In an Amended Complaint filed by attorney Ty Clevenger on behalf of his client Ed Butowsky,

http://lawflog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2019.07.15-Amended-complai...

Clevenger offers an intriguing narrative of the origins of Russiagate. The insights of former CIA agent Larry Johnson play a key role in this interpretation.

34. As indicated above, this case is the consequence of a conspiracy theory,
namely that President Trump “colluded” with the Russian government to swing the 2016
Presidential election in his favor. That conspiracy theory will hereinafter be referred to as
the “Russia Collusion Hoax” or just the “RCH.” Since the Plaintiff filed his ORIGINAL
COMPLAINT in this case on March 12, 2019, the RCH has unraveled even more, and the
public is just now beginning to understand the breadth and scope of the conspiracy to
overthrow a duly-elected President.

35. In 2015, the administration of President Barrack Obama began spying on
prominent Republican presidential candidates, as well as Democratic candidate Bernie
Sanders, in an effort to support Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. At that time, the
Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) was headed by Director John Brennan, and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) was under the effective control of its deputy
director, Andrew McCabe. Mr. Brennan and Mr. McCabe are ruthless and unscrupulous
Democratic partisans, and they were determined to destroy any candidate who might
threaten the candidacy of Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Brennan even created a “working group”
within the CIA to sabotage Mrs. Clinton's political opponents, particularly Donald
Trump. The “working group” included Mr. McCabe and other FBI employees, as well as
employees from the National Security Agency (“NSA).

36. As of 2015, Mrs. Clinton's campaign was already dogged by revelations that
she had avoided using State Department email systems while she was U.S. Secretary of
State, and that she had instead used a private, insecure email server kept in her home.
Adding to Mrs. Clinton's political troubles, classified information was found on her
homemade server, and that called into question her competence to handle national
security matters. It also rendered her liable to federal criminal charges. By early 2016,
Mrs. Clinton was facing multiple investigations, including Congressional, administrative,
and criminal investigations, related to the private email server. Furthermore, the public
learned that Mrs. Clinton's attorneys had destroyed more than 30,000 of her emails even
those emails were subject to outstanding subpoenas. In other words, Mrs. Clinton's
lawyers had intentionally and systematically destroyed more than 30,000 pieces of
evidence. The ongoing investigations were a political albatross for Mrs. Clinton.

37. The FBI's criminal investigation of the Clinton email fiasco was known as
“Operation Mid-Year Exam” or “MYE,” and it was headed by Mr. McCabe and FBI
Director James Comey. Two of the most important players on the MYE team were FBI
agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the latter of whom was assigned to the FBI's Office of
General Cousel. Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page were avid Hillary Clinton supporters and
partisan Democrats, and they were determined to protect Mrs. Clinton and undermine her
opponents at any cost.

38. As explained by retired Central Intelligence Agency analyst Larry C. Johnson,
the RCH began in earnest on May 4, 2016, when Ted Cruz dropped out of the
Presidential race. See Larry C. Johnson, “The Campaign to Paint Trump as a Russian
Stooge Started on May 4, 2016,” (https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/
2019/05/the-campaign-to-paint-trump-as-a-russian-stooge-started-on-may-4-2016-bylarry-c-johnson.html). Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page were under pressure from Mr. McCabe to finish MYE quickly –and whitewash Mrs. Clinton's crimes – in order to minimize the damage to her political candidacy. They were also directed to shift their attention to Mr. Trump. (The CIA “working group” identified above was launched in June of 2016, and the Plaintiff alleges on information and belief that Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page were assigned to it from the outset).

39. Also in early May of 2016, Mrs. Clinton launched an initiative to divert
attention from the mounting evidence that she was corrupt and incompetent. She retained
the law firm Perkins Coie, LLP to create a counter-narrative that her opponent, Donald
Trump, was not only corrupt, but treasonous. With Mrs. Clinton's approval, Perkins Coie
hired the left-wing “investigative” firm Fusion GPS, and Fusion GPS in turn hired former
British spy Christopher Steele to fabricate “evidence” that Mr. Trump had colluded with
the Russian government. Mr. Steele's fabricated report was then used by Obama
Administration officials to secure wiretapping warrants against members of the Trump
campaign.

40. While the Clinton campaign tasked Perkins Coie with hiring Fusion GPS and
Christopher Steele, the DNC set in motion the false narrative that the Russian
government had hacked its servers. The DNC's ultimate goal was to blame Mr. Trump for
colluding with the Russian government to hack its servers. According to an article in
Esquire magazine, DNC officials found out on May 5, 2016 that the DNC's servers had
been breached. According to the article, the servers had been breached by Russian
hackers, and the DNC asked an internet security company, CrowdStrike, Inc., to
investigate the breach. In reality, Perkins Coie had hired CrowdStrike on behalf of the
DNC, just like it hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the Clinton campaign, and it did so for
the purpose of creating a diversion. Contrary to the Esquire story, the DNC had
discovered prior to May 5, 2016 that one of its own employees had been leaking emails
(the DNC likely did not know the identity of the employee at that time, but they knew the
leak was internal). The DNC also knew that the emails would soon become public, and it
knew that the emails would be very damaging to Mrs. Clinton's political campaign.

41. Just as Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page realized on May 4, 2016 that they needed to
bury the MYE investigation into Mrs. Clinton quickly, the Clinton campaign and the
DNC recognized an opportunity to rewrite the narrative about the damaging emails that
would soon be released to the public. Rather than acknowledge that a DNC employee
was so appalled by the corruption he had witnessed inside the DNC and the Clinton
campaign that he leaked emails to Wikileaks, the DNC and Clinton campaign decided
they would instead blame the leaked emails on the Russian government, then blame Mr.
Trump for colluding with the Russian government.

42. The DNC employee responsible for the leaks was Seth Rich, and he was
assisted by his brother Aaron. Mr. Butowsky does not know exactly when the DNC
figured out that Mr. Rich was the source of the leak. On July 10, 2016, however, Mr.
Rich was fatally shot while walking home in Washington, D.C., and the murder has not
been solved. Mr. Butowsky does not know whether the murder is related to Mr. Rich's
role in leaking DNC emails.

43. Shortly after the murder, the interim DNC chair at the time, Donna Brazile,
reached out to Mr. McCabe and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser for help in
dealing with the political consequences of the murder. Ms. Brazile knew suspicions
would soon arise, fairly or unfairly, that the murder was connected to the email leaks.
D.C. police allowed the FBI to unlock Seth Rich's electronic devices, and the FBI
obtained data showing that Mr. Rich had indeed provided the DNC emails to Wikileaks.
At Mr. McCabe's direction, however, that information was kept secret with orders that it
not be produced in response to any Freedom of Information Act request. For her part,
Ms. Bowser directed D.C. police not to pursue any investigative avenues that might
connect the murder to the email leaks. At her direction, local police blamed the murder
on a “botched robbery” even though Mr. Rich's watch, wallet, and other belongings were
not removed from his body.

44. On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks began publishing thousands of email that had
been downloaded from the DNC's servers by Seth Rich and his brother, Aaron. Those
emails showed how the campaign of Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton
had corruptly taken control of the DNC for the purpose of sabotaging her primary
opponent, Bernie Sanders. Per their game plan, the Clinton campaign and the DNC
immediately claimed that the emails had been obtained by hackers working for the
Russian government.