The Trump Coup Is a Threat to Our Republic by Larry Johnson

On the threshhold of the second anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration, the details of the coup to force him from the Presidency are emerging and should alarm all Americans regardless of political party affiliation. Although many facts remain to be discovered, what has emerged paints a shocking picture of criminal activity by FBI and CIA officials. That explains in part why both agencies are going to great lengths to hide documents that provide indisputable proof of their malfeasance.

When American law enforcement and officials, who carry Top Secret clearances and authority to collect intelligence or pursue a criminal investigation, decide to employ lies and intimidation to silence those who worked for Donald Trump’s Presidency, our Republic is endangered.

My interest is not in protecting or defending Donald Trump. I am talking about defending the rule of law and ensuring that the Constitutional limitations on the powers of the Federal Government are protected.

What evidence do I offer of the attempted coup? Here is what we know for certain:

• Foreign intelligence entities started collecting intelligence on Donald Trump and his associates in 2015.
• The names of more than 200 people connected to the Trump campaign listed in those reports were unmasked by the Obama Administration.
• The FBI used two paid informants—Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper—to target Trump and members of his team and coordinated this effort with British MI-6 and the CIA.
• The FBI had additional informant with direct access to Trump who specialized in targeting Russian spies and Russian mobsters. His name? Felix Sater. Yet, Sater appears never to have been tasked to provide any incriminating information on Donald Trump.
• Bill Priestrap, the FBI Assistant Director for Counter Intelligence since December 2015, relied on Felix Sater in a major operation against Russian spies and then had oversight of the investigation into Donald Trump.
• So far, no indictment has surfaced from Special Prosecutor Mueller’s efforts implicating Trump with the Russian government.

The operation against Donald Trump is pure and simple covert action. But it is covert action on a massive scale and has involved coordinated actions between U.S. law enforcement, U.S. intelligence agencies and foreign intelligence agencies, including both the British Government and the Australian Government.

There are eight major components to this covert action. This is not a confirmed complete list. More elements may surface in the coming days. But these are what we know for certain:

1. British and other foreign intelligence services were collecting on persons working with and for Donald Trump. GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. Thisintelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added. Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians, sources said. This “intelligence” was then used by the Obama Administration to “unmask” Americans named in the intelligence who were working with Donald Trump. The European countries that passed on electronic intelligence – known as sigint – included Germany, Estonia and Poland. Australia, a member of the “Five Eyes” spying alliance that also includes the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand, also relayed material, one source said. (Luke Harding, Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Nick Hopkins Exclusive: GCHQ is said to have alerted US agencies after becoming aware of contacts in 2015 Thu 13 Apr 2017 09.39 EDT, THE GUARDIAN)

 

2. February/March 2016--George Popadopoulus was specifically targeted by a combined MI-6/CIA operation. GCHQ started collecting on the Trump team in the summer of 2015. these intercepted communications provided the means to identify George Papadopoulos as a potential target. But this was more than a mere GCHQ routine collection. MI6 also was involved. British intel was worried about Trump’s stated positions in 2015 on Syria and NATO, which were inimical to British interests. Meanwhile, back in my country, Jim Clapper at DNI and John Brennan at CIA started to conspire against Trump. They did not believe that Trump would be elected but still decided to take steps to discredit him using the Russia meme. I have this solidly sourced. In other words, US intel and British intel started working against Trump independently at the outset. This effort subsequently was coordinated through the JIC. What is alarming is that despite the targeting of Trump NO intel of any value on the Trump/Russian angle was ever produced. I thank you for the excellent piece you did on Mifsud. Mifsud’s “arrival” at the London Center for International Law Practice (LCILP) was not, in my view, a mere coincidence. Papadopoulos was then recruited, unwittingly, to join LCILP as part of a broader intel op intended to compromise him as a Russian enthusiast.

 

3. May 6, 2016--DNC Computer supposedly was hacked by Russian government agents and an outside firm, Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity firm that was brought in at the recommendation of Mark Elias (the same attorney who had hired Fusion GPS) is on the record claiming it started working in early May to counter the Russian threat. It was Crowdstrike, not the FBI, that claimed in mid-June that the email theft from the DNC was carried out by Russian hackers. However, the available forensic evidence clearly shows that the information was downloaded by someone with access to the DNC computers. At no time was the FBI given forensic access to the DNC computer to conduct an independent investigation.

 

4. A “retired” MI-6 officer, Christopher Steele, was hired by Fusion GPS (which had been retained by a lawyer acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign) to assemble a “dossier” on Trump and his relationship with Russia. However, turns out that Steelealso was a fully signed up FBI informant since 2013. He was fired in October 2016 by the FBI for leaking to the media. Despite being funded by a political opponent of Trump, the dossier was a major justification for seeking a FISA warrant against Carter Page, who was affiliated with the Trump campaign. (https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/14/russia-dossier-fbi-trump-obama-1066643)

 

5. Summer 2016--Carter Page targeted by the FBI and collected on by NSA and CIA. Page had no relationship with Trump other than being named as an advisor to a group of foreign policyexperts. He never met Trump and never spoke with Trump. But the Steele Dossier fingers Page as playing a lead role in bringing Russian influence into the Trump campaign. This unproven allegation the major impetus for obtaining a FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page.

 

6. August/September 2016--FBI Informant Stefan Halper was used to try to entrap at least three people associated with Donald Trump. Halper, the son-in-law of a retired famous CIA officers, also was known to work with the CIA and MI-6 on other matters. In September Halper sought a meeting with George Papadopoulus to pitch him on writing a policy paper for $3000 and then traveling to London at Halper’s expense. Towards the end of the meeting Halper asked Papadopoulos: ‘George, you know about hacking the emails from Russia, right?’” Papadopoulus denied any knowledge of such activity.

 

7. DNI Jim Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan both engaged in continuous leaks to feed the meme that Trump was colluding with the Russians even though they knew they had no relevant intelligence to support their claims. They engaged in a deliberate covert information operation to poison the media against Trump. A retired FBI agent writing in the Wall Stree Joural noted that, “Robert Hannigan, then head of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, to pass information to Mr. Brennan. With only these suspicions, Mr. Brennan pressured the FBI into launching its counterintelligence probe.”

 

8. The FBI had an informant with expertise about the Russians planted inside the Trump organization since 2003, but apparently did not use him. FBI Informant Felix Sater, who started working with the Trump organization since 2003 and a boyhood friend of Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, had worked with the FBI in making several cases against Russian intelligence officers and Russian mobsters. Yet, during the 12 years he worked with the Trump organization, not a single indictment was ever brought against Trump or his employees prior to the start of his campaign for President. Even though Sater played a key role in the failed Moscow project, his role with the FBI only involved providing evidence that Michael Cohen lied to the Senate about the project.

The effort to destroy Donald Trump remains active. Trump, unfortunately, is proving to be quite feckless in defying this threat and protecting himself. But this should not be about protecting Trump and his reputation. This goes to something more profound and fundamental—are those charged with collecting foreign intelligence and investigating crime permitted to act with impunity against someone they define as a political foe. Such actions and attitudes reflect an authoritarian government, not a Republic.