Apparently, federal charges against a lawyer linked to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign for allegedly lying to the FBI have convinced one of the entertainment industry’s most politically active leftists to conclude Trump-Russia collusion narrative was engineered by the Democrats.
In a video posted to YouTube on Thursday, outspoken English comedian Russell Brand said he was “flabbergasted” by a federal grand jury’s indictment of Michael Sussman. The indictment was part of special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Russia “collusion” inquiry, according to The Hill.
According to the indictment, Sussman met with an FBI official in September 2016 to tip him off about a connection between then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Russia’s Alfa Bank. The bureau could never substantiate the connection.
In the indictment, prosecutors say Sussman didn’t disclose that his law firm, the Democrat-linked Perkins Coie, was working for Hillary Clinton’s campaign when he talked with FBI General Counsel James Baker roughly a month and a half before the election.
“Sussman’s false statement misled the FBI General Counsel and other FBI personnel concerning the political nature of his work and deprived the FBI of information that might have permitted it more fully to assess and uncover the origins of the relevant data and technical analysis, including the identities and motivations of Sussman’s clients,” the indictment stated.
In a news release, the special counsel’s office said Sussman’s “false representation led the General Counsel to understand that Sussmann was providing information as a good citizen rather than a paid advocate or political operative. In fact, Sussmann assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two clients, including a U.S. technology executive and the Clinton Presidential Campaign.”
The news release also stated that Sussman had provided information about the Alfa Bank theory to the media.
This was all enough to alarm Brand. During his Thursday video — titled “So…Trump was RIGHT About Clinton & Russia Collusion!!” — the comedian and actor said he thought the indictment was “serious evidence that it was the Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton acolytes” behind the narrative.
“It seems like years ago that we were hearing that Trump was colluding with Russia, that he wouldn’t have won the election without Russia, that his whole presidency was kind of a Putin plot,” said Brand, star of “Get Him to the Greek.”
“Well, now there’s serious evidence that it was the Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton acolytes that were directly involved in the generation of what has proven to be conspiracy — untrue!
“Think about how much media you watched. Me, a person who I think, broadly speaking, is from the left — a liberal, certainly not a Trump-supporting Republican, with respect to those of you who are — I find myself in awe, gobsmacked, flabbergasted and startled by these revelations.”
Brand also noted that “we have to recollect just how prevalent this story was. Every late-night talk-show, all over the news, it was just — you were bombarded with it.”
Brand he wanted to be believe that the Democratic Party is the party of “inclusivity, and diversity and truth and social justice and all great, positive ideas.” But now he’s not so sure.
“What my concern is becoming is that these are totemic issues pushed to the forefront to mask ordinary, regular corruption like the Russiagate thing, the Hunter Biden laptop, all of that stuff.”
Brand admitted he wasn’t paying much attention to the Russia “collusion” narrative as it unfolded in 2016, but noted that it was “seen as a defining issue,” and “still, in 2020, it was something that was being talked about.”
“And it was like, being sort of in a way discussed as if it was just an absolute fact. To discover that this was propaganda, a construct, a confection by the Democratic Party — who, of course, are now in government — is kind of beyond disappointing, because you begin to question and query what other things may not be true,” he said.
“Once you recognize that people create certain truths in order to meet certain ends and aims, the idea that you might be able to trust their integrity obviously dissolves.”
None of what Brand was talking about — or what was disclosed in Sussman’s indictment — was necessarily news for conservatives. It’s long been known the FBI’s investigation of Trump-Russia “collusion” was predicated on a dossier that was nothing more than a piece of opposition research by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
The allegation that the Alfa Bank tip was provided to the FBI by someone connected to the Clinton campaign, who supposedly lied to the bureau about his connection to said campaign, might be new — but it’s similarly unsurprising.
The only surprise here is that Russell Brand, vocal liberal though he may be, was willing to acknowledge how rotten this all seems.
That said, we welcome Brand to the reality party, late to it though he may be.
While we don’t expect to welcome many more celebrities here, it’s a sign that that one of the most cherished fictions the left holds about the Trump presidency — that he was little more than the Muscovite Candidate, propped up by Vladimir Putin and his election-meddling — is crumbling for good.