There is a huge story being reported by The Washington Post today. It is that the Russian Intelligence planted a fake email story for the FBI to find. Actually the Russians handed it to the FBI back in March 2016.
The significance of this just, “how did the Russians connect all of these Democratic members in and out of leadership positions together and make the fake document seem real all to effect the on-going FBI investigations and the election outcome?”
There are no real answers to the questions about where did the information and documents come from. The bottom line is either the Russians are able to search all the hacked databases and string together the individuals.
Or the other option is that someone with experience and access to news stories archives and was able to perform the necessary searches. This is something experience opposition research personnel perform with ease. There are several GOP supporting corporations and individuals capable of performing the necessary researches and provide the results to someone. That information could have been used by the Russians.
I am sure the CIA and FBI can track down the source of the opposition research necessary to fabricate a fake document for the FBI investigations.
The Washington Post report is very detailed and rises many questions about how did Russia screw the FBI investigation and indirectly the American election.
Washington Post Report:
In the supposed email, Wasserman Schultz claimed Lynch had been in private communication with a senior Clinton campaign staffer named Amanda Renteria during the campaign. The document indicated Lynch had told Renteria that she would not let the FBI investigation into Clinton go too far, according to people familiar with it.
Current and former officials have argued that the secret document gave Comey good reason to take the extraordinary step over the summer of announcing the findings of the Clinton investigation himself without Justice Department involvement.
Comey had little choice, these people have said, because he feared that if Lynch announced no charges against Clinton, and then the secret document leaked, the legitimacy of the entire case would be questioned.
From the moment the bureau received the document from a source in early March 2016, its veracity was the subject of an internal debate at the FBI. Several people familiar with the matter said the bureau’s doubts about the document hardened in August when officials became more certain that there was nothing to substantiate the claims in the Russian document. FBI officials knew the bureau never had the underlying email with the explosive allegation, if it ever existed.
Wasserman Schultz, Benardo and Renteria did not know each other but were falsely identified as having been involved with comminutions between each other.
Wasserman Schultz and Benardo said in separate interviews with The Washington Post that they do not know each other and have never communicated. Renteria, in an interview, and people familiar with Lynch’s account said the two also do not know each other and have never communicated. Lynch declined to comment for this article.
Moreover, Wasserman Schultz, Benardo and Renteria said they have never been interviewed by the FBI about the matter.
Of course we cannot have a GOP smear without connecting it to the Democratic bogyman Soros. Who would first tie Soros and DNC together in scandals? The Russians or the GOP?
As for Renteria, Wasserman Schultz said she knew who she was from past political work but had “virtually no interaction” with her during the 2016 campaign. “I was definitely in the same room as her on more than one occasion, but we did not interact, and no email exchange during the campaign, or ever,’’ she said.
When asked, the individuals named in the document struggled to fathom why their identities would have been woven together in a document describing communications they said never happened. But others recognized the dim outlines of a conspiracy theory that would be less surprising in Russia, where Soros — the founder of the organization Benardo works for — and Clinton are both regarded as political enemies of the Kremlin.
“The idea that Russians would tell a story in which the Clinton campaign, Soros and even an Obama administration official are connected — that Russians might tell such a story, that is not at all surprising,” said Matt Rojansky, a Russia expert and director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center. “Because that is part of the Kremlin worldview.”
Thoughts from Josh Marshall at TPM does not miss the importance of this fake document from the Russian Intelligence agencies.
"This Is Huge, Astonishing" by Josh Marshall
...
It’s so far in the weeds and doesn’t directly implicate or exonerate Trump. So I suspect it may somehow not get the attention it deserves. But the new report from the Post that James Comey’s decision to announce the Clinton “no charges” decision on his own in July 2016 may itself have been the product of a successful Russian disinformation campaign is simply remarkable.
…
Now this new story tells a very different story. The email appears to be much more specific, suggesting that Lynch had given her assurance that she wouldn’t let the probe go too far. But that’s not the big news: it now appears to be the consensus opinion in the FBI and intelligence community that the email is in fact fraudulent, presumably a fake document woven into a trove of genuine documents with the aim of having it be found by the FBI and trigger something just like what in fact happened. Notably, the apparently fraudulent email never appeared in any of the document dumps during the course of the election. It only seems to have dropped directly into the FBI’s hands.
“Used with permission from the TPM websites, a service of TPM Media LLC.” All rights not expressly granted herein are hereby reserved.