The Illustrated Spygate Scandal - Part XXXI
The first political coup in American history
See Part I to start at the beginning.
April 9, 2018
The raid that changed everything.
At dawn, FBI agents descended on the residences and office of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney. They seized computers, phones, documents, attorney-client communications. Everything.
The raid was based on a referral from Special Counsel Weissmann Mueller, but executed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. The stated justification: investigation of potential bank fraud, wire fraud, and campaign finance violations related to Cohen’s payment to Stormy Daniels.
But the raid served a larger purpose. It was a message to Trump: We can get to anyone. We can violate attorney-client privilege. We can seize your most sensitive communications. We can destroy your lawyer. And you can’t stop us.
Trump was furious. He called it “a disgrace” and “an attack on our country.” He questioned whether he still had an attorney general, a pointed reference to Sessions’ recusal.
The raid marked the point where Mueller’s investigation fully weaponized against Trump personally. Not his campaign. Not his associates. Him.
And it revealed the investigation’s true purpose. Not finding collusion with Russia—that was dead, they knew it. Instead, manufacturing any criminal charge against anyone close to Trump, preferably Trump himself.
Cohen would eventually plead guilty to campaign finance violations. He’d become a cooperating witness. He’d testify before Congress. He’d provide nothing of value on Russia.
But he’d serve the narrative. Disloyal lawyer turns on corrupt president. It would play in the media for months.
The fact that the “campaign finance violations” Cohen pleaded to weren’t actually crimes under federal law wouldn’t matter. The fact that he was coerced into pleading guilty under threat of devastating charges against his wife wouldn’t matter.
None of it mattered. Because this wasn’t about justice. It was about destroying Trump.
April 10, 2018: The Ultimatum
Devin Nunes had reached the end of his patience. For months, he’d been asking—then demanding—to see the “electronic communication” that supposedly initiated the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in July 2016.
The EC—bureaucratic shorthand for the formal document that launches an investigation—should have been straightforward to produce. Every investigation has one. It’s the official record of why the probe started, who authorized it, what predicate justified it.
But the FBI and DOJ kept stonewalling. Excuses piled upon delays piled upon redactions piled upon claims of sources-and-methods sensitivity.
Nunes knew why they were stalling. The EC would reveal who started this whole thing. And how. And why. It would show whether there was legitimate predication or whether the probe was launched on political grounds using the Steele dossier or the Shearer memo or some other piece of unverified oppo research.
So on April 10th, Nunes issued an ultimatum: FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had 24 hours to turn over the EC documents. Or Congress would vote on articles of impeachment.
It was a bold move. Impeaching executive branch officials for failing to comply with congressional oversight was nearly unprecedented. But Nunes was done playing games.
“We’re tired of being jerked around,” he told Fox News. “If we don’t get these documents, we’re going to move forward with holding them in contempt and potentially impeachment.”
The person who knew everything about the July 2016 EC was FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap. He was Peter Strzok’s boss. He’d overseen both the Clinton email investigation and the Trump-Russia probe. His name was conspicuously absent from the text messages and memos that had ensnared his subordinates.
Some wondered if Priestap had cooperated with investigators. Others thought he was just more careful than his underlings, smart enough not to leave a trail.
But Priestap held the keys. He knew how the investigation started. He knew whether it was legitimate or manufactured. And his silence was deafening.
April 18, 2018: Criminal Referrals
Eleven members of Congress—led by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte and House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy—took the extraordinary step of making criminal referrals to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Not just for Andrew McCabe. For Hillary Clinton, Loretta Lynch, James Comey, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page.
The six-page letter laid out potential violations:
