Was the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation politically motivated?

[Tranquillus in Exile]

The suggestion is that the Deep State used trickery to engineer an investigation, perhaps by setting up clueless Papadopoulos and/or blameless Page. A lot of effort has been put into elaborating on this by impartial media such as the National Review.

There could have been two possible motives:

#1 To smear Trump by insinuating that he traitorously colluded with agents of an unfriendly foreign power, and so swing the election against him.

A moment's reflection shows that this scenario does not work. If the purpose was to damage Trump electorally, the first requirement would have been to ensure that the investigation was public knowledge before the election. Instead, the very existence of the investigation was not publicly known until several months after the election.

#2 To uncover the political secrets of Trump's campaign and pass them to the DNC, who would then use them to swing the election.

Trumpsters rarely say this straight out because they have zero evidence of such a thing happening, and presumably they are unable to concoct any. But since #1 is nonsense, I think #2 must be the message we are intended to take.

Finally I should mention the insurance policy. In this theory, the Deep State was certain that Trump would not win. But just in case he did, they had a bogus investigation set up ready to go into top gear after the election. The best outcome would have been to force Trump's resignation and ensure the elevation of Pence.

Hmm, maybe the evangelical wing of the Deep State was behind it ...

[tinfoil]

The suggestion is that the Deep State used trickery to engineer an investigation, perhaps by setting up clueless Papadopoulos and/or blameless Page. A lot of effort has been put into elaborating on this by impartial media such as the National Review.

There could have been two possible motives:

#1 To smear Trump by insinuating that he traitorously colluded with agents of an unfriendly foreign power, and so swing the election against him.

A moment's reflection shows that this scenario does not work. If the purpose was to damage Trump electorally, the first requirement would have been to ensure that the investigation was public knowledge before the election. Instead, the very existence of the investigation was not publicly known until several months after the election.

#2 To uncover the political secrets of Trump's campaign and pass them to the DNC, who would then use them to swing the election.

Trumpsters rarely say this straight out because they have zero evidence of such a thing happening, and presumably they are unable to concoct any. But since #1 is nonsense, I think #2 must be the message we are intended to take.

Finally I should mention the insurance policy. In this theory, the Deep State was certain that Trump would not win. But just in case he did, they had a bogus investigation set up ready to go into top gear after the election. The best outcome would have been to force Trump's resignation and ensure the elevation of Pence.

Hmm, maybe the evangelical wing of the Deep State was behind it ...

Don't you think they would have made it public if they found anything? I mean, can you really say that the FBI not revealing an investigation( which may have been politically motivated) would be evidence that it's not politically motivated. Comey admits to biased behavior with respect to his late press conference and his reason being to ensure Hillary's legitimacy upon election would not be questionable. Why should we give them the benefit of the doubt when they are known liars (Clapper) and admit to bias?

[Tranquillus in Exile]

Don't you think they would have made it public if they found anything? I mean, can you really say that the FBI not revealing an investigation would be evidence that it's not politically motivated.

If their purpose was to sink Trump, I believe they would have made it public whether or not they found anything. The mere knowledge that Trump was under FBI investigation for what many people would see as traitorous activity - leaked, say, a week before the election - would have done the trick. Don't you think?

[Darth Omar]

If their purpose was to sink Trump, I believe they would have made it public whether or not they found anything. The mere knowledge that Trump was under FBI investigation for what many people would see as traitorous activity - leaked, say, a week before the election - would have done the trick. Don't you think?

But for it to be a criminal investigation requires some standard of evidence—they didn’t have any, and were likely trying to manufacture it.

The safest thing to do is to keep it as a counterintelligence investigation but make selective leaks to get people thinking it was a criminal investigation. Which is exactly what happened.

Recall that a Comey refused to publicly state that Trump wasn’t under investigation.

[Stretch]

If it was all on the up-and-up and they were really trying to "protect" Trump they would have have warned him right at the start that some "bad guys" were trying to mess around with his campaign and the election and shed some light on this. Instead, they launched a counter-intel investigation dragging on for more than a year dredging up everything BUT collusion and allow the media to propagate all kinds of other nonsense to derail him politically.
Also, if they were only after da Russians for messing with our entire election, they would have given Hillary's campaign the same heads-up and the same kind of investigation.

[Tranquillus in Exile]

@ Darth Omar

I think you're mixing up before and after. The electorate knew nothing about the FBI investigation before the election - which is when it could have made a difference.

Afterwards, as I said in the OP, the best they could hope for was to get President Pence. LOL.


Added: Suppose, for one moment, that the IC had legitimate reasons to suspect that some of Trump's associates were colluding with the Russian cyber offensive. (You know what I think those reasons were, and they certainly didn't apply to the Clinton campaign.) How would the FBI investigation have looked any different?

For all they knew, Trump might have been in on it. Would they have taken him into their confidence? Otoh, they kept it secret from the public until after the election. They were playing it by the book.

On the evidence we have so far, that's all that can be said. The rest is partisan speculation.

[Darth Omar]

@ Darth Omar

I think you're mixing up before and after. The electorate knew nothing about the FBI investigation before the election - which is when it could have made a difference.

Afterwards, as I said in the OP, the best they could hope for was to get President Pence. LOL.


Added: Suppose, for one moment, that the IC had legitimate reasons to suspect that some of Trump's associates were colluding with the Russian cyber offensive. (You know what I think those reasons were, and they certainly didn't apply to the Clinton campaign.) How would the FBI investigation have looked any different?

For all they knew, Trump might have been in on it. Would they have taken him into their confidence? Otoh, they kept it secret from the public until after the election. They were playing it by the book.

On the evidence we have so far, that's all that can be said. The rest is partisan speculation.

The before/after election point is moot because even the Deep State can’t simply declare a criminal investigation without having evidence to justify one.

‘For all they knew’ IS speculation. During the ‘speculative phase’ of the investigation Trump and his campaign deserved a defensive interview from the FBI.

And the best case scenario for them not getting one is incompetence. The worst case is a conspiracy.