Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 7/25/25 Aaron Maté on Why Russiagate Matters

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

Scott brings journalist Aaron Maté back on the show to review some of the new information we learned about the origins of Russiagate and why, almost a decade later, this story remains so important.  Discussed on the show: “US intel hid high-level doubts about "Russian interference", docs reveal” (Substack) Aaron Maté is an NYC-based journalist and producer. He hosts the news show Pushback for The Grayzone, and writes regularly for The Nation. Subscribe to his Substack and follow him on Twitter @AaronJMate. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Incorporated; Moon Does Artisan Coffee; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, and author of Provote, how Washington started the new Cold War with Russia and the catastrophe in Ukraine. Sign up for the podcast feed at Scotthorton.org or Scott Horton Show.com. I've got more than 6,000 interviews in the archive. for you there going back to 2003 and follow me on all the video sites and x at scott horton show all right you guys on the line i've got aaron matte and he is from the gray zone and also from real clear investigations and his own site on substack is erin matay just spelled

like mate arynmatea dot net did i finally learn how to say your name right dude yeah hey i mean anyway it's fine with me scott Well, you're very patient and kind, and you must be very used to it being mispronounced. But I thought, you know what? I should try to listen closely to how he says it and see if I compare it that would make sense. Mate, right? You know, I actually say matte, to be honest with you, but... Matte.

I really don't care. I don't care less than someone says it. So it is Matt, but it's more emphasis on the first sort of part of it. though. Yeah. Yeah. Matti. Aaron Matting. Hey man, good to talk to you. How are you? I'm good, Scott. It's always good to talk to you. Yeah, cool. Thank you for joining us. Man, thank you so much for being so good on Rushgate. You know, I'm really good on it, but a big part of the reason why is because I read a bunch of stuff that you wrote about it over all those years debunking it. And I, of course, have a massive treatment on the subject in Provoked. But now we've got new news. And you, you

you have been doing a good job covering it. So Tulsi Gabbard released some things, and I guess I'll ask you to just sort of take us through what's new, and then I hope I know enough to ask you some good follow-up questions there. Well, there's a lot new. There's new details on how the intelligence officials who put out a really important intelligence assessment in January 2017, how they had nothing to go on.

They had incredibly thin sourcing. They were relying on the steel dossier, which is the collection of conspiracy theories funded by Hillary Clinton, and they were concealing that. But to me, the most important revelation is more confirmation that the foundational Russia gate allegation that Russia launched a sweeping interference campaign to install Trump at the center of which was the hacking and leaking of Democratic Party emails, that that was a fraud, that there was no basis for it. And what we've got now is new information showing that intelligence officials concealed their own doubts that Russia was behind the hacking leak of the DNC, which again, along with collusion, the idea of a conspiracy between Trump and Russia, that was the other main Russia gate allegation. All these breathless claims about Russian interference and Russia messing with our democracy, the actual tangible act at the heart of that supposed Russian meddling operation was Russia stealing and leaking Democratic Party emails. And now we know that there were doubts at the highest level about that, which got concealed. So September 2016, you know, a few months before the election, the U.S. produces an intelligence community assessment that we never saw until now, until nearly nine years later.

What does it say? That the two main intelligence agencies investigating the hacking and leaking from the DNC had low confidence that it was Russia. That's the FBI and the NSA. there's a suppressed intelligence assessment saying that the FBI and NSA have low confidence in the attribution of the data leaks to Russia. And one of the reasons why they say they have low confidence is because, quote, we lack sufficient technical details to correlate the information posted online.

So the emails released through WikiLeaks to Russian state-sponsored actors. So what they're basically saying is we have no evidence that this was Russia. That's exactly what those of us who are skeptical of Russia. we're saying from the start there was the allegation that russia hacked and leaked there was the allegation that russia was in cahoots with donald trump and wanting him to win but there's no evidence for it and now we have an admission at the highest level that they had no evidence they just kept that from us and this continues um wait stop right there i'd have to say that today's the anniversary it's nine years ago today april glassby day the day we celebrate every year when

James Baker's ambassador, George Bush's ambassador, April Glassby, told Saddam Hussein, yeah, go ahead and invade. Take back their northern oil fields. See if we care. It was that day in July of 2016 that Jeffrey Carr, the computer security expert, came on my show and explained that no one can examine the hack server and tell you for sure who hacked it, because it's too easy to fake that. And there's no way to prove that. On the other hand, there is one organization on the face of the earth one who can tell you with 100% certainty who did it because or certainly if it was done online because it's the NSA and because they can rewind the entire internet essentially and watch where every packet ever came from and follow that data around

and they could see and they could tell you for certain who did it and they're the only ones who could and anyone else claiming that they can tell you for certain is lying because they just can't and it was if i remember right that would make it five days or four days before they ever even launched crossfire hurricane that was debunked in public and and car that's two rs if people want to look it up car had debunk this publicly on twitter for a week or two before that it took me a little while to get them on the show that's correct and then but that didn't matter to people who are wedded to a narrative and for people who are just catching up with the story now who maybe weren't you know paying attention back then they might hear all that

and say okay fine but who cares like like why are you so worked up about you know whether or not russia stole some emails and it's true even if russia did steal the emails it'd be totally trivial um it's not out of the ordinary for countries to meddle in other people's elections and try to embarrass people they don't like the u.s does it all the time with a lot more effort than stealing some emails they spend you know tens of millions of dollars on propaganda operations on coups proxy wars you know all the things that you cover here scott on your show. But at the time, this was such a pervasive narrative that if you were to challenge all of this, it was like almost treasonous. Like you were considered a traitor or a Russian propagandist.

If you dared to question the holy word of the Democratic Party and anonymous intelligence officials telling us that Russia was trying to hack our minds, trying to hack the election. And this was the dominant narrative of Trump's first term. And one of the consequences of it, it was not just a domestic political thing. This helped fuel tensions between the U.S. and Russia, especially over Ukraine. So there were extreme geopolitical consequences to this. And it helped move the Democratic Party because they were coalescing around ultimately a new conservative conspiracy theory that Russia was trying to brainwash Americans and doing so in collusion with Trump, helped move the Democratic Party even more to the hardcore neocon right. So there were real world, there were real

world consequences beyond just U.S. politics. But going back to the hack and leak, okay, so now we get confirmed that this assessment was made by the NSA, the FBI on September 12th. Public is not told that. Instead, on October 7th, the Obama administration puts out a press release saying that the intelligence community is confident that Russia is behind the hack and leak in direct contradiction to with a private assessment of the FBI and the NSA. This press release from Obama, it's not signed by the FBI and then. NSA, signed by the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

So even though they're contradicting the FBI and the NSA, they're still claiming to speak falsely on behalf of the U.S. intelligence community. And that tells you already by October 7th, there's an interest here from very on high to blame Russia for something that privately the NSA and the FBI doubted. Then the election happens and Trump to everybody's surprise wins. And after the election, there's another memo circulated internally, which shows that the assessment had not changed. says that basically, this is December 7th now, most intelligence agencies assess with moderate

confidence that Russian services probably orchestrated some of the leak. So even though it's a very highly qualified and lower confidence assessment that Russia was behind the hacking and leaking, again, not we're being told publicly. And that same memo also acknowledges that they're basing their conclusions on the forensics provided by CrowdStrike, which is a firm working for the Hillary Clinton campaign. And that's another scandal here, because just as it was a scandal for the FBI to rely on the Hillary Clinton funded Christopher Steele for their collusion chase, why are they also relying on a private firm to identify a cyber meddling case that they're accusing a foreign

government of carrying out, that this would be like somebody breaking into my house, me accusing someone to break into my house. And then when the police come to investigate, me telling the police, yeah, you can't investigate my house for yourself. You have to rely on my own investigation, my own forensics. But that's exactly what happened here with the FBI and CrowdStrike. So we have private acknowledgment that they're relying on CrowdStrike, and even then, they still only have at best moderate confidence that Russia was involved in some of the leaks, which, again, it's a qualified, non-high confidence statement.

Then two days later, December 9th, 2016, and we get this again from these newly declassified record. There's a meeting at the White House with Obama, his top principles, including James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, John Brennan, head of the CIA, Susan Rice, others. And they decide then that basically doesn't matter what our evidence says, we're going to publicly blame Russia for the Hack and League. That's in the notes of the meeting, that we're going to blame Russia, even though we still have these assessments from the top agencies that they have low to moderate confidence. And funnily enough, even though James Clapper is there at that meeting, Brennan's there, other, you know, principals, who is not there are the heads of the FBI and the NSA, which at that point, we're still dissenting from the view that Russia did it.

And it's somehow at that, after that meeting, you start getting leaks coming out saying that Russia did it. Russia organized this massive interference campaign. And finally, that culminates a month later, early January. The Obama administration now in its final days in office publishes a so-called intelligence community assessment, blaming Russia with high confidence of being behind the hack and leak as part of an overall interference plot to install Trump. And what we know now from the newly declassified evidence is that they buried the low confidence assessment

in Russian hacking and leaking. And they also relied on evidence that was just absolutely ridiculous. John Brennan had one supposed mole in the Kremlin who had no access to Putin whatsoever. And he basically based a lot of what he told Brennan on what he admitted was secondhand information. So basically hearsay,

something he says somebody else told him, not any, not any, not any direct evidence himself. And that's what goes into the production of this intelligence community assessment and along with the steel dossier, which was a collection of conspiracy theories. And a lot of this were only getting now, you know, nearly nine years later. Yeah. Now, back one step, when it comes to crowd strike, telling the FBI what the FBI is supposed to think about. this hack you have previous reporting because i was just rereading my book where i cite you talking about how uh you showed in your work how crowd strike i guess requested and the fbi acquiesced and allowed them to rewrite an fbi memo to make it sound as though the fbi was confirming what they were saying

rather than just reporting what they were saying in that right that's correct now first of all the most important thing to know about Crowdstrike, along with the fact that they're literally working for Trump's political rival who has been, who's involved in a plot to frame Trump as a Russian agent and to accuse Russia of putting him in office. Crotchdick admitted under oath that they actually didn't even have any evidence that these alleged Russian hackers even took anything from the Democratic Party servers. That was another admission that was buried and kept from the public for years. Sean Henry of Crowdstrike admitted that in December 2017. We only found out about it in May 2020, more than a year after Robert Mueller's probe ended.

And so CrowdStrike, the firm that was used by the FBI to make its Russian hacking claims, admitted they actually didn't have any evidence that these alleged Russian hackers even took any data from the server. So there's that bear admission. And then you have also the fact that John Durham, when he went back and looked at all this, he avoided the crowd strike issue, but he had. happen to collect evidence that shows us once again the malfeasance and fraud that took place. And that includes CrowdStrike weighing in on CrowdStrike and the Hillary Clinton attorney Michael Sussman, who hired CrowdStrike, weighing in on the FBI's press releases on the topic of Russian hacking. And yes, as you said, rewriting certain words to make it more in line with their narrative that Russia hacked the DNC. because if I recall this right and I wrote about this on my substack

and also for real clear a few years ago, the FBI wanted to put out sort of more qualified language about that they didn't know whether it was Russia or not or something or basically just showing that there were gaps in making the attribution to Russia and Crowdstrike because that contrary to their narrative and that of the Clinton campaign,

Hillary Clinton's lawyer, Michael Sussman, proposes new text at the FBI, which the FBI then adopted. Along with the fact that the FBI did not challenge CrowdStrike when CrowdSach refused to let the FBI conduct its own examination of the server. And instead, the Clinton campaign said, you can rely on CrowdStrike's forensics, and that's what happened. So it's just so, I mean, can you imagine that you have a major alleged cyber crime and the FBI lets a third party private firm that's working for Hillary Clinton, who's accusing Trump of being a Russian agent, relies on this. them to do the investigation. That is a scandal in itself. And the fact that the FBI, and then I say ultimately didn't have confidence in the Russian hacking allegations,

you can understand why, because whatever CrowdStrike had wasn't convincing, and there wasn't even an independent FBI investigation of the hack servers. Yeah. Now, Aaron, I mean, you already said this, but let me reiterate this part of the show here, because it's so crucial that they have climbed down from just about everything here. There's just this blizzard of accusations against Donald Trump, like he was Saddam Hussein, and they just went for this propaganda campaign. And after they climbed down from everything, they go, yeah, but still, we know that Russia hacked those emails and gave them to WikiLeaks.

And that was the big thing that tilted the election for Trump. And that's the big thing that still nobody questions. Everybody knows that. Exactly right. And this is why I'm really focusing on this, because this is the last sort of leg of Russia Gates still standing. Nobody anymore defends the obsession for years that Trump was being blackmailed by Russia and was in cahoots with Russia. I mean, they've dropped that one because that's what happens with conspiracy theories.

Like, you can only keep them going for so long. And just there was an exhaustive multi-year investigation led by Robert Mueller, which turned up absolutely nothing. So the main Russia gate fraudsters, people like Adam Schiff, even they're not saying anymore that there was a conspiracy or collusion between Trump and Russia. But as you said, they do keep up with a narrative about. Russia hacking the D&C because that's the one thing that no one else has touched. John Durham basically ignored it. Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General, also ignored it. And the Senate Intelligence Committee, when they did a bipartisan investigation that

was released in August 2020, they split over the collusion thing, like the Republicans who are Trump allies, said, of course, there was no collusion. Democrats said the opposite. But on the core allegation of Russian interference, Russian email hacking, leaking, They all said, yes, Russia did it, and that's a consensus. And the intelligence community did its job. And why is that? Because the hacking and leaking allegation was used, first of all, to escalate the new Cold War with Russia.

Recall John McCain, Lindsay Graham in early 2017, they were saying things like, you know, Russia attacked our democracy and they're going to pay a heavy price. This speaks to why we have to arm Ukraine to the teeth. And that's what they did. They used the Russia gate thing to basically pressure Trump to send weapons to Ukraine that Obama wouldn't even send. And Trump had the incentive to go along with them because he didn't want to look like he was weak on Russia. He wanted to disprove the allegation and he was doing Putin's bidding. So this Russian interference allegation has served a geopolitical end of basically by accusing Russia of messing with our democracy. We have to push back against Russia.

And that means being tough, quote, unquote, against them in Ukraine. It also meant that when Russia was accused of putting bounties on the heads of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, everybody went along with it because, again, of Russiagate and normalizing this culture of just basically accusing Russia of anything you want without any evidentiary scrutiny. And so that's why it was easy to lodge the allegation as well, and many others. Russia has been accused of so many things now, being responsible for Black Lives Matter and for everything else under the sun that you want to pin on the Russians. That's been the playbook. Hunter Biden's laptop, of course. That's another infamous example. And also, people in Washington don't want to challenge the CIA and don't want to question our wholly national security state. And so because the national security state said that Russia did it, that was enough for Republicans to go along with it and to back it up.

So because Republicans have endorsed it's been very difficult to break through the propaganda firewall because everybody's on board with it. But, you know, those of us who care about facts have always pointed out the evidence wasn't there. And by the way, that this was all fueling a lot of danger. And funnily enough, one of the documents that Tulsi Gabbard has declassified is a House intelligence report, which, you know, looked over the intelligence community assessment. And it was especially focused on this finding in the intelligence community assessment, which again came out in January 2017, this finding that Putin aspired to help Trump. Putin really wanted to help Trump. And what actually the House Intelligence Committee points out, based on the intelligence of the U.S. had at the time. In reality, everybody was telling U.S. intelligence officials that actually

Putin didn't care who won, that Putin thought no matter who wins, it doesn't matter because there's so much bipartisan hostility to Russia. It's really hard to make peace with the U.S. no matter who's in charge. And he turned out to be exactly right. So that was an aim of these Russian interference allegations was to make sure that if Trump even had any thought about making good on his campaign promise to get along with Russia, that he would not go through. with that and that's exactly what happened he escalated tensions with russia through his policies which everybody ignored because they undermined the predominant narrative that he was doing russia's bidding yeah hang on just one second for me here you guys i'm so proud to announce the publication of the

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us of being russian puppets would we bomb russia's ally syria if we all worked for russia so you could see how they felt like they needed to guard their right flank by being worse on russia And there was a CNN article from, I'm going to say April, probably of 17, where they said, well, if we can't use the 25th Amendment to have the cabinet overthrow Trump for this, then at least by launching this special counsel investigation and pretending to, pretending to investigate him for the next two years, it turned out. But at least with this special counsel investigation, we can rein him in and prevent the president from. seeking any major change in policy when it comes to Russia. This is the FBI. Like, isn't y'all's job burning churches full of children and covering up bombings that you started, plots that you started and stuff like that?

And instead, they're saying that their job is to prevent the president from changing foreign policy and they're going to pretend to investigate him over this in order to achieve that. And, of course, we can see how it's so obvious, right? that if he had just been treated as a normal president who won an election and had the normal authority that any president would have, he would have been able to end that war. Because all they needed to do really was implement Minsk, too,

which had already been agreed under Obama. They just needed Trump to lean on him a little bit and tell him, arrest Dimitri Yorash if he won't stop threatening you, and go ahead and see this deal through. And then the current absolute catastrophe of war would have never happened. I'm sorry to ruin your book, because I know that's the book you're writing, but you're right about that. It's so obvious. Well, correct. And so Russiagate totally normalized this culture wherein it was taking it just for granted

that we have to have tensions with Russia, that we have to fuel the proxy war in Ukraine. And this bled over directly into Ukraine because right after Russiagate collapsed finally with Robert Mueller's congressional appearance, where Robert Mueller, who had been painted as the saintly hero who was going to lead Trump out of the White House and handcuffs when he catches him. right-handed for collusion. Robert Mueller didn't know the basics of his own investigation. It was a embarrassing performance by him, and everybody who had hyped him up is like they answered to Trump. So right after that, what happens? Trump talks to Zelensky in their infamous phone call, and Trump asked Zelensky for help investigating not only the Bidens in their alleged corruption

in Ukraine, but also the origins of Russia Gate, which had a Ukrainian tie. In fact, this new house intelligence report that just got declassified, it shows that, you know, key so-called intelligence that went into Brennan's intelligence community assessment came from Ukrainian security services. And we know, actually, from previous reporting in the New York Times, that Brennan used Ukraine's spy agencies as part of his effort to make the case that Russia hacked the DNC. So Ukraine was used by its sponsor in Washington to interfere in a domestic election. And Ukrainian officials took sides in that because also some of them openly colluded with the DNC, and they leaked information about Trump's campaign manager. Paul Manafort. So this helps, so Ukraine intervenes in domestic, or Ukraine's used to intervene in a domestic U.S. election. And finally, when Trump then asked Zelensky for help investigating the origins

of Russia gate, coinciding with him pausing some weapons to Ukraine, Democrats freak out and impeach him. And what happens during that impeachment? You know, that's when Alexander Binman of the National Security Council comes and says, well, yeah, we were concerned when Trump paused those weapons to Ukraine because that undermined U.S. foreign policy. Well, who sets U.S. foreign policy? Is it Alex Binman, who nobody elected, or Donald Trump, who everybody elected? And that's what Russia Gate and then its Ukraine gate sequel normalized, is this idea that unelected national security state bureaucrats have the right to meddle in democracy and decide what the foreign policy is going to be. And the star of that Ukraine gate, the star

impeachment witness was william taylor you know who was a hardcore hawk who was very opposed to the minskirts in ukraine in fact at that very same time as he was being hailed in u.s media as like uh you know because of his you know deep voice and chiseled face the new york times called him a um a vietnam war veteran with reassuring gray hair it was just so gross anyway at the same time as all that's happening william taylor he later admitted was telling zolenski forget about the mints accords don't implement it's a terrible idea. So this is what Russia gate encouraged, not only a increased polarization inside the U.S. and people you don't like being accused of being Russian agents and, you know, coastal liberals dismissing Trump voters are just Russian dupes. It also encouraged a really

catastrophic proxy war in Ukraine, which culminated in Russia's invasion. Yeah. And then so that's really an important anecdote there where they had a new opportunity to, to implement the Minsk two deal when the German foreign minister Steinmeyer said, well, what we can do, let's switch the order of operations around a little bit in a way that maybe both sides could compromise on. And Zelensky at least started to do it. And then, as you say, was told by William Taylor. And who knows whether Trump knew about this or not?

I would think probably not. Told him, don't sign that. I'm sure he had no clue whatsoever. I'm sure he had no clue whatsoever. And ruin that deal. So, yeah. And, I mean, ultimately Trump's responsible for. staffing his government with his enemies.

Yes, he is. That's the way that goes. But, yeah, man, and then, well, can we talk about the current war? I mean, what an absolute catastrophe this has been. And you've been, of course, really great on analyzing this war, too. And that's another place where you're in my book. It's not a source. Well, actually, you're the source, but you're also the news,

where Ukraine was having the FBI or trying to get the FBI to have Twitter censor you because they didn't like your news. That's correct. Yeah, yeah, we got that from the Twitter files. Unbelievable. The FBI passed on a request to Twitter on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence asking Twitter to remove a number of accounts, including mine. And thankfully, Twitter said no, and we know from the leaked files. Twitter said, you know, we can't just go ahead removing journalists because you don't like what they say. So I'm grateful Twitter didn't comply.

But, and I don't think the FBI even looked at the list. that Ukraine gave them. I don't think the FBI particularly cared about me and wanted to be censored, but it just speaks to, again, this was all, this culture of censorship, of cracking down on dissenting voices, basically censoring, censoring countervailing facts and voices in the name of fighting Russian disinformation.

This was all normalized by Russiagate, and we're still paying the price. Yeah, and now, It seems to me, and this is based on, and I'm sorry, because I actually have not had a chance to go through the full report that they have put out. I got to read a bit of it, and I've read a bunch of y'all's writings about it. But is this much confirmed in there? Do we know for sure, or how much do we know about exactly when this started? Because I think I have three different indications, major ones.

One of them being Taibi's reporting, but also a statement that Brennan made to PBS Frontline. And I forgot what the other source is. I think there's three where this started in the end of 2015. And it looks to me like it was John Brennan that kicked off the whole thing in the first place. And then the FBI got on board after that. And then the Democrats got on board after that. They hired Perkins Cui on April the 1st and put them to work. So it was already like four months into Brennan getting this going.

and apparently attempting to set up Papadopoulos, I'm not exactly certain about the origin of that. But anyway, I wonder what you think about. Like, what do we really know about the very origin of Russia Gate? Well, look, Andre Telichenko, who was a former Ukrainian official, he said, you know, who worked in the Ukrainian embassy in the U.S. He says there was a meeting in January 2016 at the White House where basically people in the Obama administration wanted dirt on people

Trump's circle. That's January 2016. But what's confirmed to me, what it is beyond a dispute that so the Hillary Clinton campaign through their law firm Perkins Coy, they hire Fusion GPS and the Fusion GPS hires Christopher Steele. And that's April, May 2016. So that's it, that is, without a doubt, that's when at the very latest it starts is April, May 2016, because that's when the higher Christopher Steele, who puts together the fake dossier. And then the FBI officially opens up its investigation on July 31st, 2016. But weeks before that, Victoria Newland, who was heavily involved in the Ukraine proxy war and the Maidan coup that kicked it off, she authorizes an FBI agent to go meet with Christopher

Steele to get his dossier. So the FBI first receives Christopher Steele's dossier in early July. and the official story is that that had nothing to do with the opening of Crossfire Hurricane on July 31st. The actual predicate of Crossfire Hurricane is George Papadopoulos, who's a low-level Trump campaign volunteer, talking to someone about the Russians

possibly having some compromising information on Hillary Clinton. And that's what they claim is the only predicate for opening Crossfire Hurricane. And that I just simply do not believe. I think it was Christopher Steele. And the Clinton campaign basically wanting to frame Trump as a Russian agent and the FBI going along with it.

The official pretext that it was George Popatopoulos, if you read with the FBI actually got a vague tip about Popatopoulos with no mention even of the stolen emails that are at the heart of Russia gate, that to me does not pass the smell test. Although, admittedly, it is speculation, but it seemed to me

that there was at least some kind of distinct possibility that the Mithsud guy was sent to try to drop something in Papadopoulos's ear that then Downer was assigned to try to get out on the other side and get him to repeat it or something like that. You say, you think it looks more like they just kind of retconned it and this guy said, oh, I had lunch with this guy and he once said something to me, but that didn't happen until after the news of the WikiLeaks posting. I just, it's a great question.

I just don't know. It's because, for example, you know, George Popatopoulos, when he first spoke to the FBI, he might have embellished what he was told or, you know, because, listen, what is weird is that Minnesota has disappeared, so who is he? And why is he disappeared? And why was he falsely portrayed as a Russian agent? I mean, that part doesn't make sense. But it's really quite possible that Alexander Downey,

And again, for people who don't know the details, it's a little hard to follow. But Alexander Downer is the Australian diplomat who passed on the tip about Poppidopoulos. But it's just quite possible, look, it's quite possible that there was something going on and try to set Popatopoulos up for something. And they happen to come across him saying this about Mitzuid and Russia. And then they passed it on to the FBI. I don't know. I don't know. All I know is it was there was, it was not a legit basis to open up an investigation of a,

entire presidential campaign for conspiring with Russia. Right. It seems like, oh, go ahead. Well, just who exactly is being duplicitous here? I don't know, but what we do know is that the official predicate is completely baseless. Yeah. One thing that I can't keep track of, I'd have to probably color code the book or something, and I'd have to get a new spreadsheet.

I don't know. But it's a little bit baffling to me. Maybe the answer is just compartmentalization, but it seems like you have the FBI and the CIA are both their leadership in Brennan and Comey. They are conspiring to voice this lie on us. And yet their agencies keep debunking certain parts of it and trying to refuse to go along with certain parts of it and then they end up the bosses drag them along later or this kinds of things.

But it seems like for the guys who are actually setting the president up, there's a hell have a lot of dissent inside the FBI and the CIA the whole way through even until January, right? Or more. Absolutely. And accordingly, it's amazing that so much of this was kept under wraps until now. I mean, we knew of some dissent, but for example, we didn't know that the FBI and NSA had low confidence in the Russian hacking allocation until nearly nine years later. It's amazing they kept that secret for so long. And we also learned from the declassified House Intelligence review of the January 2017 ICA that, yes, Yeah, CIA officials were pushing back on John Brennan when he was trying to include the Steele dossier into the intelligence assessment.

And one of the things that Brennan told, one of the analysts was, okay, fine, but doesn't what's still saying ring true? Right. That's the head of the CIA. And when, of course, the answer to that is no, it doesn't. It rings completely ridiculous. But it does ring true if you're trying to frame Trump as being a Russian asset. And that's what Brennan was trying to do. And Brennan, by the way, has opened himself up for perjury charges because he went.

before Congress multiple times and said that Steele played no role at all in the intelligence community assessment. Well, now we know it's confirmed that actually Steele was referenced in the intelligence community, in the more classified versions of the intelligence community assessment. And there was even a two-page summary included as an annex. So he made a false statement to Congress and that could bring a perjury charge if there's enough fortitude in Washington to prosecute a former head of the CIA, which is a very, very big deal. Yeah. And And it's not a decision that will be taken lightly because, you know, Brennan knows a lot as the former head of the CIA. So he could hurt a lot of people if there is an attempt to go after him.

But he certainly made himself vulnerable to a charge if the Trump administration wants to go ahead with that. Yeah. I mean, at that level, it's not a question of law, but of politics and whether they can go that far. But I sure would like to see. You know, one idea, something that I think Trump might do just, I mean, not that he would, but that would be smart for him to do potentially because of politics would be to a panel grand juries and issue, you know, massive and detailed with the evidence listed, right, massive and detailed indictments against all these people. And then just

not bring the prosecution, but bring, you know, full level indictments against Hillary Clinton and all of her lawyers and all of these people against the leadership of the FBI and the CIA and let it all come to light and then whatever let if people want to uh if the politics then demands that yeah these people actually should be locked in the supermax then so be it but like you don't want to look just vengeful and and opening up you know um politicians whoever has the power just locking up their enemies that could lead to a pretty bad spiral but on the other hand there's got to be some kind of accountability here you know what i mean so I don't know and I really personally would very much like to see these people locked in prison

but I don't know if my feelings should get in the way of what's really smart to do but oh and I wanted to note too that you mentioned about the Senate report and they always mentioned this oh even Marco Rubio in the Senate said so but then and I'm sorry I forgot who I hadn't reread this recently but I just saw it could have been you or someone else I was reading in the last couple days reminded me that they hung their entire hat on Kalimnik and that Manafort was supposedly giving this polling data to this Kalimnik guy. Can you explain to us how guilty that proves Vladimir Putin is here? Okay, yeah. So basically one problem with Russia gate is that there are no Russians.

Like they couldn't find any Russians to include in Russia gate. That really is a pain. Because the whole thing is a scam, right? And so, but they got, so they settled on Kalimnik, who is a Russian and Ukrainian national who worked for Manafort. And because he was one of Russia Gates few Russians, he was framed as a Russian spy. And when it was found out that at one point, Manafort gave Kalimick some polling data from the campaign to give to some Ukrainian oligarchs. And the reason was obvious, Mueller pointed this out, you know, Manafort had some financial struggles. He wanted to point out to his clients back in Ukraine that he was still a player.

And so he wanted to show them that actually Trump is ahead. This was public polling data, okay, that he gave to Kalimnik to give. to some prospective clients, some wealthy clients in Ukraine. Because Manafort just wanted to say, hey, listen, like my guy, Trump might have a chance to win, and therefore I'll be very valuable to you again. So anyway, once that was uncovered, they ran with that. That basically Manafort on behalf of Trump was funneling secret campaign polling data to Russian intelligence. And that's proof of collusion.

And that's what they went with. Even though, again, this polling data was public, even though the polling data was going to Ukrainians, none of it made sense but literally there's been so much time ink spilled in this in the media about how Kalimick was really a Russian agent and so the problem though is Mueller because you know they have to do they have to put out a report that looks somewhat serious Mueller knew Klemnick wasn't a spy a Russian spy at all so what did

how did Mueller get around that how did Mueller put push forward the innuendo without actually saying anything he said that Klemnick has ties to Russian intelligence. He didn't define what those ties are. Like, does that mean he knows somebody in Russian intelligence? Does that qualify as ties? Or he's spoken with some before who's in Russian intelligence? He just put out this vague word ties and let the media and people like Adam Schiff use their imagination.

And they turn that into the fact that Klemnick is a spy. Now, Klemnick also has ties and actually concrete ties to the State Department because he was used multiple times as a state department. because he was used multiple times as a State Department source and he was even translating meetings for Victoria Newland so that's also the tie he has but that got ignored because they needed a Russian

to make Russia Gate look somewhat credible amazing so all Mueller does is put out this big thing that he has ties no you and I reported this and I've confirmed this with people on the inside no US intelligence assessment or agency has ever endorsed the notion that Kalimnik is a Russian intelligence officer. But because they needed to find

a Russian to make Russia gate look serious, in August 2020, Mark Warner, Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he pushes through a report calling Kalimnik a Russian intelligence officer. And he got the Republicans who are such, I don't know, they're such patsies. And I think they wanted to make Russiagate look credible too, because it helps them fearmonger and therefore increase tensions and war mongering with Russia to endorse the claim that Klemnick is a Russian intelligence officer. So even though Mueller never said it, even though no U.S. intelligence agency, including the FBI's ever said it, because the Senate Intelligence Committee said it, that became the dominant narrative. And then when Biden got elected, somebody in his Treasury Department put out a press release

also saying that Klamik is a Russian intelligence officer, even though, again, there's never any evidence to support it and no U.S. intelligence agency has ever said the same. And that became seen as proof. Finally, yes, there was collusion between Trump and Russia, even though there's nothing to support it. I've tried to get more information. I put in Freedom of Information Act requests for the underlying intelligence behind that claim by the Treasury Department and the Senate Intelligence Committee. So maybe we'll get disclosure on that too, finally, now that other aspects of the Russia gate fraud are being exposed. Yeah. Well, I like how when they admitted, because you left out one, he worked for John McCain at the International

Republican Institute as well. That's correct. That's right. God dang it. And then, but but then when they admitted that, they go, yeah, but shut up, Aaron, because the deal is, is we weren't even talking about Kalimnik. It's this other guy, Oleg Deripaska. He was the one who was getting the polling data. And that was important because he was a spy too, but the thing was is they actually liked him so much that they asked him if he would be an informant inside the Trump campaign for them to find out if there were any if there was any Russian influence in there and he laughed them out of the room and then they didn't want to talk to him anymore after that that's what a Russian agent he was instead of this other guy yeah exactly

exactly just as they also never wanted to talk to Julian Assange yeah released the stolen emails at the heart of all this he offered to give them even evidence ruling out the role of state actors, which was an offer that was ignored because they were so wedded to propping up this narrative. Yeah. All right. Listen, man, I got to let you go. But thank you so much for coming on the show. I know we could talk about this for, you know, until Monday morning. But there's so much to it. But I am so appreciative of you. And everybody, all of America owes you a huge debt of gratitude for all your great work on this subject. And I look forward to reading more as more develops here. Scott always appreciate that you're willing to you know go against the grain on this the whole media including so many of my colleagues in progressive alternative media

they went along with it so your show was a which is one of the rare voices of sanity and I'm sorry that more people couldn't join us but hopefully they at least can recognize what they got wrong now yep absolutely all right well thank you again and we will all keep our eyeballs on Aaron mattei dot net appreciate it thanks Scott

Thanks for listening to Scott Horton Show, which can be heard on APS Radio News at Scott Horton.org, Scott Horton Show.com, and the Libertarian Institute at libertarian institute.org.