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Group, led by the brother of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, received millions lobbying for
Russia’s largest bank and the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, both with deep Kremlin ties.
The Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton took millions from Kremlin-connected businesses.
No evidence has emerged of Trump-Russia collusion, and Mr. Mueller has yet to bring collusion-
related charges against anyone. Evidence suggests one of his targets, George Papadopoulos, was lured
to London, plied with the prospect of Russian information damaging to Mrs. Clinton, and taken to
dinner, where he drunkenly bragged that he’d heard about such dirt but never seen it. These
circumstances not only fail to suggest Mr. Papadopoulos committed a crime, they reek of entrapment.
The source of this information, former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, admits Mr.
Papadopolous never mentioned emails, destroying any reasonable inference of a connection between
the DNC hack and the Trump campaign.
Crossfire’s progenitors thus ignored an obvious question: If Russia promised unspecified dirt on Mrs.
Clinton but never delivered it, how would that amount to collusion with the Trump campaign? If
anything, such behavior suggests an attempt to entice and potentially embarrass Mr. Trump by
dangling the prospect of compromising information and getting his aides to jump at it.
Given the paucity of evidence, it’s staggering that the FBI would initiate a counterintelligence
investigation, led by politically biased staff, amid a presidential campaign. The aggressive methods
and subsequent leaking only strengthen that conclusion. If the FBI sincerely believed Trump
associates were Russian targets or agents, the proper response would have been to inform Mr. Trump
so that he could protect his campaign and the country.
Mr. Trump’s critics argue that the claim of political bias is belied by the fact that Crossfire was not
leaked before the election. In fact, there were vigorous, successful pre-election efforts to publicize the
Trump-Russia collusion narrative. Shortly after Crossfire’s launch, CIA Director John Brennan and
Mr. Comey briefed Congress, triggering predictable leaking. Christopher Steele and his patrons
embarked on a media roadshow, making their dossier something of an open secret in Washington.
On Aug. 29, 2016, the New York Times published a letter to Mr. Comey from Senate Minority Leader
Harry Reid, saying he’d learned of “evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government
and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign,” which had “employed a number of individuals with
significant and disturbing ties to Russia and the Kremlin.” On Aug. 30, the ranking Democratic
members of four House committees wrote a public letter to Mr. Comey requesting “that the FBI assess
whether connections between Trump campaign officials and Russian interests” may have contributed
to the DNC hack so as “to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.” On Sept. 23, Yahoo News’s
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