Trump and Russia, a Counterfactual

 

Let me begin with a confession.  I did go off the deep end with Trump and Russia.  It was the publication of the Steele Dossier that set me off..  I was not as bad as some people, but when I speak of the mainstream media going down a rabbit hole, it is hard for me to tell to what extent the media were going down the rabbit hold and to what extent I was reading things into that. And when I blame all of this on the Steele Dossier, I am not sure how much other people's reaction was driven by the Steele Dossier, and how much I was projecting my own reaction.

So with that out of the way, let me try a few counterfactuals.  First of all, in the clear light of hindsight, it was a mistake for Buzz Feed to publish the dossier.  But would it have made a difference if they had not published it?  I am guessing no. There were little hints here and there before the election, not to mention the Mother Jones article that revealed the existence of the dossier.  Even without the Buzz Feed allegation, I would expect that most of the contents would eventually have leaked out, though more in the form of a drip, drip, drip than a gusher.

What if the Democrats had stuck to open source information about Trump's business ties to Russia and not hired Steele in the first place?*  Well, the FBI counterintelligence probe would still have taken place.  The FBI began its investigation before learning of the Steele Dossier (although after Steele started reaching out to the FBI).  The initial form of the investigation (open source search, decision to focus on Manafort, Page, Papadopoulos, and Flynn, and sending informants wearing a wire to talk to campaign officials) would probably have been much the same.  The agents involved in the investigation wanted to wiretap Page even before hearing from Steele.  Maybe they would have been able to get a warrant without Steele; maybe not.  But at that point the FBI investigation would largely have run dry because it was severely constrained by the need to conceal its existence.  Maybe the FBI would have closed shop at this point, unable to decide anything.  Maybe they would have continued sending out informants to talk to campaign personnel.  Maybe they would even have placed an informant in the campaign.

The Gang of Eight (parties leaders of both houses of Congress and chair and ranking minority member of the intelligence committees of both houses) would still have been briefed, about the counterintelligence investigation, but without anything as sensational as the Steele Dossier, merely some vague suspicions. Maybe that would have been enough for Harry Reid (one of the Eight) to drop dark hints that something more sinister was happening, maybe not.  Certainly Trump would still have been told he had been the target of a counter-intelligence investigation shortly prior to his inauguration, but without the sensational allegations of the Steele Dossier.  Doubtless it is true that he would not have taken kindly to the news, but he probably would not have been as outraged as he was in learning about the dossier.  Undoubtedly Trump supporters would have found some ground for outrage -- that Trump was investigated at all, maybe. If Carter Page had been wiretapped even without Steele's memos (possible), that would have been grounds for outrage. And certainly the FBI had ended up placing informants in the campaign itself,* that would have been a major grounds for outrage.

Would Trump still have fired James Comey, leading to the Mueller investigation?  That is hard to say, given that Trump's requests to drop the Flynn investigation were a major impetus for firing Comey. But still, attempts to quash the ongoing Russia investigation were probably the primary reason for Comey's firing.  So it would really be a question of whether the Russia investigation would have continued without the Steele Dossier.  I am inclined to believe that it would have continued simply because the early investigation had been so crippled by the need to conceal its existence, and being in the open would have allowed a much more thorough investigation. So Comey would probably still have been fired and the Mueller investigation would probably still have proceeded. I would guess there would have been less paranoia on the part of Trump's foes, but the mere knowledge that the FBI took seriously the possibility of a conspiracy between Trump and Russia would have been enough to inspire significant paranoia.

What would have happened if the DNC had headed the FBI's warnings that it was a target for hacking seems straightforward enough.  The DNC had already been hacked by Russia's civilian intelligence agency ("Cozy Bear"), so it would not be possible to keep Cozy Bear from learning some things.  But Cozy Bear limited itself to intelligence gathering and never disclosed what it learned.  Russia's military intelligence ("Fancy Bear") hacked much later (in April, 2016) and began disclosing information almost at once. If the DNC had been more alert, it might have blocked the Fancy Bear hack, and there would have been no suspicion of collusion because there would have been nothing to collude with.

But my favorite counterfactual speculation about Trump/Russia is, what if people had learned what Trump was really up to in more or less real time.  Let's omit fake rumors like the Steele Dossier and suppose that people had learned during the campaign about what was actually going on.

The Washington Post ran an article on Trump's business ties to Russia that was generally accurate, but incorrectly said that plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow "never moved past preliminary discussions."  In fact, negotiations for a Trump Tower in Moscow had been well underway and ended only when news of the Russian hacks came out days before the article. Trump and Cohen lied about the negotiations, which, as one Trump defender commented, was a good reason to vote against him, but not a crime. Suppose some sharp investigative reporter had revealed that Trump actually was negotiating a heavily subsidized Trump Tower in Moscow and lying about it, even as he pushed for a pro-Russian policy.  Would it have mattered?  I doubt it, for the simple reason that Trump did cease negotiations once the Russian hacks became known and could thereby have proclaimed himself a patriot who refused to work with any foreign power that targeted our elections.

What if the public had become aware during the campaign that Junior, Jared, and Manfort met with some Russian business associates and a Russian lawyer suspected of ties to the intelligence services, promising dirt on the Clinton campaign? Suppose it also became known that the "dirt" was mostly about the author of sanctions on Russian officials and actually had nothing to do with the Clinton campaign?  Recall that this meeting took place five days before the Russian hacks became public knowledge. Certainly, nothing in the meeting so much as hints at the hacks, but it would at least have shown that the Trump campaign was willing to accept help from the Russian and would have put Trump's "Russia, if you're listening" remark into a different light.  

The paranoid might have taken the meeting as a preliminary to real, and much closer, coordination and looked for follow up.  No such follow up occurred, but it is fair to ask whether the Trump campaign's demonstrated willingness to to accept Russian help informed Fancy Bear's subsequent actions in releasing the e-mails. 

Or suppose that after Trump made his "Russia, if you're listening" remark and dismissed it as a joke, some intrepid investigative reporter had learned that Trump really was sending people out to cruise the dark web looking for the missing e-mails, unconcerned with whether he was dealing with Russian spies.  (He never found anything).

There was speculation even at the time that Roger Stone had inside information when he said on August 21 that it would soon be "John Podesta's time in the barrel" and on October 7 Podesta e-mails came out.  Stone said at the time that it was merely a lucky guess and he made a lot of other predictions that did not come true.  Suppose it had come out that he really did have a secret back channel to Wikileaks and was passing message on the the Trump campaign?  Since Stone was not a member of the campaign, his role was scandalous and indecent, but not actually illegal.

Would these things -- all scandalous and indecent, but not illegal (except possibly the Trump Tower meeting) -- have made a difference in the election outcome?  For any one, taken by itself, probably not. But suppose all had been revealed over the course of the campaign?  Suppose in May it were revealed that Trump was pursuing a Trump Tower in Moscow and lying to the public about it? Then in June, suppose we had found out (as we did), that the Russians had hacked the DNC, even though it was generally assumed to be purely intelligence gathering. Suppose in July it came out that Junior, Jared and Manafort had met with Russians to ask for dirt on Hillary days before the hacks became public?  Might there at least have been speculation whether this openness to Russian assistance had played a role in Russia's decision to release information to Wikileaks?  Supposed in August, in addition to Manafort's payments from the pro-Russian party in Ukraine, it had also came out that Trump didn't just say, "Russia, if you're listening," but actively sent Flynn and others out to cruise the dark web for Hillary's e-mails, unafraid of dealing with hostile intelligence services?  Suppose in September, instead of Harry Reid's false insinuations that something bigger was going on, and instead of the false Yahoo story about Carter Page, one of Roger Stone's intermediaries had come forward to say Stone had an inside line to Wikileaks and was passing tips on to the campaign?  

All of these, after all, would have been true.  None, except the Trump Tower meeting, would have suggested a secret line of communications. But then again, nothing in the DNC or Podesta e-mails suggested illegality either.  And instead of the shotgun sort of unrelated scandals that Trump encountered, there might have been a drip, drip, drip of revelations about a disturbing closeness to Russia. Would that have been enough to convince the Trump-curious that his loyalty was in question?  Would it have persuaded people who didn't care for Trump but couldn't stomach Hillary to stay home or vote third party?  Of course, there is no way to know.

The other question is whether revelations of this sort would have been enough to waken the paranoid and convince people that there was more going on than met the eye?  On the one hand, clearly yes, some people are always eager to believe the worst.  But would that sort of paranoia have gone mainstream and had a role in the respectable press that had rejected the wilder rumors about all previous Presidents?  In the absence of the Steele Dossier, maybe not.

But above all else, imagine the shock that would have reverberated if New York Times reporters had learned, as they did on October 16, that Trump was under counterintelligence investigation for his ties to Russia, and, instead of deferring to the FBI, had revealed that bombshell some time between October 16 and October 28.  After all, some people were outraged by Hillary because she was under investigation by the FBI.  Suppose they had found out that Trump was also under investigation?  Revelation of the counterintelligence investigation would certainly have made Trump/Russia a serious subject.  And yes, it would have been a fruitful field for paranoia, even in the absence of the Steele and Alfa Bank allegations.

It would also no doubt have increased the pressure by the FBI for Director James Comey to make his announcement that the FBI was reopening its Clinton investigation.  But my guess is that it would have blunted the effect of that investigation.  Why?  Well, as it was, the FBI announced the reopening of the investigation.  Clinton's ratings took an immediate, devastating hit.  It was only after the announcement Slate made its announcement about the Alfa Bank server and Mother Jones revealed the existence of the Steele Dossier.  These blows failed to land because they looked (probably correctly) like desperate flailing by a losing campaign.

So supposed the reopening of the FBI investigation of Clinton had followed right after the New York Times revealed that Trump was also under investigation.  My guess was that, too, would have looked like desperate flailing by a losing campaign.  Wikileaks has shot its bolt with the Podesta e-mails and had no further ammunition.  And if any false rumors, like the Alfa Bank story or the Steele Dossier had come out, they would have looked like further evidence behind the FBI's counterintelligence investigation.

In short, my guess is that Hillary would have won. Everyone would promptly have forgotten about Trump-Russia in light of the Clinton e-mails scandal and any other scandals a Republican Congress could have ginned up.  If further investigation had revealed that there was really no "there" there, 

Doubtless Hillary would have lost in 2020 -- probably by a landslide in light of the disasters of that year.  But presumably the Republicans would have shied away from Trump and gone with a more normal candidate.