A fascinating and disturbing time in Washington. An anti-Russian propaganda campaign is running at full tilt and we find Democrats, most of the media and some Republicans spreading innuendo and outright lies about Donald Trump and his alleged ties to Vladimir Putin. I thought Sean Spicer’s quip from yesterday’s (Tuesday) press conference captured the absurdity:

“If the President puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that’s a Russia connection,”

That’s a joke. At least one would think. But the insanity of the anti-Trumpers knows no boundaries. You need only take a look at a diatribe at the Huffington Post put up by Carly Ledbetter , who attacks Spicer for being so cavalier about such a serious matter. Here are a couple of examples from that she cites to reinforce her point that Spicer’s sinned against the nation:

Sean Spicer equating #RussiaGate to dressing is beyond ludicrous. Trump is under FBI investigation! @PressSec#RussianDressing

Spicer: If Pres used Russian Dressing that’s a Russian connection.  Yet I’m pretty sure WH wouldn’t obstruct justice to prove he used ranch 1:46 PM – 28 Mar 2017

Spicer also apparently forgot to research the origins of Russian dressing, as it was actually invented in Nashua, New Hampshire by a man named James E. Colburn, according to the Portland Press Herald: 

But the facts about Russian influence over Trump are non-existent. Not my opinion. That’s a fact that even the truth challenged Jim Clapper acknowledged in early March:

In an exclusive interview with Meet the Press, Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says that there wasn’t evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump earlier this year.

But the real news is the emerging evidence that Obama Administration did obtain classified intelligence reports that mentioned Donald Trump and members of his campaign and distributed that information.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes already has confirmed in writing and in interviews that the Obama Administration conducted the following activities against President-Elect Trump and his team between November 2016 and January 2017: 

• On numerous occasions, the Intelligence Community “incidentally” collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.  
• Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming Trump administration — details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value—were widely disseminated throughout the government, and apparently leaked to Obama administration allies in the media.  Those leaks are felonies. 
• Names of Trump transition team members were “unmasked” – their identities revealed and circulated – again, more felonies.   
• None of this surveillance was related to Russia or any investigation of Russian activities or of the Trump team. 

But we do not have to rely solely on the word of Devin Nunes, we also have former Obama Department of Defense official, Evelyn Farkas going on the record that the Obama Administration was spying on Trump:

I was urging my former colleagues, and, and frankly speaking the people on the Hill [Democrat politicians], it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can – get as much intelligence as you can – before President Obama leaves the administration.

Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior [Obama] people who left; so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy, um, that the Trump folks – if they found out HOW we knew what we knew about their, the Trump staff, dealing with Russians – that they would try to compromise those sources and methods; meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence.

So I became very worried because not enough was coming out into the open and I knew that there was more. We have very good intelligence on Russia; so then I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew that they were also trying to help get information to [Democrat politicians].

Sundance (who posts at The Conservative Tree House) provided some additional key points and linked to analysis originally provided by Colonel Lang:

♦ Evelyn Farkas has stated freely on TV that she and a group of associates from the Obama Administration went to congressional staffers who did not have access to these COMINT products and urged them to seek to gain access to them. At some point in the recent past Farkas was de-briefed (cut off) from access to the various kinds of compartmented information she had been given as a requirement of her prior job.  When that occurred she signed some papers in which she accepted the responsibility to protect the secrecy of that information. (link)

♦ Evelyn Farkas is also a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council –SEE HERE– the Atlantic Council is funded in part by the US State Department, NATO, the governments of Latvia and Lithuania, the Ukrainian World Congress, and the Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. The Atlantic Council has been among the loudest voices calling for a new Cold War with Russia. And guess who else is a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council? Dimitri Alperovitch – the founder and CTO of CrowdStrike! Alperovitch is head honcho of the Atlantic Council’s “Cyber Statecraft Initiative”.

♦ CrowdStrike, aka Dimitri Alperovitch was the organization that initially claimed they had evidence the Russians were connected to the Trump organization.  A claim they have subsequently walked back – SEE HERE

If we are to believe Ms. Farkas then it is pretty clear that the information that the Obama Administration was circulating was obtained through intelligence methods and was not the product of a FISA warrant. FISA material is not put into intelligence reports that can be disseminated. So, we are left with only two possibilities. One–the intelligence information came from collection efforts carried out by the CIA or the NSA, or Two–the intelligence information came from a foreign collector (I believe it was the Brits) and that information was passed to the U.S. intelligence community and distributed as liaison reporting.

The revelations about Farkas, Pinchuk and Alperovitch provide strong circumstantial evidence that the effort to take out Donald Trump is part of a broader anti-Russian propaganda campaign.