Democrats have again accused Russia of working to help Donald Trump win the presidential election, and they have more help from the author of the debunked dossier financed through Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Russian collusion is back, and so is Christoper Steele, a former British intelligence agent whose dossier launched the FBI investigation that hounded Mr. Trump throughout his presidency.
The dossier claimed the Russians could blackmail Mr. Trump with a secret “pee tape” recorded with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.
Mr. Steele plans to release a new book just a few weeks before the presidential election that claims Mr. Trump and Vladimir Putin pose a threat to democracy.
“Putin is now desperate to have Donald Trump back in the White House. If he succeeds in helping Trump get reelected, I am convinced that the global political order will be utterly changed. We shall have entered a new historical era of strategic chaos, a ‘new world disorder.’ The consequences of Trump winning the 2024 election are catastrophic,” he writes, according to an excerpt from the book.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced that it had interrupted a covert Russian effort spearheaded by Mr. Putin’s inner circle “to interfere and influence the outcome of our country’s elections.” Attorney General Merrick Garland did not say which candidate the Russians preferred, but Justice Department documents related to the case made it apparent that Russia’s influence campaign, just like Democrats claimed in 2016, was intended to benefit Mr. Trump.
The latest Russian collusion narrative aligns with Vice President Kamala Harris’ effort to frame Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy.
“Take it from the people who worked for him. Donald Trump is a danger to our troops, our security, and our democracy,” Ms. Harris posted on X after her campaign released an ad featuring testimonials from former members of his Cabinet warning against his reelection.
In the ad, former Vice President Mike Pence, former National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, denounce Mr. Trump as a “danger” and “would-be dictator” who, if elected, “would cause a lot of damage.”
Mr. Trump and his allies say the Russian collusion narrative appears politically motivated and an effort to revive the false 2016 claims about Mr. Trump that led to years of FBI investigations.
Mr. Trump, on the campaign stage, appeared baffled by the claim that Russia is once again secretly angling to get him elected. He has recounted his policies to block Russia’s natural gas pipeline, sanctions imposed against Russian oligarchs and a foreign policy stance that he says would have deterred Mr. Putin from invading Ukraine.
At a rally in Wisconsin last week, Mr. Trump pointed out that Mr. Putin endorsed Ms. Harris for president.
“They’re 19 steps ahead of us,” Mr. Trump said. “Nobody was tougher on Russia in history than Trump. The person that knows that better than anyone is President Vladimir Putin.”
Mr. Trump fueled the Democrats’ charge this month with a rant on his Truth Social media site in which he threatened to prosecute officials who cheat in the upcoming presidential election.
“Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country,” he posted on Saturday.
News outlets ran headlines declaring that Mr. Trump threatened to imprison his political adversaries. Three days later, ABC News’ moderators at the presidential debate asked Ms. Harris what she thought of his social media post.
Ms. Harris said it showed that Mr. Trump lacked the temperament to serve as commander in chief and posed a threat to democracy.
“We cannot afford to have a president of the United States who attempts, as he did in the past, to upend the will of the voters in a free and fair election,” she said.
Mr. Trump responded by accusing the Biden administration of demonizing him. The Justice Department is prosecuting the former president over his possession and handling of classified documents and his efforts to block the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Mr. Trump said was rife with irregularities.
President Biden was investigated for improperly taking and storing classified documents, some of it for his memoir, for which he received an $8 million advance. Unlike Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden did not face prosecution.
“This is the one that weaponized,” Mr. Trump said on the debate stage about Ms. Harris. “Not me. She weaponized.”
Mr. Trump said the Biden administration’s attacks against him may have motivated the man who shot him and his supporters at a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, although the FBI has not determined a motive.
“I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me. They talk about democracy. I’m a threat to democracy? They’re the threat to democracy — with the fake Russia, Russia, Russia investigation that went nowhere,” Mr. Trump said at the debate.
Mr. Trump’s assertions that the Russia collusion investigation originated with the Democrats were confirmed in 2022.
The Federal Election Commission fined the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee for failing to disclose the purpose of campaign payments to the Washington research firm Fusion GPS, which was hired to dig up dirt on Mr. Trump.
Fusion GPS hired Mr. Steele to write and disseminate the salacious and unverified dossier, which was produced using information from current and former Russian government officials.
The so-called Steele Dossier was never verified. It included sordid allegations that Mr. Trump hired prostitutes in 2013 to urinate on a bed in a Moscow hotel room once used by the Obamas and recorded it on tape. The claim about the tape came from Russian businessman Giorgi Rtskhiladze, who later admitted the claim was fake.
The sordid contents of the unverified dossier nonetheless made national headlines before Mr. Trump took office.
FBI Director James B. Comey briefed Mr. Trump about it, even though FBI officials knew its contents were unproven. Word of the briefing was leaked to the media 10 days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
Mr. Trump, as president-elect, took to social media to defend himself for the first of what would be countless times over the next eight years against claims that he was in league with Russia.
“Fake news,” he tweeted in all caps on Jan. 10, 2017. “A total political witch hunt!”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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