Review of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency by Andrew McCarthy

Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency by Andrew C. McCarthy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Title: Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

Oh, what a tangled web we weave... And it takes us nearly 300 pages to get there.

Who knows if we'll ever get the real, unadulterated, and complete story about the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. But this book seems like an excellent start. Since Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, the Trump-Russia narrative has grown to mythic proportions. Ask someone what they know about it, and you're likely to get a different story from every person you ask, depending on where they fall along the political spectrum, how closely they've followed the story, and what sources they're reading. That's a real shame, as the facts are the facts are the facts. And, boy, does Mr. McCarthy lay out the facts.

McCarthy is a former prosecutor and a meticulous journalist. His reporting here is of a very high quality. And he cites numerous investigative journalists who have done yeoman's work to bring the DNC-Deep State-Legacy Media-HRC conspiracies to light, including John Soloman, Peter Schweizer, Stephen Hayes, Thomas Joscelyn, Lee Smith, Sharyl Attkisson, and The Epoch Times, among many others.

The book covers the generalities of the story of what most people likely already know about the Russia collusion narrative spun by the DNC (HRC)-Legacy Media-Deep State triad: that the Obama administration weaponized its intelligence agencies to spy on the opposition party's presidential campaign; that high-ranking Obama officials (CIA Director Brennan, Deputy Director of FBI McCabe) routinely leaked intelligence material to a willing press; that Obama's DOJ and FBI concealed from the FISA court the fact that the Clinton campaign had funded the Steele dossier; and on and on. That's what most people already know. McCarthy digs deeper, though, and unearths and ties together pieces of the Trump-Russia narrative worthy of the best detective stories. You'll feel like you need a wall-sized board with multi-colored lines of yarn pinned and drawn to illustrate all of the connections. It's quite dizzying!

But, in the end, McCarthy brings clarity to the entire mess:

"Russia-gate in a nutshell: no rumor is ever dismissed because, when it comes to Trump, it is no longer the FBI's obligation to verify information; it is somehow the suspect's burden to show that the suspicions are wrong. And no one is ever exonerated because, when it comes to Trump, it is no longer the prosecution's burden to prove guilt; the accused must establish his innocence" (p. 258). 
"The Trump-Russia investigation was conducted under the guise of counterintelligence, but it was always a criminal investigation--a probe of a suspected espionage conspiracy--for which investigators lacked an adequate factual predicate (p. 267). Read that quotation again. Now read it again. And now understand what the Trump-Russia narrative is; which is...it's a fiction. It's made up.

And: "...the Clinton campaign and the DNC used a law firm [Perkins Cole] as a cut-out to conceal their roles in generating anti-Trump research (possibly in violation of campaign finance disclosure requirements)" (p. 275).

If this is your first foray into the world of the Deep State, you are in for a rude awakening. It's like Alice in Wonderland here. Nobody in Washington is clean, it seems, and Swamp monsters abound. McCarthy carefully crafts the picture (sometimes in excruciating detail, because that's where the Devil is) of a rogue Obama administration doing whatever it wants to do to remain in power and (try to) ensure its continuity through its assumed predecessor administration (HRC). The details are welcome, because they're necessary; and I can forgive him the snark and snipes at Democrats because of their subterfuge.

Notice I didn't say "treason." The word "treason" is being thrown around a lot these days, and it really shouldn't be, because it devalues the seriousness of that word and the weight carried it with; after all, a charge of treason can bring with it the death penalty.

McCarthy does a great job of documenting his work, too. The most recent end note I saw was from May 2019, so it's very recently sourced. In other words, if you want to find out all there is to know about Russiagate, and by extension, spygate, and how the deep state operates, get this book, and read it soon.

Before you do, though, you should actually go see the Steele dossier for yourself (on documentcloud.org). It's a central piece of the Russia collusion narrative, after all, and if you haven't read it yourself, you need to do so now. It really is a startling piece of work to see. And I mean that literally: you actually see the pages on which the information is typed. Which makes the Russia narrative all the more a house of cards, because the Steele dossier looks like it was written by a high school sophomore as a 4chan prank. It reads in part like one, too. In McCarthy's words: "By any objective measure, the dossier is a shoddy piece of work; the stories are preposterous." (p. 155). Interestingly, McCarthy doesn't call it what it is until he's out of the chapter detailing the dossier; that is, the Steele dossier is a work of fiction.

It would have helped if McCarthy had dug a bit deeper below the surface stories. For example, he mentions a few times that the mainstream (Legacy/Operation Mockingbird) media doesn't do a good job of reporting on the scandals of the Obama administration, but he never says why. The "why?" comes in a multi-part answer, but it is well worth exploring, or you'll never fully grasp the magnitude of the problem here.

McCarthy details several scandals of the Obama administration, including Uranium One, Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, Skolkovo, "Five Eyes" spying techniques, spying on the Trump campaign, the Iran deal; spying on U.S. citizens, foreign nationals, and the Senate Intelligence Committee; harassing and investigating political opponents (he mentions the IRS scandal, but fails to mention that the IRS was asking U.S. citizens about the content of their prayers--which is what the NAZIs did--so are Democrats NAZIs?); monitoring and intimidating journalists; and bullying state and local police departments. (But then he leaves out such high-cost/high-stake Obama scandals as Pigford and the Google Transparency Project. Perhaps McCarthy doesn't know about these?)

Other times he fails to dig deeper into the material he's presenting. For example, when he talks about how the Democrats didn't think Hillary could lose because of her strong polling numbers, he fails to mention that the polls were sometimes manipulated to get those results by over- and/or under-sampling voter populations. McCarthy also poo poos the idea that illegal voting took place in the 2016 presidential election, when, actually, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that voter fraud happened, and is still happening (interestingly, the U.S. is the only major nation that doesn't have a national voter ID law).

In other instances, it's curious to me why McCarthy skates over issues and events.

For example, he claims that Trump was caught off guard, time and again, during the Russia narrative debacle, but he never shares that Trump has always had his own private security and intelligence force, so it's highly unlikely that Trump ever was *really* and *truly* caught off guard; or that Trump has been an FBI informant since the early 1980s. Both interesting facts I'm sure McCarthy knows, but why not share it in your book when it's relevant information?

Another example, he gives a wink and a nod to HRC's involvement in Benghazi without providing key information, such as why the U.S. had a CIA annex not far from its State Department outpost in Benghazi, "the presence of which was never explained..." (p. 56). Really? That's an easy one. Just google "benghazi cia annex arms movement". There's your explanation right there. Why wouldn't McCarthy report this? Americans have a right to know what their tax dollars are supporting. Even more curious: McCarthy wrote an article in the National Review detailing this information, but it's not in his own book talking about this issue? Hmm...

Also, for me, McCarthy is too in love with the FBI. Time and again he writes how the FBI is an admirable institution, but I'm not seeing it. And in other instances, when officials in the Obama administration make official statements about such and such, McCarthy swallows them agreeably. Like when Clapper and Jeh Johnson announce they're "confident" the Russian Government hacked the emails. So, in McCarthy's mind, the FBI can be riddled with underhanded, treasonous people, but other parts of the Obama administration are not? In addition, Obama knew about this supposed Russian hack, but he did nothing about it. Why?

Speaking of the hack: McCarthy is dogged and determined to blame Russia. He does provide some counter theories, such as data analysis suggesting that the DNC emails were downloaded locally to a thumb drive (FAT Anomalies In Leaked DNC Emails Suggest Use Of Thumbdrive, DisobediantMedia.com, February 16, 2019.) McCarthy dismisses this theory outright, though. I have to say: the DNC staffer Seth Rich might disagree on the matter, if we could speak with him, but we can't, since he was murdered. On the streets of Washington, DC. Which is the most heavily surveilled city in the entire world. And his murder remains unsolved. And there's a Podesta email where Mr. Podesta writes: "I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any real basis for it." (Wikileaks email ID #36082) Hmm...

Curiously, McCarthy never discusses the contents of the hacked emails; but he does quote Obama saying that "there was not anything particularly illegal or controversial about" the emails. Very curious. Those people really do enjoy their spirit cooking and pasta and walnut sauce and pizza: "Hi John, The realtor found a handkerchief (I think it has a map that seems pizza-related. Is it yorus?" (Wikileaks email ID #32795)

So, the other thing McCarthy misses is the "why?" of the matter. Time and time again he drops into the text how high-level officials in the Obama administration hated Trump, abhorred Trump...but in the end one must really ask "why?" To me, their actions during the entire spygate scandal smacks of something much deeper. Much much deeper. Which I think we may catch glimpses of, soon.

The coming weeks and months will likely bring declas, which will show once and for all the wide-ranging treasonous activities of key players in the Obama administration, including former president Obama himself and Hillary Clinton. Maybe only then will it all come out, in multiple investigations, including those on the Russia narrative, Uranium One, illegal spying and deception of the FISA court system, illegal leaks to and collusion with Legacy Media, but also the Awan-DNC server matter, China's involvement and access to Hillary's classified emails, and more. 

My sense is that there's a storm coming...

I loved it/It was amazing
5/5 Goodreads
5/5 Amazon



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