Matthew Yglesias
Oct 1, 2019, 3:30pm EDT

News reports this week have clarified that Attorney General William Barr’s promised investigation into the origins of the FBI investigation of links between Russia and the Trump campaign is very real, and has involved high-level talks and meetings with the governments of four countries — Ukraine, Italy, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

That’s a motley assortment of nations whose links and relevance may not be obvious to someone who gets their news from mainstream sources.

The four countries link together as part of a counternarrative popular on the right that holds that the real scandal of the Trump-Russia affair is not anything Trump (or the Russians) did but a “deep state” plot by intelligence agencies to swing the election against Hillary Clinton.

This theory makes no sense on its face — the investigation into Trump was kept secret from the public at the time it could have swayed the election, while the FBI leaked repeatedly in ways that were damaging to Hillary Clinton — but it’s grown increasingly influential in conservative politics over the years and is now apparently driving American foreign policy. As is often the case with this kind of conspiracy theory, the counternarrative is not exactly coherent, but the geography of Barr’s investigations does help explain its scope and rough contours ...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/1/20893222/bill-barr-italy-ukraine-australia-uk

a “deep state” plot by intelligence agencies to swing the election against Hillary Clinton.

So the FBI and CIA got Trump elected? Why does Barr or Pompeo want to prove that?

Maybe if Russia is innocent of ALL wrongs they can lift the sanctions?

I suppose that means that Russia did not really invade and occupy Ukraine a few years back but it is a false flag operation and the perps are Comey and Brennen. Do we have a bunch of American soldiers that are Russian speakers hanging out on tanks in Crimea?

Also the North Pole