services intent on disruptingthe US political system and paralyzing policy-making.
While cultivating business ties with Trump for many years the Kremlin must have gathered compromising information that could be used for potential blackmail, as they do with all politicians and businessmen dealing with Russia. During the campaign and the transition period Moscow courted Trump to test whether he would be more compliant in lifting economic sanctions and more agreeable to Russia’s geopolitical ambitions. Kremlin operatives would have acted as amateurs without a parallel plan to undermine decision-making in case Trump gained the White House but did not reverse US policy toward Russia.
The “Steele dossier,” which was the first public document to chronicle Trump-Moscow connections and detailed various salacious Trump activities, could have been a deliberate plant by Russian services. Christopher Steele, regardless of his past British intelligence background, would not have acquired such easy access to secret information from Russian services unless he was cultivated as a conduit for Moscow’s subversive influence.
Russian agencies alsoarrangednumerousunprofessional and easily traceable“Russian contacts” with the Trump campaign in order to establish a record for investigators and for the media in case Moscow needed to discredit the President by embroiling him in evident collaboration with a foreign power.
In many respects, Trump was the classic “naïve American” who fell into a trap of seemingly cooperating with Russia in order to enhance his own political ambitions. This sowed the seeds of Trump’s illegitimacy in the eyes of many Americans. His attacks on Democrats for allegedly manufacturing the ”Russia hoax” have also played fully into Moscow’s hands by deepening partisan divisions and public outrage.
The sweeping powers that Trump has now given Attorney General William Barr to probe the FBI may prove even more damaging for the President.It could reveal more extensively how the Trump campaign was manipulated and exploited by Russian intelligence services. This will be valuable material for analysts of Moscow’s subversive operations but not for the authority of the White House.
Moscow will further benefit from the “Barr investigation” because it is likely to foster friction and even conflict between and within law enforcement and counter-intelligence agencies. The potential release of classified information could undermine the FBI and other bodies, unveil key sources and agents in the field, and enable even deeper Russian penetration of the American system.
The White House would be well advised to rethink the Barr probe. Instead, it could outsmart the Kremlin by taking a harder line on Russia’s regime for its attempts to weaken America and to use Trump as a patsy. The President has assembled a national security team that well understands Moscow’s policies and has pushed back on its expansionist aspirations by toughening economic sanctions and strengthening NATO’s eastern flank. They should also understand the potential political consequences of another “Russia collusion” investigation.