The Usual (British imperial) Suspects Behind the Russiagate Attack on Trump and Putin

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany confirmed June 29th that neither the President nor the Vice President were briefed on the claim, circulated by the New York Times and London Guardian, that the Russian GRU offered bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers. The June 27 Guardian account adds “Russian bounties to kill U.K. soldiers” to the mix. McEnany reiterated that there was no consensus in the U.S. intelligence community that the claim was true. As a result, the President was not briefed.

Meanwhile, the usual suspects, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Vice-President Joe Biden, John Bolton, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Rep. Liz Cheney and other useful dupes prone to ingesting British Kool-Aid claimed either that this was yet another instance of Trump being soft on Russia at the expense of American lives or that immediate investigations must be launched to get to the “heart of this.”

The Guardian story locates this latest outrageous Trump/Russia conspiracy claim right where the last one began, with British intelligence and NATO. According to the Guardian’s June 27th account, the Russian GRU unit behind the Afghanistan bounties was the same one that poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. In support of this bogus claim, they cite Dr. Yuri Felshtinsky, the MI6 asset who collaborated with the anti-Putin oligarch Boris Berezovsky and Alexander Litvinenko, in London-based operations against Putin and Russia. Litvinenko, who died as the result of polonium poisoning, was case officered by MI6’s Christopher Steele, the author of the fake dossier against Donald Trump. The Guardian also cites former British ambassador to Moscow Sir Andrew Wood in support of the “Russian bounties” story. Wood personally handed the bogus Christopher Steele Trump dossier to Sen. John McCain and, in general, vouched for Christopher Steele’s credibility throughout the intelligence community. Representative Kinzinger received the first copy of the “Steele dossier” in 2016.

Just in case the sourcing of the bogus claim is not clear from the above, the Guardian went on to hypothesize that unjustified fears expressed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his predecessor, Theresa May, about upsetting Donald Trump, are behind the suppression of an Intelligence and Security Committee Report, concerning Russia’s operations in Britain, which includes the continued claim that Russia has a hold over the American President. The author of that report? Christopher Steele.

The incident occurs as President Trump has pressed for a complete U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, a position fiercely opposed by the Pentagon, war hawks, and NATO. John Bolton mocks Trump’s position repeatedly in his recently produced novel while naming those in opposition to the President’s plan. The Congressional Research Service just completed a report on Afghanistan, urging Congress to become more involved in the decision whether or not to withdraw. It also occurs as President Putin presses for a summit of the 5 leading nations of the UN Security Council, to coordinate action to defeat COVID-19 and rebuild the world’s economy.

An end to the Afghan war would, of course, open up major development among China, India, and Pakistan — a casus belli in the minds of Lord Halford Mackinder’s kindergarten in British and British-influenced military and intelligence circles. It would also end U.S. protection of the world’s opium supply lines.