Clinton camp sought dirt from Russia. Where’s the outrage?

All of Washington is Cohen says he did. waiting with bated Whether he knew is beside breath to find out the point. Senior officials of whether thehis campaign were willing to Mueller investigation accept help from Vladimir will provide evidence Putin; they were saved only proving that the Trump because the meeting was a campaign colluded with bust. The Russians didn’t Russia. So far, Exhibit A end up providing any dirt. against President Donald But as bad as the Trump Trump is the meeting Donald Tower meeting was, it took Trump Jr., Jared Kushner place at the request of the and Paul Manafort had Russians. They were the with a group of Russians ones who approached the claiming to have dirt on Hillary Trump campaign, not the Clinton. That meeting other way around. should never have happened. By contrast, the Clinton When you get an campaign proactively email offering to provide sought dirt on Mr. Trump “very high level and sensitive from Russian government information” from the sources. They did it through “Crown prosecutor of Russia” cutouts. In April 2016, Clinton that could “incriminate campaign lawyer Marc Hillary” Clinton and is part Elias retained opposition research of “Russia and its government’s firm Fusion GPS to support for Mr. compile incriminating information Trump” you don’t reply by on Mr. Trump. Fusion saying “I love it.” You call GPS in turn hired the FBI. Christopher Steele, a former

The president claims he British MI6 operative with did not know about the meeting. sources among Russian government His former lawyer Michael officials. The result was the salacious dossier, whose sources included “a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure” and “a former top level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin.” Mr. Steele’s work was paid for by Ms. Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. That means a paid agent of the Clinton campaign approached Russian officials for damaging material on Trump.

Ms.Clinton claims she did not know about Mr. Steele’s work. It doesn’t matter. Imagine if Mr. Cohen, or another lawyer paid by the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee, had hired a former British spy with campaign money to collect dirt on Ms. Clinton from Russian intelligence and foreign ministry officials. Do you think that everyone in Washington would be saying: “There’s no evidence Trump knew, so no big deal — nothing to see here”? Of course not.

Moreover, Clinton officials have defended Mr. Steele’s actions. Brian Fallon, Ms. Clinton’s campaign spokesman, has said he “would have volunteered to go to Europe and try to help” Mr. Steele and would happily have spread dirt obtained from the Russians. “Opposition research happens on every campaign,” he told The Post. He also said: “I am damn glad [Elias] pursued this on behalf of our campaign and only regret more of this material was not verified in time for the voters to learn it before the election.” In other words, “I love it.” We also know that the Democrats covered up their involvement. The dossier was published by BuzzFeed in January, but it was not until Oct. 24, 2017 — more than nine months later — that Americans learned it was the DNC and the Clinton campaign that paid for it. If it did nothing wrong, why did Team Clinton leave Americans in the dark about its involvement for so long?

Let’s be clear: None of this excuses the Trump campaign’s reprehensible behavior in accepting a meeting with Russians claiming to be government agents offering dirt on Ms. Clinton. Mr. Mueller’s investigation is not a witch hunt. If Mr. Mueller finds that anyone on the Trump campaign entered into a criminal conspiracy with Russia, they should go to jail.

Furthermore, none of this calls into question the intelligence community’s assessment that the Russians wanted Mr. Trump to win — something Mr. Putin publicly confirmed in his Helsinki news conference with Mr. Trump. But the intelligence community assessment also found that the Kremlin expected Ms. Clinton to win. The Russians are not stupid. They were preparing for the prospect of a Clintonpresidency, and they played both sides. That’s why millions of dollars in Russian cash were sloshing around Clinton World — including $500,000 Bill Clinton received for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin.

Russians continue to pose a threat. Their goal, according to our intelligence community, was not just to help Mr. Trump but also to “undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process.” They are playing a long game. If we are to counter the Russian threat, we need to understand its complexities — and that means we have to look beyond Mr. Trump.