One of the many interesting stories that has gotten lost in the shuffle over the controversy over the horrible Trump-Biden debate and the president’s recent Covid-19 diagnosis is the recent allegation by The Federalist‘s Sean Davis that CIA director Gina Haspel has been personally blocking the declassification of incriminating documents pertaining to the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory known as Russiagate.

Davis’ claim may be true or false, but it’s worth earmarking for later reference given that we already know that longtime CIA insider Haspel has been actively persuading the US president to roll out cold war escalations against Russia, and given that we know the only real changes of consequence that have come about as a result of Russiagate are changes which advanced the longstanding agendas of the same intelligence agencies who started it.

The mainstream Democratic partisan narrative has been that investigations into possible collusion between the Trump camp and Moscow were designed to ascertain whether the US government had been co-opted at its highest levels by a hostile foreign power, with countless human clickbait pundits claiming earlier in Trump’s term that these investigations would result in Trump being dragged out of the White House in chains. The mainstream Republican partisan narrative has been that the president was the target of a soft coup attempt by the deep state using false allegations of Russian collusion in an attempt to remove him from office for standing up to the deep state.

Like most partisan narratives, these are both false.

It is correct that the conspiratorial allegations of Vladimir Putin secretly controlling the executive branch of the US government were bogus. It is also correct that Russiagate was a psyop advanced by forces in the US intelligence cartel who are sometimes collectively referred to as a part of the “deep state”, though that term has become largely meaningless in recent years due to Trumpists twisting its meaning into “Democrats and anyone who doesn’t like Trump”. But both Republicans and Democrats are mistaken in believing that Russiagate had anything to do with removing Trump from office.

Russiagate was never a deep state operation targeting Trump; Russiagate has always been a deep state operation targeting Russia. You may be sure this is true because while Russiagate has not had any significant negative effect on Trump, it has greased the wheels for the escalation of many new cold war aggressions against Russia.

Anyone who was informed and unbiased knew that the Mueller investigation would never touch Trump (even as a newbie at the time I correctly called it back in 2017), and anyone who was capable of counting Senate seats knew impeachment would result in acquittal. As far as Trump’s presidential career is concerned all Russiagate ever accomplished was galvanizing his Republican base around the completely false notion that he is fighting the establishment.

But what has Russiagate accomplished in relation to Russia? The political pressure it placed on Trump to act tough on Moscow and the Democratic Party’s baseless insistence that this administration is controlled by Putin have ensured that there is nothing but acceleration for a world-threatening new cold war which has seen nuclear treaties abandoned, a much more aggressive nuclear posture against Russia, weapons sent to Ukraine, many sanctions on Russia, airstrikes on Russia’s ally Syria, sanctions on Russia’s ally Venezuela, the Iran deal shredded against urging from Moscow, NATO expansionism and increased military activity at Russia’s borders.

These aggressions were all planned years in advance. Obama initiated them, the frighteningly anti-Russia hawk Hillary Clinton was scheduled to continue and expand them, and then when that fell through the Russiagate contingency was rolled out to ensure the US intelligence cartel would get its long-sought campaign to shove Russia off the world stage and thereby hamstring its ally China.

A dodgy intelligence assessment on 2016 Russian election meddling by a few operatives who were hand-selected by notorious Russophobe and known perjurer James Clapper combined with a steady stream of bogus “leaks” like the notoriously false Steele dossier to form the foundation of Russiagate, and it all came from the same spy agencies whose agendas benefitted from Russiagate.

The question “Who benefits from this?” is essential for understanding the world, and if you ask it of Russiagate there is one power structure which stands head and shoulders above everyone else. Yes, the mass media got a major ratings bump from Russiagate, which is why they played along with it. Yes, the Democratic Party got to neuter the progressive movement and distract from its 2016 scandals, which is why they played along with it. But in terms of actual changes that were implemented as a direct result of Russiagate, the ones who gained the most were the US intelligence collective whose pre-existing agendas were advanced by it.

Not only were pre-existing agendas against Russia facilitated by Russiagate, but pre-existing agendas against the American left were facilitated as well. The burgeoning swell of progressive populism galvanized by the 2016 Sanders campaign would have made a lot of warmongers nervous, and the opaque government agencies which consistently ally themselves with status quo-loyal plutocrats have a vested interest in protecting the class with which they are allied. The fact that all oxygen was sucked from the progressive movement into baseless Russia conspiracy theories served the same intelligence cartel which initiated Russiagate.

In January of last year a former Assistant Director for the FBI (the same FBI which wordlessly allowed the bogus Steele dossier to circulate despite knowing its intelligence had been compromised) admitted that his work with the FBI had included actively sabotaging leftist politicians in the United States to keep them out of government. This officer’s entire FBI career took place after J Edgar Hoover’s death and after COINTELPRO had officially been ended.

So that’s two longstanding agendas of US spy agencies that were advanced by Russiagate, a psychological operation which was launched by those same agencies.

And that’s all you really need to know about Russiagate: that it was started by the same spy agencies which directly benefited from it. Unless you were born yesterday, this will tell you that we’ve been conned.

And now we’re being told that the CIA director is forcefully obstructing transparency into the creation of that operation, even as the same Office of the Director of National Intelligence that James Clapper headed is promoting the narrative that Iran and China are seeking to influence the US election for Biden while Russia is seeking to influence it for Trump.

And the most depressing thing about it is that they already know they’ll be able to sell it successfully, because nobody has learned anything over the last four years despite the transparent scam of Russiagate. Democrats will happily keep pushing Russia conspiracy theories if Trump wins, and Republicans will cheerfully push conspiracy theories about China and/or Iran after a Biden win. There’s no reason to change strategies if it’s been immensely successful. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Watch them.