EXCLUSIVE: How Trump’s Own Appointees Aided Russiagate Plot Against Him

RealClearInvestigations ^ | 11/20/2025 | Paul Sperry

[Sir_Humphrey]

When Obama administration officials manufactured U.S. intelligence tying Donald Trump to Moscow following his stunning 2016 victory, they had no idea Trump’s own political appointees would help them undermine Trump’s presidency – and his chances of reelection in 2020.

RCI’s review of recently declassified documents and exclusive interviews with former Trump officials reveals for the first time how key members of Trump’s cabinet and other appointees during his first term shrouded the previous administration’s machinations and either deliberately or inadvertently misled the public into thinking the fake Russiagate intelligence was real.

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TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: deepstate; russiagate

[Sir_Humphrey]

Tell me again how there is no such thing as a deep state?

[Sir_Humphrey]

It looks like 2 of us posted this at the same time.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Every one who was involved should be tried for treason and if found guilty, executed. What if a group of people had done that to Bill Clinton? What would Hillary most assuredly have done? SOMEONE ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!

[Dartoid]

Out of all these names Mike Pompeo is the biggest disappointment. The others we pretty much knew they were rats. I had been hopeful that Durham was an honest player but as time drug on it was evident (IMO) that he was part of the coverup. In looking back trusting Pompeo was naive.

[No name given]

Big time!

[bigbob]

But Qanon said. “Trust Kansas”.

Maybe he meant Topeka.

[Reily]

Doesn’t fit the Constitutional definition of treason (Article III, Section 3). Possibly sedition, violation of Insurrection Act and other felonies yes. The Constitution (via the FFs -Founding Fathers) deliberately made treason a hard charge to make. Chief Justice Marshall (another FF) set the bar higher still at the Burr trial. If you look at it that’s consistent particularly modern history. YOU DO NOT WANT IT TO BE EASY TO DO! Do that and the next Rat administration will have you up against the wall!

[lasereye]

Fleitz [National Security Adviser John Bolton’s chief of staff] told RealClearInvestigations that he was startled to learn that the investigators discovered numerous intelligence documents showing the ICA’s key conclusion – that Russia “developed a clear preference” for Trump and “aspired to help” him win the election – was based on shoddy and fabricated intelligence.

What Fleitz did not know at the time was that the CIA was also hindering the House probe of the ICA. As Trump’s first CIA chief, Mike Pompeo was skeptical that his predecessor Brennan had gotten the Russia intelligence assessment as wrong as he was hearing from the autopsy conducted by the House Intelligence Committee. “We showed him a draft but he didn’t believe it. He said we have to be wrong on a lot of this stuff,” said Derek Harvey, who worked as a senior analysis adviser with the House Intelligence Committee from 2017 to 2022.

As a result, he said, “We didn’t get a lot of cooperation from Pompeo.”

Multiple attempts to reach Pompeo by email and phone at his new jobs as senior executive director of the Center for Law & Government at Liberty University in Virginia and adviser to Ukraine’s top defense contractor Fire Point in Kyiv were unsuccessful.

My take is that Pompeo is not a bad guy. He lacks discernment.

[Badboo]

Trump has a nasty habit of picking losers who turn on him. Hasn’t changed. Look at the 3 stooges at DOJ/FBI.

[TBP]

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4353818/posts

[Wuli]

Number 1, Gina Haspel. It cannot be ignored that when Steele was writing his “dossier” in the U.K. Gina Haspel was the CIA station chief for all the U.K. And then, during the transition between Obama and Trump Gina Haspel was moved back to CIA HQ at Langely. From where later she becomes deputy to the CIA director; and then confirmed by the Senate as the CIA Director.

Number 2, I suspect a Durham-Haspel deep connection that remains unexposed.

Together Haspel and Durham kept what was already known about the Obama originated “Russia, Russia, Russia” hoax from being declassified and not being declassified others chose to not go out on a limb with allegations only the declassified investigation could prove.