Steve Bannon had to have been coordinating the Russian collusion in the Donald Trump campaign
Now that at least six of Donald Trump’s campaign managers, advisers, and surrogates have been caught colluding with the Russian government during the campaign, it’s clear that this didn’t all transpire by mere happenstance. Someone within the Trump campaign had to have been coordinating the effort – and no, not Trump himself. That person has to have been Steve Bannon from the start.
Consider the chronology of events: Paul Manafort has deep financial ties to the Kremlin, but he was brought into the Donald Trump campaign fairly late. The timeline makes clear that the campaign was colluding with Russia before he was hired and after he was nudged out. Michael Flynn joined the Trump campaign much earlier, and the evidence says he’s fully under Russian control, but his role suggests he was a mere go-between. Carter Page is another Russian stooge, but he never had enough influence in the campaign to have been coordinating the Russian collusion. And Jeff Sessions was merely a Trump campaign surrogate, an informal adviser.
None of them fit the role or the timeline that would have been required to have masterminded the Donald Trump campaign’s Russian collusion from the start. Trump himself appears to be in deep financial debt to Russia, as well as subject to some kind of Russian blackmail. But that makes him a pawn in all this, not a ringleader. Nor is it easy to picture Trump, who only ever handles things in broad strokes, to have been carefully coordinating a clandestine operation to conspire with a Kremlin that was holding him hostage. Instead, there’s only one person who fits the bill.
Although Steve Bannon didn’t become CEO of the Donald Trump campaign until fairly late in the game, the timeline says Trump was relying on him for guidance from the start. Bannon had real control of the campaign from beginning to finish, no matter who was officially in charge at any given time. Bannon was a seasoned political operative who would have understood how to coordinate with the Russians as needed. And Bannon’s stated goal to destroy the American system of government by any means necessary fits with a willingness to get his stooge Trump elected by conspiring with the foreign power to which Trump was personally beholden.
There is, as of yet, no specific publicly available evidence linking Steve Bannon to the Trump-Russia conspiracy. Nor do I have any specific evidence up my sleeve. But he’s the only person who was in a position to have pulled off coordinating the conspiracy with Russia from Trump’s end. Bannon had motive, means, and opportunity – and no one else did. That’s not enough to convict him. But it’s enough to know which way we should be looking next.
