The FBI’s basis for eyeing Trump as a Russian asset included the manufactured “controversy” over a meaningless edit to the RNC’s 2016 platform. The FBI found it suspicious that a Trump campaign member changed some language that called for arming Ukraine, because “this platform change would be favorable to Russian interests.”
In reality, the RNC platform committee merely rejected a proposal to endorse “lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine. The Republicans’ final platform text instead called for “appropriate assistance to the armed forces of Ukraine,” which could easily have included weapons, and was nonetheless far more hawkish than the Democrats’ platform that same summer. And whatever your views on arming Ukraine, is this a legit reason to investigate the sitting president as a Russian asset?
When the FBI answered my FOIA request for this document in December 2024, they completely redacted this. Now that the full version has been released, it’s easy to understand why. Their “factual basis” was baseless.Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate)Russiagate news: in response to my FOIA request, the FBI has released a heavily redacted copy of the Electronic Communication that opened the FBI’s investigation of then-President Donald Trump as a foreign agent of Russia. It’s dated May 16, 2017.
This followed the opening of “Crossfire Hurricane” in July 2016, which targeted members of Trump’s campaign. This May 2017 investigation also sought to determine whether Trump “obstructed” that July 2016 investigation and any other “associated” one.
I was most interested to learn the factual basis for the FBI taking the extraordinary step, to put it mildly, of investigating the sitting president as an agent of Russia. But that part is entirely redacted. The document is six pages in total.— https://x.com/aaronjmate/status/1874180908959293575