Lest there be any doubt, a Daily Mail article dated 3/02/2017 reports that Obama wants to “oust” Trump. “Obama’s goal is to oust Trump from the presidency either by forcing his resignation or through his impeachment, a family friend tells DailyMail.com.”
In the light of Obama’s objective to bring about Trump’s downfall, we can now understand better a number of Obama’s actions before and after the November election. We can see that these actions of Obama have been critical in nurturing the anti-Trump coup.
On October 7, 2016, Obama formally blamed Russia for hacking the DNC, despite there being no evidence made public then or now that this is true.
This unsupported accusation kept alive the possibility of linking Trump to Russia as a tool of Russia and to the notion that Russia interfered in the election for Trump’s benefit as Putin’s man in the White House. This accusation supported Hillary Clinton’s own accusations against Trump. Of greatest importance, Obama’s accusation laid the foundation for keeping alive and extending investigations into Trump, his associates and the Trump campaign.
On December 9, 2016, Obama ordered a full review of Russian hacking attempts: “The President has directed the Intelligence Community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process…”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said “It appears, however, that after eight years the administration has suddenly awoken to the threat.”
Why did Obama authorize a review in early December after 8 years of inaction? The answer is that Clinton had lost the election and Obama wanted to use his powers to do what he could to bring Trump down. The investigation of Russian election influence was not for the high-sounding reason of electoral integrity. It was to diminish Trump’s powers, tie his administration in knots, remove key appointees of his, raise the importance of Democratic holdovers, and ultimately force Trump’s resignation or impeachment. Behind it all, Obama’s power hunger remains strong.
This authorization was a blank check to intelligence agencies and persons therein who were hostile to Trump to examine the communications of Trump and his appointees. The election had been over for a month, but Obama was continuing a pattern of behavior designed to bring about Trump’s ouster.
On December 16, 2016, Obama repeated his accusation against Russia, stating that “in fact”, Russia has “hacked into the DNC”, again an implicit condemnation of Trump’s election win.
Later in the month, Dec. 29, 2016, Obama again kept the matter alive by invoking new sanctions against Russia. Obama also ejected 35 Russian diplomats from the Washington embassy, San Francisco and other compounds in Maryland and New York.
On the same Dec. 29, 2016, we know that yet another reinforcement of the accusation appeared: “‘Joint Analysis Report’ by the FBI and DHS has been released that formally points the finger at Russia for the alleged hacking of the Democratic Party.”
Media accounts typically segued from these anti-Russian actions into the larger picture concerning Trump and the election. For example, the Business Insider article wrote “Obama ordered the intelligence community to conduct a full review of the Russian hacking campaign — and how it may have affected the presidential election — soon after the CIA report was leaked.” Also, they wrote “In it, the CIA said the Russians had been working toward a specific goal when they hacked into the inboxes of DNC staffers and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta: ‘to help Trump get elected.'”
On January 12, 2017, Obama gave the NSA broad new power to disseminate information and intelligence to other intelligence agencies in the government. This surprise move created a broad new field for leaks, not only of relevant intelligence but also of raw, undigested, un-evaluated, irrelevant, and false intelligence.
James Clapper was in on this simply astonishing move. He signed off on it on Dec. 15, 2016. Attorney General Loretta Lynn was in on it. She signed off on it on January 3, 2017. This is in the supporting government documentation to Obama’s executive order 12333.
All of a sudden, Obama opens the door to an enormous expansion of material that can only bedevil and hamstring the incoming Trump administration. Obama, the president who had been more strongly in favor of secrecy and prosecution of leakers and whistleblowers than any president, suddenly changes the rules to favor leaks. Why? To turn loose the anti-Trump forces and to supply them with ample ammunition. The goal is to undermine Trump as president.
Every anti-Russian move of Obama has simultaneously been an anti-Trump move, and this connection appears time and again in media articles. There is no known public evidence of an official Russian attempt to hack the DNC. There is no strong reason for Obama to make Russian meddling an issue. But there is a strong reason for Obama to make it an issue if it simultaneously makes Trump an issue.
One more of Obama’s anti-Trump moves has been the drive to retain information about Russian interference. A Newsweek article is headlined “Obama Officials ‘Fought to Preserve Evidence’ of Russian Election Meddling”. The first two paragraphs link Russia and election meddling to Trump:
“Obama-era officials worked to preserve a trail of evidence about alleged Russian efforts to undermine the U.S. presidential election in the last days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to a report in The New York Times.”
“Allegations about Russian influence in the election, and claims that figures close to the Trump team met with Russian officials, dogged Trump’s campaign throughout much of last year.”
Furthermore, in conjunction with the new Obama order increasing the spread of raw NSA intelligence, the classifications are altered: “Meanwhile, at intelligence agencies, efforts were made to keep reports at as low a classification level as possible in order to ensure a relatively wide readership.”
Obama’s actions have been key in nurturing and sustaining the anti-Trump coup. He did this by using the alleged links between Russia and Trump and his team. He took the high road of attacking Russia, not Trump. He left the attacks on Trump to Clinton and others. Obama turned the dogs of intelligence and investigation loose against Trump. How? He blamed Russia openly and then ordered a formal review of Russia’s election role. He reinforced his accusation in public several times and imposed sanctions on Russia. He knew that the media constantly associated the Russian meddling with Trump, forcing Trump into defensive denials. Obama opened the spigot of leaks of questionable and unverifiable material wide by allowing the spread of raw intelligence to many government agencies.
An earlier article of mine on the anti-Trump coup appears here.
3:50 pm on March 7, 2017
