The Democrats Russia Delusion

Example A why John Brennan should be investigated and probably indicted.

By Chuck Warren

A recent Rasmussen poll has found that 60 percent of Democrats still believe in the Russia collusion hoax. The number is 69% for those who call themselves liberal. This issue continues to divide the nation with negative foreign policy implications, and those responsible should be held accountable.

The evidence for collusion was always thin and circumstantial, which has been discredited since 2016, anyway.

Much of the first Trump administration’s time and energy was spent on proving its innocence during the Robert Mueller investigation rather than pushing the president’s agenda. Just imagine being a government official who has investigators behind you asking you to explain everything you do. That was the case.

The legacy media spent the first four years pushing that lie and convincing its audience. When the report ended up being a nothing-burger, none of them raised their hands saying, “I got it wrong.” Instead, they doubled down.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe recently published a “lessons learned” report about the Russia investigation, not to repeat the mistakes. The report concluded that John Brennan, James Clapper, and James Comey manipulated the report. Instead of trying to mitigate their mistake, these journalists attacked it.

For a decade, Americans have been divided over whether their president is a Russian agent based on a bogus intelligence report manipulated by someone, Brennan, who voted for the Communist Party USA during the Cold War. We are to believe the words of the guy who wanted to put Soviet agents in the White House about who is a Russian agent? As a result, Americans turned against each other, and we are tearing ourselves apart.

Look at the Russia and Ukraine policy. Democrats never cared about Russia as a threat. In 2009, immediately after her appointment, Hillary Clinton traveled to Moscow to “reset” policy with Russia and improve relations after that big bad Republican George W. Bush had been mean to Putin—mind you, Russia had invaded and occupied Georgia only months earlier, but the Democrats thought that Bush was the real aggressor there. In 2012, Barack Obama mocked Mitt Romney for calling Russia a geopolitical foe. Instead, Obama was caught on a hot mic telling a close Putin confidant that he would be more flexible after his re-election to be even softer on Russia. After Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014, Obama refused to send Ukraine lethal aid—he only sent helmets and blankets.

Democrats never cared about Ukraine or being tough on Russia until they lied to everyone and themselves that Trump was a Russian agent. Then they became tough on Russia because they thought that Putin was a Republican—because of course Putin, who loves the Soviet Union, loves the party of Ronald Reagan that defeated the Evil Empire.

You can see it in their policy toward Ukraine. Joe Biden and his administration wanted to be tough on Russia out of spite for Republicans, but they also didn’t really look at Russia as a problem, so their support for Ukraine was lukewarm, always a day late and a dollar short, and never enough to help Ukraine win the war.

The Democrats’ primary interest in Ukraine is to put Republicans on the defensive, claiming that they do not support Ukraine because they are pro-Russia. It has always been about domestic politics. If they cared about Ukraine, they would be in favor of giving Ukraine what it needs to win. Which is what Trump did twice! First, by reversing Obama’s policy and sending lethal aid to Ukraine in 2017, and then again now that he is sending long-range missiles and other advanced weapons, which Biden denied to Ukraine.

Turning Russia and Ukraine into a front for partisan politics has affected our foreign policy. We have not been able to honestly and sincerely debate the war and what our role in it and level of support for Ukraine should be. I thought from the beginning that we should help Ukraine win, but accusing any opposing view of being paid by Putin has not helped Ukraine. It has only polarized it more.

All of this is because of manipulated intelligence by the Obama administration to lie to the American people.

People who did this should be held accountable. A criminal investigation should be conducted, and the culprits should be sentenced to prison.

Americans agree. 57 percent believe that the officials who manipulated the intelligence to make Trump look bad should be criminally prosecuted, and only 26 percent disagree. 53 percent also think that “What the intelligence community did to Donald Trump is a bigger scandal than Watergate.”

And it was. Watergate is so large in our imaginations because Nixon, at last, had the decency to take responsibility and resign, a first in American history. Unfortunately, these Democrats are even less honorable than Nixon. Instead of admitting to what they did wrong, they are doubling down.

If these partisan hacks had accepted the blame and confessed, everyone today would agree that the Russia hoax was bigger than Watergate. And that is exactly why we need a criminal investigation: to elevate the scandal to the place it deserves in American history, and, through the fact-finding part of the investigation, prove it was pure partisan politics (if not a soft coup), we can end our national divide.

Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Chuck Warren only and not his co-host Sam Stone or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.