343 The Leeden Manifesto: The GOP’s 2016 Hunt for Her Emails and Bannon’s Unknown Role

🔥 Chapter Title: The Leeden Manifesto: The GOP’s 2016 Hunt for Her Emails and Bannon’s Unknown Role

If you thought the last chapter was incendiary, this one redefines the phrase and takes us out of the frying pan into the fire. We begin where Chapter Comey’s Fake Russian Doc left off—examining the origins and implications of the so-called Russian disinformation document Comey used to justify his reckless July 5, 2016 press conference.

We then traced the 2018 revelation that Trump campaign advisor Joseph Schmitz—formerly COO of Blackwater under Erik Prince—had shopped fake Clinton emails to the FBI. Seth Abramson’s theory that Schmitz’s unnamed “agent” was Peter Smith remains highly plausible.

Now we ask a deeper question:

Was Schmitz following Barbara Leeden’s playbook?

🧠 The GOP’s Email Obsession: A Party-Wide Fixation

To understand the scope of the GOP’s 2016 obsession with Clinton’s deleted emails, we must recognize that it wasn’t just the Trump campaign—it was the entire Republican Party.

📝 FN: Clinton’s lawyers deleted personal emails as permitted by law. Comey and his team recovered over 13,000 of them. The infamous “33,000” number was a myth—only 19,000+ remained outstanding.

What was this apropos of-something in the original manuscript?

If you distrust Clinton’s lawyer for having her interests in mind, ask yourself:

Do you apply the same scrutiny to Steve Bannon’s lawyer, who withheld emails from the House Intelligence Committee?

The law allowed Clinton’s legal team to remove personal emails. That’s standard practice. Meanwhile, GOP operatives—who screamed about email security—had their own communications vanish during the most incriminating periods.

🗣️ Bannon’s Testimony: Harebrained or Hiding?

In early 2018, Steve Bannon told the House Intelligence Committee:

“Members of the Trump campaign kept getting approached by outsiders suggesting ways to get Clinton’s emails.”

Bannon framed it as fringe outsiders with “harebrained ideas.” He claimed the campaign dismissed the notion of recovering the 33,000 emails as a “hopeless fantasy.”

📝 FN: That framing—“interested but not viable”—echoes Peter Smith’s former business partner. It may appear in Mueller transcripts rather than HSPCI.

🤥 Bannon’s Lies and Mueller’s Deal

While Bannon testified against Roger Stone for lying to HSPCI, he lied just as much himself. Stone claimed not to know Smith—despite Jerome Corsi stating that without Smith, the Comey Letter never happens.

Mueller didn’t indict Bannon for his lies. Instead, he offered him a deal to help convict Stone.

📝 FN: Later we’ll include direct quotes showing Stone’s and Bannon’s dissembling.

📝 UPDATE: Emptywheel documents how absurd Bannon’s claim was that he wasn’t interested in Podesta’s emails. Flynn’s interviews corroborate this.

🧨 Not Just Trump—The Whole Party

This wasn’t just a Trump campaign obsession. It was a Republican Party-wide fixation.

📝 FN: This is a crucial point we’ll develop further below.

🔥 You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet: Barbara Leeden and the Blueprint for Conspiracy

As the 1960s song goes, “You ain’t seen nothing yet, baby.” And indeed, the deeper we dig into Barbara Leeden’s role, the more we uncover a blueprint for digital sabotage and foreign collusion that predates Trump’s rise in the GOP primary.

Barbara Leeden—wife of Michael Leeden, a Reagan-era operative who had not a trivial role in the Iran-Contra scandal2—crafted what can only be described as a But Her Emails Manifesto. And like her husband, she’s managed to evade accountability, retaining her position on Chuck Grassley’s Senate Judiciary Committee.

FN: More on Leeden. Michael A. Ledeen, Reagan Adviser Involved in Iran-Contra, Dies at 83 – The New York Times

📧 June 2015: Leeden’s Email to Bannon

Before Trump’s ascent, Leeden emailed Steve Bannon with a proposal to recover Clinton’s deleted emails. This wasn’t idle speculation—it was a calculated plan to engage foreign intelligence services.

📝 FN: The Mueller FOIA documents and Proof of Conspiracy by Seth Abramson (Location 4200) reveal Leeden’s intent to obtain “classified” emails “purloined by our enemies,” even if it meant dealing with “various foreign services”

“Ledeen believed the effort to acquire stolen Clinton emails would be worth the risk of unsavory contacts with America’s enemies if the intelligence services of (among others) the Russians had ‘reassemble[d] the [Clinton] server’s email content.’”

This wasn’t just reckless—it was a conspiracy to commit computer crimes with hostile foreign powers.

🕵️‍♂️ Smith’s Alleged Rejection: A Convenient Myth

Peter Smith allegedly declined Leeden’s proposal, calling it “not viable.” But this claim rests solely on the word of a former business associate. Given the GOP’s pattern of denial, minimization, and distortion, skepticism is warranted.

Like Bannon, Stone, and Flynn, Smith’s circle only admitted what couldn’t be denied—and even then, they distorted and diverted.

📞 Bannon’s Duplicity

Bannon denied knowing Stone or Smith before HSPCI. But in Mueller interviews, he admitted frequent contact with Stone—via phone and electronic messages—and confessed interest in Clinton’s emails.

📝 FN: Bannon’s claim that he was “just humoring” Stone is contradicted by his own communications.

📞 Flynn’s Effusive Response and Implausible Minimization

Initially, Michael Flynn denied any involvement in the hunt for Clinton’s emails. But later interviews revealed his enthusiastic response to Leeden’s proposal:

“Amazing!” Flynn wrote in June 2016. “I’ll speak more off line with you about it this evening or tomorrow.”

This wasn’t a passive acknowledgment—it was active engagement. Yet when pressed, Flynn attempted to minimize his interest, claiming he was merely humoring Barbara Leeden out of respect for her husband, Michael Leeden—his longtime collaborator and co-author.

A transparent dodge. The response was effusive, not polite. The plan was criminal, not academic.

Flynn’s minimization was implausible, especially given his deep ties to the Leedens and his central role in the campaign’s national security apparatus. His plea deal may have been an act of prosecutorial grace—but the pattern remains:

Admit nothing unless forced. Then minimize, distort, and deflect.

🕳️ Erik Prince’s Shadow Role

Erik Prince’s response to Leeden’s letter appears in Mueller FOIA #16, page 314. Prince, who funded Flynn’s search for Clinton’s emails9, was deeply embedded in the operation—even as he lied to Congress about his Russian contacts.

🧠 Leeden’s Blueprint Becomes the GOP’s Playbook

Despite public denials, the GOP’s subsequent efforts to recover Clinton’s emails followed the exact contours of Leeden’s manifesto. From Smith’s dark web searches to Flynn’s outreach to foreign contacts, the party’s actions mirrored her plan.

📝 FN: Leeden’s intent was always to engage foreign intelligence. Her initiative wasn’t fringe—it was foundational.

🧠 The Email Obsession: From GOP Orthodoxy to Trumpian Conspiracy

📅 June 2015: The Origin Point

Before Trump’s rise, Barbara Ledeen, a longtime aide to Chuck Grassley and fixture of the GOP establishment, sent a proposal to Steve Bannon outlining a plan to recover Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails—via Russian intelligence. This was not a Trump brainchild. It was a mainstream Republican initiative, hatched when most insiders presumed the nominee would be Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, or Chris Christie.

Ledeen’s proposal wasn’t just speculative—it was operational. She argued that working with foreign intelligence was preferable to domestic sources.

🔍 December 2015: Flynn and Smith Enter the Picture

By late 2015, Ledeen had looped in Michael Flynn and Peter Smith, launching what Mueller would later describe as a parallel effort to the Russian hacking operation. This was months before Trump’s infamous “Russia, if you’re listening…” line in July 2016.

Ledeen’s “But Her Emails Manifesto” circulated among GOP insiders, laying out a 25-page plan to recover Clinton’s emails via foreign intelligence channels.

💰 September 2016: Erik Prince Funds the Operation

According to the Mueller Report, Erik Prince—founder of Blackwater and brother to Betsy DeVos—funded a tech advisor to authenticate a cache of Clinton emails that Ledeen claimed to have obtained. The emails turned out to be fake, but the intent was unmistakable.

Prince’s involvement underscores the financial and logistical support behind the effort. This wasn’t amateur sleuthing—it was a funded, coordinated operation.

🧠 Bannon’s Advance Knowledge

A recent FOIA release of Mueller 302s revealed that Steve Bannon had advance knowledge of the DNC email leak just before the 2016 Democratic convention. This shatters the old conventional wisdom—once echoed by even trusted voices like Rachel Maddow and Josh Marshall—that Bannon had no role in Russian collusion.

Et tu, Rachel? The assumption of Bannon’s innocence was based not on evidence of absence, but on absence of reporting—a fatal flaw in MSM epistemology.

🧩 The Broader Conspiracy

The Mueller Report may have said it “didn’t establish” a criminal conspiracy—but the intent is documented in black and white. From pg. 199 onward in the unredacted 302s, the pattern is clear:

• GOP insiders sought foreign help to obtain Clinton’s emails
• Trump repeatedly demanded the emails
• Flynn, Smith, Stone, Corsi, Ledeen, and Prince acted on those demands
• Bannon had foreknowledge of the leaks
• The Comey Letter sealed the deal-of which as we’ll see in the next chapter Devin Nunes and his House GOP had foreknowledge

As Hillary said the morning after: “I know they’d never let me be President.” And she was right. By “THEY” we can include the entire GOP as well as the FBI-though when you understand the historical partisan makeup of the FBI this is redundant-as well as the NY Times lead Beltway media-which still sought vindication for their bad Whitewater reporting of the 1990s; ie they wanted to vindicate their bad reporting from the 1990s with their bad reporting in 2016.

🕵️‍♂️ Journalism vs. Intelligence: A Fatal Epistemological Divide

Mainstream journalists often fail to grasp Malcolm Nance’s distinction between journalistic skepticism and intelligence-based investigation. The former demands multi-source confirmation before even entertaining a theory; the latter begins with educated hunches, pattern recognition, and intuition.

In journalism, “speculation” is a dirty word. In intelligence, it’s the first breadcrumb.

This epistemological rigidity has long hampered coverage of Trump-Russia. The absence of reporting was mistaken for absence of evidence. But the Mueller 302s, the FOIA releases, and the timeline of GOP operatives’ actions reveal a pattern that intelligence professionals would recognize instantly:

• A coordinated effort to obtain Clinton’s emails
• Willingness to partner with foreign intelligence
• Financial backing from GOP donors
• Advance knowledge of Russian leaks
• A final act of sabotage via the Comey Letter

The conspiracy wasn’t speculative—it was operational.

🧠 “Executive Summary to Hack Her Emails”: The Blueprint for Conspiracy

📄 Pg. 204: The Smoking Gun

Barbara Ledeen, Senate Judiciary aide to Chuck Grassley, laid out a plan so explicit it reads like an executive summary for criminal conspiracy. She proposed that foreign intelligence services—preferably Russian—recover Clinton’s deleted emails and deliver them to conservative media outlets. This wasn’t idle speculation. It was a quid pro quo:

• Foreign intel hacks the emails
• Conservative media amplifies the results
• Clinton is discredited, possibly blackmailed

Ledeen even claimed this was what Russia had done in the Uranium One affair—if true, she was making news, not just plotting it. Namely that the GOP Uranium One pseduo scandal was actually perpetuated by Russian intelligence.

🧠 The “Advantages of Foreign Intelligence”

Ledeen’s rationale was chillingly pragmatic. She argued that foreign intelligence services had likely already accessed Clinton’s server and could reassemble its contents. Her proposal included a three-phase plan:

1. Open-source analysis
2. Dark web reconnaissance
3. Outreach to foreign intelligence contacts

The implication: The GOP was determined to win by any means necessary including via the intelligence of Foreign adversaries. This was the GOP’s 2016 Faustian bargain-they’d rather subvert their own nation’s foreign policy to Russia than have the Democrats in power. This has been their premise going back to Nixon Circa 1968

🧩 Not Just for Trump

The plan was designed to benefit any GOP nominee—even Carly Fiorina, whom Ledeen dismissed as a “token.” This underscores the institutional nature of the conspiracy. It wasn’t Trump-specific. It was GOP-wide.

The obsession with Clinton’s emails predated Trump’s rise. It was a party-wide fixation, not a campaign quirk.

🤥 Denials and Deflections

Despite their later denials, key figures were looped in early:

• Bannon told HSPCI he knew of no concerted effort—then admitted to Mueller he did, calling it “not viable.”
• Flynn initially denied involvement—then admitted Trump repeatedly asked him to get the emails.
• Peter Smith received Ledeen’s proposal in June 2015, though his associate claimed Smith rejected it in December.

The pattern: deny, deflect, minimize—until caught.

🧠 The Architecture of Conspiracy

By mid-2015, all the elements were in place:

• Ledeen’s manifesto
• Flynn’s coordination
• Smith’s fundraising and outreach
• Erik Prince’s financing of tech advisors
• Bannon’s foreknowledge of the DNC leak

The obsession with Clinton’s emails intensified throughout the campaign, mirroring the contours of Ledeen’s plan.

📄 Pg. 200–203: The Blueprint in Black and White

Ledeen expressed near certainty that Clinton’s deleted emails could be recovered. She claimed foreign intelligence agencies already had them. Her proposal was not speculative—it was operational.

This is what a conspiracy looks like. Not whispers. Not innuendo. But a written plan, circulated among GOP insiders, with clear intent and logistical scaffolding.

🧨 Intent Is Everything

The Mueller Report may have said it “didn’t establish” a conspiracy—but the intent is documented. And intent is a cornerstone of criminal conspiracy.

To paraphrase President Biden back when he was Vice President: this is a BFD.

🧠 The Blueprint in Motion: Flynn, Bannon, and the “Unconcerted” Conspiracy

By June 2015, Barbara Ledeen had already distributed her Executive Summary to Hack Her Emails to Steve Bannon—months before Trump’s escalator descent and six months before she sent it to Peter Smith and Michael Flynn. The plan was explicit: use foreign intelligence, preferably Russian, to recover Clinton’s deleted emails and deliver them to conservative media.

This wasn’t fringe. It was institutional. And it predated Trump’s candidacy.

📧 Bannon’s Early Involvement

Despite his denials before HSPCI, Bannon was CCed on Peter Smith’s emails and received Ledeen’s manifesto directly. He later admitted to Mueller that he had discussed Clinton’s emails with Roger Stone—though he claimed he was merely “humoring” him.

📝 FN: Bannon’s lies unraveled only after Mueller obtained the documents. Ironically, he wasn’t a person of interest until he opened his big mouth to Michael Wolff in Fire and Fury triggering the subpoena that finally brought him under scrutiny.

📞 Flynn’s “Unconcerted” Effort

Flynn, too, initially denied involvement. But Mueller’s report documents that Trump “made this request repeatedly,” prompting Flynn to contact multiple individuals—including Ledeen and Smith—to obtain the emails.

Flynn’s later claim that this wasn’t a “concerted effort” is classic GOP dissembling. A large, multi-pronged, foreign-backed operation—but unconcerted?

📄 Pg. 59–60: Echoes of the Manifesto

Flynn’s interviews reveal a belief that Clinton’s deleted emails weren’t truly gone—a core premise of Ledeen’s plan. He also claimed that if the emails existed, the FBI would find them.

That belief became the predicate for Comey’s October 28 letter—the final act in the sabotage.

🧠 The Leeden Doctrine

Ledeen’s manifesto argued:

• Clinton’s emails were likely recovered by foreign intelligence.
• Russia was the most probable source.
• Conservative media should partner with foreign services to obtain and disseminate them.

This wasn’t speculation. It was a written plan, circulated among GOP insiders, with clear intent and operational contours.

🧨 The Anatomy of Denial

From Bannon to Flynn to Smith’s posthumous proxies, the pattern is consistent:

• Deny involvement.
• Admit only under pressure.
• Minimize the scope.
• Claim it wasn’t “organized.”

But the paper trail—from Ledeen’s June 2015 email to Flynn’s effusive response—tells a different story.

📝 FN: Erik Prince, Jerome Corsi, and Bannon himself all deleted emails from the relevant period. Their “I don’t know where they went” defense mirrors the But Her Emails party’s own accusations.

🧠 Flynn’s Memory Management: From Fog to Clarity

In Flynn’s January 5, 2018 interview, the haze begins to lift. On page 59, he claims no recollection of any concerted effort to locate Hillary Clinton’s emails. But by page 72, his story shifts. Now he admits that he and Steve Bannon hoped WikiLeaks would publish the emails. The question becomes: does this qualify as concerted or unconcerted?

Flynn further reveals that he had numerous conversations with Bannon about Clinton’s emails, noting that Bannon “always seemed to have insight” into specific stories—presumably about the emails. He even suggests that Bannon “may have” had knowledge of what was on Anthony Weiner’s laptop while it was still in NYPD custody. This discovery is simply stunning when you recall that in before Bannon cooperated in such detail with Michael Wolff’s book the conventional wisdom was that he had little to no role in Emailgate-as there was no evidence that he did. This is why one slogan of experienced investigators is “absence of evidence is not evidence of abscence.”

🧩 Modular Insert: The “Unconcerted” Dodge

Flynn’s earlier denial—no concerted effort—was a classic dodge. “Unconcerted” is a legal fig leaf, not a factual claim. The shift in tone by page 72 suggests not just memory recovery but strategic recalibration. When the facts become too obvious, the narrative must evolve. This is textbook gaslighting: deny, deflect, then reframe—without ever acknowledging the contradiction

🕸️ Expanding the Nexus: Beyond Stone, Corsi, and Smith

While Chapter The Unreported Background focused on the Stone-Corsi-Peter Smith axis, these three are far from the full cast. Flynn, Bannon, Joseph Schmitz, and Erik Prince were all active participants in the broader effort—concerted or otherwise—to obtain the 33,000 emails and to plant Huma Abedin’s emails on Weiner’s laptop.

Prince’s role is especially notable. He contributed roughly three-quarters of a million dollars to Trump’s campaign in its final months through various channels. His funding of Smith-Leeden’s dark web scavenging operation makes Bannon’s involvement all but inevitable. Bannon was Prince’s closest contact in the campaign. The idea that Prince didn’t inform Bannon of the operation is implausible.

🧨 The Immaculate Discovery: Myth vs. Mechanism

Flynn’s revelations strongly suggest that Bannon and Prince were deeply involved in the so-called Immaculate Discovery of Huma’s emails. According to Corsi, Smith made the identification happen—likely through NYPD contacts. Prince funded Smith’s efforts, which were actually Smith-Leeden’s. Barbara Leeden, Grassley’s aide, was ideologically invested. This was her manifesto in motion—the dog catching the car.

🏛️ GOPland 2016: Collusion Beyond Trump

This episode underscores a broader truth: Russian Collusion—and Rogue FBI Agent Collusion—was not confined to the Trump campaign. It implicated GOPland circa 2016-referring to the FBI as “GOPland” seems appropriate seeing since the agency’s founding in 1908 it has yet to have a single Democratic Director . Evidence suggests the RNC had prior knowledge of the DNC hack and dump—at least before the dump. It’s reasonable to infer that RNC insiders also knew about the Podesta emails and the NYPD/NYFBI machinations that led to the Comey Letter.

Leeden’s role on Grassley’s Senate Judiciary Committee implies that the GOP Senate had awareness. Their refusal to confront Russian interference wasn’t just about shielding Trump—it was about shielding themselves.

🕵️ Rudy’s Cyber Choreography

Flynn alluded to Rudy Giuliani as a “great cyber guy.” If anyone had the contacts, it was Rudy—and he telegraphed the laptop story before it broke. Lara Trump did too, reinforcing how widely known the coming Comey Letter was within TrumpWorld.

Bannon’s suggestion that classified information was on Weiner’s laptop echoes Prince’s narrative. Prince’s claims—pedophilia, money laundering, Clinton’s alleged visits to Epstein’s island—were published in Breitbart. His account was granular, suggesting insider knowledge.

📻 Breitbart Revelations: Prince’s Insider Claims

Prince told SiriusXM that a “well-placed source” in the NYPD said the department wanted to hold a press conference announcing warrants and arrests related to the Weiner investigation but faced “huge pushback” from the Justice Department.

This wasn’t improvisation—it was telegraphing. Prince wasn’t making it up. He likely had sources. The mainstream media’s instinct to assume the most banal explanation—unless the subject is Hillary Clinton—has repeatedly failed. It’s the same reflex that once helped Hitler: taking lies and gaslighting at face value.

FN: This happened many times over the years of Hitler’s monstrous reign like in 1924 when the Times proclaimed Hitler “reformed.”

NYT REHABILITATED HITLER IN 1924 — History News Network

🧃 Truthful Hyperbole and Strategic Narrative

Prince’s claims deserve investigation. At this point, it’s illogical to presume the most innocuous explanation. Over the past six and a half years, that approach has proven consistently wrong. Yet many remain slow learners.

The furor over Afghanistan is a case in point. Biden implemented Trump’s agenda. If critics weren’t objecting when Trump proposed it, they lack credibility.

Prince continued: “It’s not like foreign intelligence agencies leave a thank-you note after they’ve hacked and stolen your data.” He claimed insider knowledge that could explain why Comey reopened the Clinton email probe.

Stone later revealed to The Intercept that he too had insider knowledge. Stone and Prince had 67 calls over just a few months in spring 2016. They were clearly coordinating narratives in real time.

UPDATE: Refer later to my original manuscript for the exact number of phone calls.

🧩 The Real Constitutional Crisis

Prince claimed the NYPD found 650,000 emails on Weiner’s laptop, including State Department emails and other damning material. He alleged Clinton visited Epstein’s island six times and that the emails implicated other Democrats. According to Prince, the NYPD threatened to go public unless the FBI reopened the investigation.

He said the DOJ threatened retaliation, including charges related to the Eric Garner case. This demands investigation. NYPD and NYFBI’s outrage over the federal case against Officer Daniel Pantaleo was a major factor in their opposition to Clinton’s campaign. Her DOJ would have pursued accountability—possibly even more aggressively than Obama’s.

Prince concluded that five different parts of the FBI were investigating Clinton, “with constant interference from the DOJ”-ie these various parts of the agency were engaging in rogue operations against Clinton as by definition they were under the jurisdiction of the DOJ-ie it wasn’t “interference” but legitimate oversight. He warned that Clinton’s election would trigger a constitutional crisis not seen since 1860.

But what GOP-leaning agents considered a “constitutional crisis” wasn’t Clinton’s emails—it was the prospect of law enforcement accountability. That was the real threat.

.

📻 Prince’s FBI Claims and Flynn’s Expanding Circle

Erik Prince’s interview with Breitbart’s Alex Marlow continued to paint a vivid picture of NYPD and FBI dynamics. Prince claimed that both Weiner and Huma Abedin had “flipped,” cooperating with the government under threat of serious jail time. He alleged that Abedin had stored hundreds of thousands of messages from Clinton’s homebrew server, many containing classified information.

Prince insisted that the NYPD kept a copy of the laptop’s contents and passed it to the FBI, which finally “got off their chairs,” prompting Comey’s reopening of the investigation. He claimed the NYPD would pursue justice if the FBI failed to act.

This narrative dovetails with claims made by Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi in their respective books (see Chapter Unknown Background), reinforcing the idea that the Comey Letter was the culmination of a coordinated pressure campaign.

🧠 Flynn’s DIA Outreach and Rudy’s Credibility

Flynn admitted to speaking with his own DIA contacts about Clinton’s emails. This expands the scope of his involvement and suggests that the search for the emails extended into official intelligence channels.

Despite Devlin Barrett’s insistence that Rudy Giuliani fabricated his claims of FBI sources, Flynn believed Rudy’s statements were credible. As Seth Abramson has argued, when figures like Giuliani say something that’s not self-serving, it’s often worth taking seriously.

Giuliani’s refusal to name sources wasn’t necessarily evasive—it was strategic. It allowed mainstream journalists like Barrett and Dilanian to dismiss the claims as speculative, preserving plausible deniability.

🧩 Modular Insert: The Giuliani Gambit

Giuliani’s media strategy relied on a simple trick: say just enough to signal insider knowledge, but not enough to trigger legal exposure. This created a feedback loop where the media could dismiss him as unserious, while insiders recognized the signal. It’s the same tactic used by Stone, Prince, and Bannon—truthful hyperbole-aka Trump’s neologistic phrase in book-as strategic ambiguity.

🕵️ Flynn’s April 2018 Interview: Bannon, Wikileaks, and the Insightful One

Flynn’s April 25, 2018 interview revealed even more. He claimed that Bannon “always seemed to have insight” into Clinton-related stories and even suggested Bannon may have had foreknowledge of what was on Weiner’s laptop.

This is the first documented suggestion of a direct Bannon–WikiLeaks connection. Flynn’s testimony contradicts Bannon’s later statements in federal court, where he claimed Stone was the campaign’s sole conduit to WikiLeaks.

Flynn’s repeated references to “The Insightful Steve Bannon” suggest a deeper operational role. Buzzfeed’s FOIA releases confirmed that Bannon had prior knowledge of the DNC email dump—weeks before joining the campaign.

🔍 Bannon’s Foreknowledge and the Cambridge Analytica Nexus

Flynn’s testimony suggests Bannon wasn’t just overhearing things—he was embedded. He had regular contact with Stone via phone, email, and text before officially joining the campaign. He was also the earliest known recipient of Leeden’s But Her Emails Executive Summary.

This makes sense given Bannon’s dual role as head of Breitbart and vice president of Cambridge Analytica. In 2014, he was Alexander Nix’s boss and a close confidant of the Mercers. CA’s skill set—data mining, psychological profiling, and foreign intelligence partnerships—was tailor-made for a Clinton Email Recovery Plan.

Julian Assange confirmed that Cambridge Analytica sought WikiLeaks’ help. In this context, “Cambridge Analytica” and “Steve Bannon” are functionally synonymous.

🧠 Israeli Intelligence and the Nigerian Server Trove

Seth Abramson documents how Israeli intelligence operatives working with CA obtained hacked materials from Nigerian servers. Zamel’s firm Psy-Group, backed by $2 million from George Nader, was part of this network. The same infrastructure used in Nigeria was redeployed in the U.S. election.

This raises the question: were Bannon and Stone’s pre-campaign conversations about Clinton’s emails more than just idle chatter? The evidence suggests they were coordinating access, strategy, and dissemination.

📞 Prince’s Call Logs and the Stone–Bannon–Gates Triangle

According to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), Erik Prince and Roger Stone exchanged 67 phone calls in April and May of 2016 alone. Prince also had 67 calls with Rick Gates, Manafort’s deputy—three more than Stone had with Manafort himself during that same period.

These numbers aren’t incidental. They suggest a dense communications network between Prince, Stone, and Gates—one that Bannon, as Prince’s closest contact on the campaign, would have been fully aware of. Yet Bannon has consistently worked to marginalize Stone’s role, portraying him as a fringe figure. But senior campaign aides don’t exchange hundreds of calls with someone they’re merely humoring.

🧠 Leeden’s Global Scan and the Logistics of Sabotage

Barbara Leeden framed her But Her Emails proposal as originating from a logistical company called Global Scan. Whether this was a shell, a front, or a legitimate contractor remains unclear. But it raises a critical question:

Did Team Mueller—or the counterintelligence investigation—ever look into Global Scan?

If not, why not? The name itself suggests operational infrastructure. If Leeden was using it to cloak her proposal, it deserves scrutiny.

✈️ Flynn’s Plane Conversations and the Agnostic Dodge

In Mueller FOIA transcript #14, Flynn describes conversations aboard campaign flights following the DNC dump and Trump’s infamous “Russia, if you’re listening…” line.

On page 95, Flynn begins with the canonical agnosticism that GOP co-conspirators often deploy when they can’t deny something outright:

“We didn’t care where it came from—we just wanted them released.”

This admission alone confirms a willingness to use stolen materials from Russian intelligence. It differs from Leeden’s Executive Summary, which made clear that her preferred source was Russia—a position Peter Smith would later echo.

🧩 Modular Insert: The Agnosticism Ruse

This rhetorical move—feigning indifference to the source—is a classic disinformation tactic. It allows operatives to benefit from foreign sabotage while maintaining plausible deniability. But as Flynn’s own words show, the campaign wasn’t indifferent. It was actively verifying whether Russia had the emails.

🌐 Dark Web Outreach and the Smith–Flynn Venture

In the final paragraph of page 95, Flynn admits to speaking with dark web contacts to verify whether Russia had Clinton’s emails. Of course he did—this was his joint venture with Peter Smith-in Chapter Comey’s Russian Doc we also conjectured Schmitz was also involved.

This directly contradicts Flynn’s earlier claim (page 60) that the campaign merely hoped the emails would fall into their laps. Now he admits he was assigned to find the source, and that he spoke to people on the dark web about Russia.

🧩 GOPland’s Articles of Faith

Leeden’s manifesto didn’t just circulate—it became doctrine. The belief that Russia had Clinton’s emails was tweeted by Dan Scavino, Trump’s social media director, in early May 2016. It wasn’t fringe—it was central.

Flynn’s evolving testimony, Prince’s call logs, and Bannon’s foreknowledge all point to a coordinated infrastructure—one that began with Leeden’s June 2015 email and metastasized into a full-blown sabotage campaign.

🧠 Leeden’s Shadow Network and the Redacted Mystery

On page 118 of the Mueller FOIA transcript #14, we return to Barbara Leeden. A redacted name appears alongside hers—possibly Joseph Schmitz, possibly another GOP co-conspirator. What’s clear is that it’s not Peter Smith, as he’s explicitly named on page 119—the only time he appears by name in Flynn’s interview.

This raises questions: Why only one mention? Was Smith’s name scrubbed elsewhere in redactions? Or was his role deliberately minimized in the transcript?

🕵️ The “Not a Report” Dodge and Flynn’s Implausible Amnesia

Flynn claims the effort to find Clinton’s emails wasn’t “concerted” because it wasn’t a formal report. But this is a semantic dodge. The operation contained extensive information, coordination, and outreach—just not a cover sheet labeled “Report.”

He also claims he didn’t tell the campaign—or doesn’t remember if he did. This doesn’t pass the laugh test. Flynn himself described Trump and senior aides as obsessed with Clinton’s emails. In May 2016, Dan Scavino tweeted an article claiming Russia already had them—a widely held belief across TrumpWorld and GOPland.

Leeden had already asserted in her June 2015 email to Bannon that Russia “probably” had Clinton’s emails. If you’re on the phone with Roger Stone 200 times over two months—as Manafort, Gates, and Prince were—it’s hard to imagine the topic didn’t come up.

🧩 Modular Insert: The “I Don’t Recall” Chorus

From Flynn to Papadopoulos to Bannon, the refrain is familiar: “I don’t remember,” “I didn’t tell anyone,” “It wasn’t important.” This rhetorical strategy isn’t about truth—it’s about plausible deniability. The goal is to obscure coordination by feigning forgetfulness, minimizing significance, or shifting timelines. But the volume of communication and the consistency of obsession betray the dodge.

📜 Leeden’s Proposal and the Mystery Client

Leeden framed her proposal as originating from Global Scan Services, submitted on behalf of a “client.” Was this Schmitz’s client? Was it Smith? While the identity remains unclear, the structure suggests a contractual operation, not a freelance fantasy.

The entire Crusade for Her Emails—an obsession not just of the Trump campaign but of the entire GOP—closely followed the contours of Leeden’s initial proposal. She likely sent it to most top GOP operatives in 2015. The earliest known recipient? Once again-Steve Bannon.

🧩 GOPland’s Articles of Faith: The Emails Were Out There

Flynn’s interviews confirm that the belief Clinton’s emails were “out there”—likely in Russian hands—was taken as gospel. This wasn’t fringe speculation. It was operational doctrine.

Flynn even revealed that the RNC had prior knowledge of the coming WikiLeaks dump of DNC emails. The source? Likely Roger Stone—and possibly Papadopoulos, whose role has been obscured and memory-holed.

Rick Gates confirmed that Stone knew about Guccifer 2.0 before it was publicly reported in mid-June 2016. Stone’s foreign policy interest in Trump, as Marcy Wheeler noted, was unusually intense.

🧨 The Smith–Flynn Relationship: Buried but Central

The Mueller FOIA transcripts mention Smith by name only once. But reporting from The Wall Street Journal and ABC News confirms that Smith and Flynn were working together as early as November 2015—the same month Flynn traveled to Moscow for the infamous dinner with Putin and Jill Stein-AND we can now add Max Blumenthal.

FN: Find link on Blumenthal and the folly of a Left-Right alliance

Smith’s associate John Szobocsan confirmed that they spoke with Flynn the day he left for Moscow. This was after both men had received Leeden’s manifesto proposing collaboration with foreign intelligence—including Russia.

🧠 The Flynn–Smith–Szobocsan Nexus: Moscow, Emails, and the Missing Follow-Up

The revelation that Peter Smith and his longtime business partner John Szobocsan spoke with Michael Flynn the day he left for the infamous Putin–Jill Stein dinner in Moscow is staggering. Investigators have long sought to understand the motivations behind that photo op. Szobocsan, who had a decades-long partnership with Smith and co-signed the bank account for KLS Research, could hold critical answers.

Yet despite this connection, there’s no public record of follow-up interviews with Szobocsan. He’s also the same associate who claimed Smith was initially uninterested in Leeden’s manifesto—a claim that contradicts the operational timeline and Smith’s own behavior.

📜 Smith’s Obsession and the MSM’s Framing Dodge

Smith’s quest was described by associates as “all-consuming.” He believed Clinton’s emails would expose vast criminality. Yet the Wall Street Journal, after detailing Smith’s ties to Flynn, Bannon, Conway, and Spicer, still framed the story with the line:

“How much of Mr. Smith’s quest was undertaken with the knowledge of anyone in Mr. Trump’s orbit is a question investigators have been probing for more than a year.”

This is the Beltway media’s signature move—negotiating against their own reporting. Even after confirming direct contact, they hedge with “we still don’t know.”

🧩 Modular Insert: The “Savvy Framing” Reflex

Mainstream outlets often deploy a rhetorical sleight of hand: they present damning facts, then immediately dilute them with ambiguity. It’s not investigative caution—it’s institutional self-censorship. As Michael Wolff observed, Beltway journalists often bargain with themselves about how much truth they’re willing to report. Note that while Wolff is a journalist his work where he was able to develop some very close contactors with some heavyweight insiders was often treated dismissively by the mainstream journos as he’s not part of the club and doesn’t play by many of their own self limiting rules. Now in a time when good reporting on what’s going on inside the belly of the beast-ie Trump’s Russia house at a time when on a daily basis he perpetuates 20 new attacks on US democracy and the rule of law-is at a premium, Wolff’s work has become of great interest for many.

💰 The Money Trail: KLS Research and the Dark Web

Smith formed KLS Research as a vehicle for his email operation. He solicited funds from GOP donors, including Michael Liberty, Jack Purcell, and Patrick Haynes. He withdrew $9,500 from the project account and took out $4,900 in cash—just after finalizing a report suggesting he was working with Trump campaign officials.

BuzzFeed confirmed that Smith was prepared to pay hackers “many thousands of dollars” and ultimately did. The FBI and congressional investigators reportedly zeroed in on these transactions, but no public findings have emerged.

FN: This is something strongly suggested but do we know for sure? Consult source documents in original manuscript.

🕵️ Labor Day 2016: Operationalizing the Hunt

Just before Labor Day, Smith assembled a team of tech experts, lawyers, and a Russian-speaking investigator. He finalized an operational plan dated September 7, naming top Trump campaign officials—many of whom denied any contact with him.

Smith’s report described KLS Research as the “preferred vehicle” for the Clinton email operation and noted its utility in avoiding campaign reporting. Szobocsan joined at least one of the calls and was listed as a co-signer on the bank account.

🧨 November 2015: The Moscow Trip and the Manifesto

Smith’s relationship with Flynn began in November 2015, just after both had received Leeden’s manifesto proposing collaboration with foreign intelligence. Szobocsan confirmed they spoke with Flynn the day he left for Moscow.

This timeline is critical. It places Smith, Flynn, and Leeden in the same operational orbit nine months before Trump’s “Russia, if you’re listening” moment. It also suggests that Smith’s role in the email hunt began far earlier than publicly acknowledged.

🧩 The Alt-Right Assist: Chuck Johnson and Operational Security

Smith’s operation also received help from alt-right provocateur Chuck Johnson, who connected Smith to internet operatives and advised him on basic digital security. Johnson’s ties to the Trump orbit and his refusal to cooperate with Senate investigators suggest deeper entanglements.

As Marcy Wheeler noted, Smith’s penchant for secrecy—foldering, encrypted emails, burner phones—was real, but his execution was flawed. The more pressing question is where Smith learned these methods. Johnson, and his Ukrainian-based associate Weev, are likely candidates.

💸 The Financial Forensics: Subpoenas, Suspicious Withdrawals, and the $140K Pattern

In late 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that Smith’s activities were “an area of expanding interest” for Mueller, and that Szobocsan himself was a focus. Yet, Szobocsan’s name is conspicuously absent from the Mueller FOIA transcripts released via Jason Leopold’s requests. This silence is deafening.

Northern Trust, Smith’s bank, received a subpoena from the FBI in December 2017. Their internal review uncovered:

• 88 suspicious cash withdrawals totaling $140,000 between January 2016 and April 2017
• Withdrawals often just under the $10,000 threshold that triggers automatic reporting
• A $3,000 withdrawal six days after the election
• A $9,500 transfer from KLS Research to Smith’s personal account, followed by cash withdrawals and payments to an LLC and accountant

These patterns suggest deliberate structuring to avoid detection—classic red flags in financial crime investigations. The bank flagged the transactions to Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which then shared the findings with Mueller’s team, the FBI, and Senate Intelligence investigators.

🕵️‍♂️ Following the Money: Did Smith Pay Russian Hackers?

According to multiple law enforcement sources cited by BuzzFeed, investigators believed Smith used some of the cash to pay hackers—possibly Russian—who claimed to possess Clinton’s emails. This contradicts Smith’s public claim that he never intended to pay for stolen material.

Key details:

• Smith reportedly paid for what he was told were Clinton’s emails, despite omitting this from his written plan
• Mueller’s team interviewed individuals Smith tried to recruit, and those who worked on the operation
• Investigators also explored whether Flynn assisted Smith, with Smith’s financial transactions central to that inquiry

This raises the stakes: Smith wasn’t just dabbling—he was potentially funding foreign intelligence assets in a covert operation targeting a presidential candidate.

🧠 Tait’s Warning and Smith’s Reckless Indifference

Matt Tait, former GCHQ officer, recounted his interaction with Smith in a Lawfare piece. He warned Smith and Szobocsan that their “dark web” contact might be a Russian front. Their response?

“They appeared to be convinced of the need to obtain Clinton’s private emails and make them public, and they had a reckless lack of interest in whether the emails came from a Russian cut-out.”

Tait never learned who Smith’s contact was, nor how they represented themselves. But Smith’s own statements to the Wall Street Journal—that he found five groups claiming to have Clinton’s emails, including two Russian groups—suggest he was well aware of the risks and chose to proceed anyway.

🧨 The Final Days: Suicide, Secrecy, and the Illusion of Failure

Just ten days after his interview with the Journal, Smith was found dead in a Minnesota hotel room. The official story claims his quest “fizzled”—that he couldn’t verify the emails and gave up.

But this gloss ignores the deeper reality:

• Smith continued his efforts after the election, suggesting the operation wasn’t just about winning—it was about exposure and destabilization
• He claimed success in finding the emails shortly before his death
• His suicide, timed so closely to his media disclosures, raises questions about pressure, exposure, and possible threats

This wasn’t a failed operation—it was a covert success, followed by a strategic erasure.

🎓 The “Russian Students” Scholarship Fund: Code, Cover, and Concealment

One of the most bizarre and telling details: Smith raised $100,000 from unnamed donors for a “scholarship fund for Russian students.” Another $50,000 came from Smith himself. The fund was referenced in encrypted emails and shared Gmail drafts under the alias “Robert Tyler.”

The email stated:

“This $100k total with the $50k received from you will allow us to fund the Washington Scholarship Fund for the Russian students for the promised $150K.”

And:

“The students are very pleased with the email releases they have seen, and are thrilled with their educational advancement opportunities.”

This came just days after WikiLeaks began releasing the Podesta emails. The timing and language strongly suggest that “Russian students” was code for Russian operatives or intermediaries involved in the email leaks.

🧩 Modular Insert: The “Scholarship Fund” as Linguistic Camouflage

The use of euphemisms like “Russian students” and “educational advancement” is not just absurd—it’s strategic obfuscation. It mirrors Cold War-era tradecraft, where innocuous language masked covert operations. The fact that no such scholarship fund exists reinforces the likelihood that this was a laundering mechanism for payments to foreign actors.

🧠 Szobocsan’s Legal Fees and the Grand Jury

Court records show that Szobocsan sought reimbursement from Smith’s estate for legal fees tied to:

• Three interviews with Mueller’s team
• An August grand jury appearance

This is direct evidence that Szobocsan was a central figure in the investigation, despite his absence from public transcripts. It also suggests that Mueller’s team pursued this line far more aggressively than the public record reflects.

🧠 Chuck Johnson’s Role: From “Demurral” to Direct Pressure

Chuck Johnson told Politico in 2017 that he “sort of demurred” when Peter Smith asked him to introduce him to Steve Bannon and others. Johnson claimed he wanted to keep the campaign insulated and didn’t think Smith’s operation was sophisticated enough.

But the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) report released in 2020 tells a different story. On October 24, 2016—just four days before the Comey Letter—Johnson and Bannon were actively pressuring Smith. Johnson’s email to Smith was hostile, even threatening:

“We do not give a rat’s ass what happens to you.”

Ten days later, Smith was dead. It wasn’t ten days it was seven months and Johnson was trying to extort Smith to cough up the emails. Refer to the intital manuscript for Politico quotes.

🧩 Modular Insert: The “Demurral” Dodge

Johnson’s public claim that he kept the campaign insulated is contradicted by his own emails. This is a classic example of post hoc distancing—a rhetorical strategy where operatives minimize their role once the operation becomes radioactive. But the timing, tone, and content of Johnson’s email suggest deep involvement, not detachment.

🧨 Rivalries Within the Crusade: Stone vs. Johnson

As noted in Chapter Unreported Background, there was a bitter rivalry between Roger Stone and Chuck Johnson—especially over who orchestrated Trump’s second debate stunt with Clinton accusers. That rivalry may have extended to Smith, who was Stone and Corsi’s co-conspirator.

The GOP’s Crusade for Her Emails wasn’t just coordinated—it was competitive, with operatives jockeying for credit, influence, and proximity to power.

🕵️ Tait’s HSPCI Interview: A Missed Opportunity

Matt Tait, the former GCHQ officer who warned Smith and Szobocsan about their dark web contact, sat for an interview with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HSPCI) in late 2017. But the transcript is disappointing.

• Most of the 81 pages are dominated by GOP questioners
• Democratic members don’t appear until page 60
• Their focus? The Steele Dossier—a diversionary obsession irrelevant to Tait’s firsthand knowledge

Tait had no direct involvement with the dossier. His comment that it was “raw intelligence without context” was purely descriptive—something Steele and Glenn Simpson had already acknowledged. But the GOP used it to discredit the entire Russia investigation, while ignoring the far more urgent matter of Smith’s operation.

🧩 The RNC’s Prior Knowledge: Flynn’s Testimony and Tait’s Confirmation

The most explosive revelation here is the corroboration between Flynn’s Mueller testimony and Tait’s HSPCI interview: both suggest the RNC had prior knowledge of the DNC hack and leak. This isn’t just circumstantial—it’s a direct contradiction of the GOP’s public posture.

• Flynn testified that the RNC knew the leak was coming
• Tait confirmed that Smith had deep ties not just to the Trump campaign but to the RNC itself
• The implication: the RNC wasn’t just a passive beneficiary—it was an active participant in the timing and deployment of stolen materials

This reframes the collusion narrative: not just Trump-centric, but institutional.

📉 The Interview’s Structural Failure: Asking the Wrong Questions

Tait’s interview is a case study in investigative misalignment. The committee focused on:

• “Who was involved?” — a question Tait had limited insight into
• While ignoring “What were the operational details?” — which Tait actually had deep knowledge of

This mismatch squandered a rare opportunity to expose the mechanics of the Smith operation, including:

• The contractor Smith may have been working for
• The granular email Tait received, which he suspected wasn’t meant for him
• The role of Barbara Leeden, whose name was never even raised

📧 The Granular Email: A Glimpse into the Operation’s Depth

The email Tait received—possibly by mistake—was striking in its granularity. It wasn’t vague or speculative; it was operational, suggesting:

• A level of detail that mirrored the Leeden Manifesto
• A structured effort with defined roles, timelines, and targets
• A possible connection to Barbara Leeden, whose omission from the interview is glaring

This email could have been a Rosetta Stone for understanding the architecture of the operation—yet it was never followed up on.

🧨 Smith’s Suicide: The Irony and the Implausibility

• Smith’s suicide note—“NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER”—reads more like a preemptive denial than a genuine farewell
• His friends and collaborators saw no signs of depression
• He had just claimed to have found Clinton’s emails, the culmination of a 25-year crusade
• His son’s incarceration and financial stressors were real, but not necessarily fatalistic

🧨 Smith’s Death and the GOP’s Panic Response

As you rightly note, it’s far easier to dismiss someone as a “deluded old man” once they’re dead. Tom Lipscomb’s posthumous framing of Smith as misguided is contradicted by the fact that Smith was, according to Jerome Corsi, the man who got Huma Abedin’s emails onto Weiner’s laptop—arguably the most consequential act of the 2016 election.

Smith’s Wall Street Journal interview in May 2018 was a moment of rupture. He started talking. And for a man with deep ties to Flynn, Bannon, Prince, and the RNC, that made him dangerous. Chuck Johnson’s October 24, 2016 email—sent just days before the Comey Letter—wasn’t a physical threat, but it was unmistakably hostile. And Johnson wasn’t just a fringe figure; he was acting on behalf of Bannon, the most powerful operative in TrumpWorld.

🕵️ “Too Dangerous to Live”: A Chilling Pattern

The idea that Smith may have been “too dangerous to live” isn’t just speculative—it’s grounded in precedent. As the Rolling Stone piece documents, Stockton and Lawrence, two key January 6 rally organizers, described living in fear of both right-wing operatives and congressional investigators. They packed up and fled in the middle of the night after seeing “paramilitary-looking” men outside their location.

This paranoia wasn’t unfounded. They had been subpoenaed, faced legal bills, and feared retaliation from within their own movement. Smith, by contrast, had already started talking—and ten days later, he was dead.

📜 The Leeden Manifesto: Blueprint for a Party-Wide Operation

The Leeden Manifesto isn’t just important because of its content—it’s important because of its form, timing, and institutional origin.

• It was a formal proposal, complete with an executive summary
• It was framed as a client-based operation, suggesting contractual intent
• It was sent to Steve Bannon in June 2015, before Trump’s rise
• Leeden was a longtime aide to Chuck Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee

This wasn’t a fringe document—it was a blueprint circulated within GOPland, likely reaching campaigns, congressional offices, and media allies. It laid out:

• The belief that Clinton’s emails were “out there”
• That they were likely in the hands of foreign intelligence—especially Russia
• That the best way to retrieve them was through collaboration with foreign intelligence

🧩 Modular Insert: The “Savvy Standard” of Conspiracy

Mainstream journalists like Devlin Barrett and Ken Dilanian often dismiss conspiracy claims unless they meet an impossibly formal standard. But Leeden’s proposal was formal. If this doesn’t qualify as a conspiracy in their eyes, what would? The problem isn’t the evidence—it’s the institutional unwillingness to confront it.

🧠 Institutional Collusion: From Campaign to Party

This wasn’t just a Trump campaign operation—it was a Republican Party operation. Flynn’s Mueller testimony and Tait’s HSPCI interview both confirm that the RNC had prior knowledge of the DNC leak. It’s a logical extension to assume they also knew about the Podesta dump—and the Comey Letter.

Leeden’s role as a Senate Judiciary aide underscores this. She wasn’t freelancing—she was embedded. The manifesto’s early circulation suggests that many GOP operatives were aware, including:

• Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Chris Christie
• Congressional Republicans
• Conservative media figures like Sean Hannity

The real question isn’t who saw it—it’s who didn’t.

🧨 The GOP’s Strategic Nihilism

The Leeden Manifesto reveals a party willing to collude with foreign intelligence to win an election. This isn’t new. As you note, it echoes Nixon’s sabotage of LBJ’s Vietnam peace talks. The obsession with “Her Emails” wasn’t just tactical—it was existential. Winning was everything. Legitimacy, legality, and loyalty to country were secondary.

Even James Comey, who claimed not to vote Republican in 2016, shared the fever. He told Congress that Clinton’s emails could be “golden”—a phrase that reveals just how deeply the obsession ran.

🧠 Advanced Knowledge: Podesta Emails and the Comey Letter

The evidence increasingly supports the conjecture that senior GOP figures had advance knowledge of both the Podesta email dump and the Comey Letter:

• The Podesta emails were hacked via a spear-phishing attack in March 2016, attributed to Russian intelligence (Fancy Bear), and released by WikiLeaks starting October 7, 2016.
• The Comey Letter, sent on October 28, 2016, was addressed only to GOP committee chairmen, according to Roger Stone’s account in Unreported Background.
• Flynn’s Mueller testimony and Matt Tait’s HSPCI interview suggest that the RNC had prior knowledge of the DNC leaks, making it implausible that they were unaware of the Podesta tranche or the timing of the Comey Letter.

The idea that the RNC’s top officials—Reince Priebus and Sean Spicer—would receive less inside information after joining the Trump campaign than before is laughable. The October Surprise wasn’t a surprise to GOP leadership—it was a coordinated climax.

🧭 Conclusion #1: The Leeden Manifesto as Institutional Blueprint

The Leeden Manifesto wasn’t just a rogue proposal—it was a formal, early, and widely circulated document that laid out the contours of a party-wide operation. Its significance lies in:

• Its explicit call to work with foreign intelligence—particularly Russian
• Its early circulation (June 2015) to Bannon, Flynn, and Smith
• Its institutional origin—authored by a longtime GOP Senate Judiciary aide

This wasn’t just Trump’s conspiracy. It was the GOP’s conspiracy.

🧭 Conclusion #2: Steve Bannon’s Central Role

Bannon’s role in Russian Collusion was long underestimated. But the evidence now paints him as indispensable:

• He was the first known recipient of the Leeden Manifesto
• He was CCed on Peter Smith’s email to senior Trump aides in September 2016
• Flynn’s testimony repeatedly emphasized Bannon’s media-driven insight into coming “surprises,” including the Comey Letter and Huma’s emails
• According to Mueller’s report, Bannon communicated with Roger Stone about WikiLeaks and helped propagate disinformation about the DNC hack

Bannon’s excommunication from TrumpWorld post-Wolff was temporary. Trump pardoned him after the Insurrection, and now he’s back at the center. Marcy Wheeler’s analysis of the Mueller transcripts suggests Bannon had prior knowledge of the DNC leak, and Flynn hinted that Bannon may have had direct contact with WikiLeaks.

🧭 Conclusion #3: George Papadopoulos—The Forgotten Link

Papadopoulos, the so-called “Coffee Boy,” was anything but peripheral:

• He was the first Trump adviser to plead guilty in the Mueller probe
• He communicated with Russian-linked figures offering “dirt” on Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails”
• He proposed meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian agents, some of which were approved by campaign supervisors
• His cooperation with Mueller provided a roadmap for the investigation

Despite this, the media narrative has sanitized his role. Ari Melber’s post-Barr interview treated him as exonerated. But Papadopoulos himself claims he was set up by U.S. and foreign intelligence, and his book Deep State Target has been embraced by right-wing media.

The dismissal of Papadopoulos as “grandiose” obscures the fact that his communications directly link the Trump campaign to Russian operatives. His role was not incidental—it was foundational.

🧠 Conclusion #4: The Coffee Boy Told the Campaign—Of Course He Did

The idea that George Papadopoulos kept Mifsud’s revelation to himself is not just implausible—it’s absurd. He told the Greek defense minister. He told Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. But we’re supposed to believe he didn’t tell anyone in the Trump campaign?

• John Mashburn, Trump’s policy director, testified to both the Senate Judiciary Committee and Mueller’s team that Papadopoulos emailed him about Mifsud’s claim that Russia had Clinton’s emails. The email was never found—but Mashburn stuck to his story.
• Jason Wilson, a Chicago engineer, recounted a March 2018 bar conversation in which Papadopoulos claimed he told Jeff Sessions directly3. Simona Mangiante, Papadopoulos’ wife, confirmed the meeting but later denied the substance—though inconsistently.
• The Senate Intelligence Committee found Papadopoulos’ denials lacking credibility, unlike the MSM which treated them as gospel.

The idea that the Coffee Boy kept quiet about the one thing the campaign was obsessed with—Clinton’s emails—is laughable. He was desperate to make a name for himself. And Clinton’s emails were the animating obsession of GOPWorld.

🧠 Conclusion #5: Roger Stone’s Foreign Policy Fixation Was Pro-Russian

Roger Stone’s fingerprints are all over Trump’s foreign policy pivot:

• He was furious about not being consulted on Trump’s Mayflower Speech in April 2016.
• The venue change to the Mayflower Hotel—where Russian Ambassador Kislyak mingled with Trump’s inner circle—was orchestrated by Jared Kushner, but Stone’s texts suggest he may have influenced it.
• Stone was scripting pro-Russian tweets for Trump during the summer of 2016, while coordinating with Manafort and communicating with Guccifer 2.0.

Stone’s interest in foreign policy seemed almost ideological—yet at the same time transactional. The quid was policy concessions. The quo was Russian interference. The ideological frame was pro Russian. The question is why and in that vein there has been more reporting recently that expands on Stone’s role and knowledge of Russian interference-see Emptywheel.

After Serving as a Pawn for Russia, Roger Stone Became a Pwn of Iran – emptywheel

The Document Found with Roger Stone’s Clemency Did Pertain to Emmanuel Macron – emptywheel

Think there might be more-check my own manuscript.i

🧠 Conclusion #6: Bannon’s Media Machine Laundered Russian Ops

Bannon wasn’t just a recipient of the Leeden Manifesto—he was a propagator of its logic:

• Konstantin Kilimnik, a known Russian intelligence asset, laundered stolen data through Bannon’s media ecosystem【Update】.
• Flynn’s testimony suggested Bannon had direct insight into the timing and content of the Comey Letter and Huma’s emails.
• Bannon may have had direct contact with WikiLeaks, according to Flynn’s Mueller interviews【Update】.

Bannon’s dual role—as Breitbart CEO and Cambridge Analytica boss—made him the perfect conduit for laundering foreign ops into domestic propaganda.

🧠 Conclusion #7: The GOP’s Email Hypocrisy

The GOP’s obsession with Clinton’s deleted emails was matched only by their own email erasures:

• Papadopoulos’ email to Mashburn vanished.
• Smith’s communications were scrubbed.
• GOP operatives who demanded Clinton’s emails be found somehow lost their own—and the intelligence community couldn’t recover them.
• Indeed in Trump’ first Administration many of his top aides used private email.
• And that’s before we even talk about Trump 2.0 with Pete Hegseth’s Singlgate fiasco.

This selective amnesia wasn’t accidental—it was strategic obfuscation. And just blatant hypocrisy knowing that neither the mainstream media or the Democratic party establishment will call them out for it.

🧠 Conclusion #8: The Nexus Expands—Stone, Corsi, Smith, Bannon, Prince

While chapter Unreported Background centers the Stone-Corsi-Smith nexus, this chapter makes clear that:

• Bannon was a central node—receiving the Leeden Manifesto, coordinating with Stone, and laundering ops through Breitbart.
• Erik Prince, Bannon’s close ally, funded Smith’s operation and had deep ties to Flynn and the Trump campaign.
• Stone was scripting foreign policy and coordinating with Guccifer 2.0 before the public even knew the name.

This wasn’t a loose network—it was a coherent architecture.

🔚 Chapter Conclusion: The Leeden Doctrine and the Party of Sabotage

This chapter has excavated the origins of a doctrine that long predated Trump’s rise. The Leeden Manifesto—brazen, unrepentant, and strategically explicit—laid the groundwork for a Republican Party increasingly willing to collude with hostile foreign powers, not as a last resort, but as a governing strategy.

Far from remaining theoretical, Leeden’s call to “enter the world of evil” found tactical expression in the party-wide crusade known as Emailgate. Figures like Peter Smith, Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi, and ultimately Trump himself didn’t just echo the manifesto’s ethos—they operationalized it. The pursuit of Clinton’s emails became a proving ground for the manifesto’s core tenets: foreign collaboration, information warfare, and the normalization of sabotage.

🔚 Chapter Conclusion: The Leeden Doctrine and the Party of Sabotage

This chapter has excavated the origins of a doctrine that long predated Trump’s rise. The Leeden Manifesto—brazen, unrepentant, and strategically explicit—laid the groundwork for a Republican Party increasingly willing to collude with hostile foreign powers, not as a last resort, but as a governing strategy.

Leeden wasn’t shouting into the void. As a staff member on Senator Chuck Grassley’s Judiciary Committee, she had direct access to the party’s institutional machinery. Her manifesto wasn’t just circulated—it was absorbed. Its ethos permeated the GOP’s strategic culture, shaping not only fringe operatives but mainstream actors.

This influence came into sharp relief during the party-wide crusade known as Emailgate. Figures like Peter Smith, Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi, and Trump himself didn’t merely echo Leeden’s rhetoric—they enacted it. The pursuit of Clinton’s emails became a proving ground for the manifesto’s core tenets: foreign collaboration, information warfare, and the normalization of sabotage.

What we’ve uncovered is not merely a rogue operation or a fringe ideology. It’s a systemic orientation toward betrayal—one that was institutionalized, operationalized, and ultimately mainstreamed.

As we turn the page, the stakes escalate: How did this doctrine become party orthodoxy? Who fortified it within the GOP’s legal, media, and intelligence networks? And what happens when sabotage is no longer scandalous, but structural? The answer is clear for those who know history-admittedly not a very large sample size-Tricky Dick himself aka Richard Nixon.

📘 Book Three will trace this lineage further—back to Nixon’s sabotage of LBJ’s Vietnam peace talks in 1968, and the party’s long-standing reliance on undemocratic means to secure power. When a political agenda lacks popular support, the path to victory often runs through deception, disruption, and foreign entanglement. The Leeden Doctrine was not the beginning. It was a continuation.