The New York Times on Friday launched its latest missile Donald Trump’s way: “F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working for Russia.”

Only halfway down the article do they acknowledge: “No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.”

However, in this world of retweets and foam-at-the-mouth Resistance, the truth has little weight. It’s the headline that does the heavy lifting. It’s the headline that gave the haters and CNN (but I repeat myself) a weekend to snuggle up amid the snowstorm and say, “See? See? Trump worked with Russia!”

Here’s the opening paragraph:

In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

Stop right there. F.B.I. and “law enforcement officials.” Who are we talking about? We are talking about former deputy director Andrew “Thanks for the $700K, Hillary Machine” McCabe, the Trump loathing, Flynn-framing F.B.I. boss fired for lying to federal investigators about leaking to The Wall Street Journal. McCabe’s leak was intended to defend against allegations by other agents who said he stymied the investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

Then there’s Comey’s former chief counsel at the FBI, James Baker, who was run out of the bureau for his assorted misdeeds. It was confirmed today Baker is under criminal investigation himself for leaking.

Former FBI counter-terrorism honcho Peter Strzok, whose loathing of all things Trump is the stuff of legend, and who was also fired by the bureau.

Lisa Page, a top FBI lawyer, whose idea of talking dirty with her extramarital lover Strzok was cursing about Trump. She quit before she could be fired.

So let’s reframe who we have here. The same cohorts who …

… had been gathering in McCabe’s office to discuss a “plan” for undermining Trump.

… had devised an “insurance policy” in case he won.

… had sic’d Stefan Halper on naive, low-ranking Trump campaign associates to spy on and gin up Russian connections to Trump.

… had used the bogus Steele Dossier to get FISA warrants, and thus electronic surveillance on the Trump campaign.

… had used “unusual” means to bring down Michael Flynn (or in Comey’s words, “get away with”).

… in fact, here‘s a list of 35 ways the FBI/DOJ deviated from standard practice in the Clinton and Trump cases.

Now they’re in a huff after Trump fired their comrade James Comey.

Zero Evidence Used to Mean Zero Evidence

The firing of Comey really had this group and their DOJ allies in a tizzy. DOJ Deputy Director Ron Rosenstein talked about wearing a wire when he spoke to the President. They discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to overthrow Trump. The Big Orange was out of control! No. Just not in their control.

Remember what leaks to CNN revealed in December: The Mueller probe was about reining Trump in, not uncovering collusion with Russia.

Of course, this is not what Special Counsels are for. And it’s certainly not the job of the government’s intelligence and investigative apparatus to “rein in” a duly elected President of the United States they don’t like. That smacks of the KGB.

Which gets to the blackened heart of the matter: Mueller was never about criminality by Trump. It was never about the Russians. It was about control. Power. Naked political power.

Again, it bears repeating: In May of 2017, after months and months of frantic digging and surveillance, there was still zero evidence of any Trump connection to Russia.

That’s not me saying it. That’s Strzok. Peter Strzok didn’t know if he wanted to join the Mueller team because his investigation thus far had shown “there was no there there.” That’s a paraphrase of Lisa Page. In her congressional testimony, Page stated there was no confirmation any of the allegations were true. Comey also admitted nothing had been verified. McCabe as well.

Heck, the guy who created the Steele Dossier, the Trump-hating foreign agent Michael Steele, also said under oath he had no idea whether the allegations were true.

Even ABC’s Jonathan Karl told The View Monday morning there’s “zero evidence” Trump or his campaign had colluded with Russia. (Man, talk about brave. Saying Trump was innocent to Joy Behar’s face? It’s a wonder he got off that set alive. It’s a wonder her tears of woe didn’t flood downtown Manhattan.)

Working for the Russians? Hogwash

However, according to the Times, despite zero trace of any connection to Russia, the FBI brass hacks thought Trump’s actions indicated he may be working for Russia? Hogwash. The best you can say is they were seeking revenge on behalf of their fired cohort Comey.

The second best you can say is the FBI far overstepped its constitutional bounds in a frightening manner, as legal beagle (and no fan of Trump) Jack Goldsmith argued Sunday on the LawFare blog.

The options go downhill fast from there.

Former CBS investigative respondent Sharyl Attkisson has made the case that the whole Trump-Russia business is the Deep State’s effort to protect the FBI/DOJ and Washington elite’s highly profitable and often illegal activities. That “a wild-card Trump presidency … might expose a decade-plus of questionable practices. Disrupt long-established money channels. Reveal secret machinations that could arguably land some people in prison.”

It may well be that … and more. The entire pattern of behavior by the Obama administration and its FBI/DOJ allies strongly suggests the launching of this “Did Trump Work for Russia” investigation was yet another front in their ongoing seditious conspiracy to remove the President of the United States by any means necessary.

There’s but one word for it, and on Monday, Trump’s former lawyer used it. “It’s a coup. That’s what it is. An attempted coup by Comey and his crowd,” John Dowd told Brian Kilmeade’s radio audience. “I take The New York Times article as an admission of their bad behavior.”

So Did Trump Do Anything to Suggest He Worked for Russia?

What Trump actions supposedly left Baker, McCabe and the rest so agitated?

Trump gave Russia some classified intelligence — which he is allowed to do.

He was constantly griping about the Russian investigation — which he had every reason to do.

He asked Comey to go easy on Flynn, if possible — which was in his personality to do. Said the same thing about Hillary after the election.

He reshuffled Russian sanctions that Obama had thrown on after the election — which was an underhanded thing for Obama to do without working it out with the incoming administration who’d have to deal with the consequences.

And finally, firing James Comey — which the Democrats themselves had wanted to do only months earlier.

This is supposed to be evidence he’s working “for” Russia? You believe that, I have a bridge in Minsk to sell you.

Two Systems of Justice

How else do we know this is nonsense?

Because these same political animals had themselves thwarted the FBI investigation into Vladimir Putin’s illicit activities in America. And certainly they had no problem with Obama’s helpful hand to Russia.

To quickly refresh: The bureau had a guy on the inside who spent five years racking up piles of evidence that Putin was bribing and extorting assorted politicians, lobbyists and uranium industry officials. Whistleblower William Campbell.

In particular, Putin wanted the company Uranium One. Uranium One had control of over 20 percent of our uranium supply and the huge uranium deposits in Kazakhstan (Thanks to Bill Clinton’s maneuvering to get his pal Frank Guistra the uranium rights in Kazakhstan. Guistra would lead Uranium One and quickly hand the Clinton Foundation $31.8 million for Bill and Hillary’s trouble. Uranium One figures would eventually donate a total of $145 million. Hillary Clinton would later be instrumental in getting the Uranium One sale to Putin approved. Kickbacks aren’t only in football, people.)

Campbell was flabbergasted when the sale went through, and the bad guys and gals weren’t prosecuted. “What happened?” “Politics,” he was told with a shrug. Who was director of the FBI when Campbell was risking his life to provide evidence? Mueller. Who was director when it closed? Comey. Who oversaw the case? Andrew McCabe and Rob Rosenstein. Who threatened Campbell with prison if he dare spoke of what he knew? The Obama Justice Department.

To this day, Obama administration figures have provided no rational explanation why they signed off on the sale, why they ignored the criminality involved, and why they quietly changed rules governing the movement of uranium which allowed Putin to move the stuff out of the country under third-party carriers (lying to Congress in the process).

Wouldn’t you love to ask the FBI honchos supposedly so suspicious of Trump and Russia, why they didn’t seem concerned with “I’ll have more flexibility after the election” Obama?

You remember him? The man who mocked Mitt Romney’s concerns over the Russia dangers? Who did Putin’s bidding in removing missiles from Poland? Who gave Putin the keys to Syria, reestablishing a Russian presence in the Middle East for the first time in a generation? Who undercut our oil and natural gas industry, thus helping put more money in Putin’s pockets? (See The Stream‘s Rachel Alexander’s “Obama and Clinton Made Six Decisions Favorable to Russia to Enable Them To Take Over US Energy”)

The clock is ticking. The time will come when the FBI will face the hard questions under oath. But with revelations like those in The New York Times article, they’re likely to be answered, “On the advice of my lawyer, I would like to assert my Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.”