False Conspiracy Theories On Tap

False conspiracy theories are probably going to be front and center from now until the November 2020 election. As discussed before, the GOP Senate claims it will investigate the debunked conspiracy about Joe Biden's allegedly corrupt activities in Ukraine. Unless that investigation relies on falsified information, it will probably not turn up anything new that is significant.

Other false conspiracies include (1) unsubstantiated allegations that the FBI was protecting the Clinton campaign, which (2) illegally sought dirt on Trump from foreign sources, and (3) the FBI used unsubstantiated allegations for FISA authority to spy on the Trump campaign, which (4) somehow hurt the Trump campaign, despite it being conducted in secret until several months after the November 2016 election. As far as I know, none of those narratives is true. Instead, the FBI protected Trump by not making its investigation of him public, but damaged the the Clinton campaign by making its investigation of hers public just a few weeks before the election. Those are matters of public record.

Also, it is still legal to hire people, including foreigners in other countries, to get dirt on political opponents. The effort to get damaging information on Trump was originally funded by a conservative source, The Washington Free Beacon, to find potentially damaging information about Trump. The Beacon hired Fusion GPS, a company that clients hire to find dirt on political opponents. The Beacon was funded by a major donor to Sen. Marco Rubio. Rubio told Fusion GPS to stop compiling a dossier of Trump dirt in May 2016 once it became clear that Trump would win the GOP nomination. All of that was legal. After that time, the DNC continued compiling a dossier on Trump. The New York Times describes the DNC involvement:

After Mr. Trump secured the nomination, Fusion GPS was hired on behalf of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and the D.N.C. by their law firm, Perkins Coie, to compile research about Mr. Trump, his businesses and associates — including possible connections with Russia. It was at that point that Fusion GPS hired Mr. Steele, who has deep sourcing in Russia, to gather information. ..... Campaigns and party committees frequently pay companies to assemble what’s known in politics as opposition research — essentially damaging information about their opponents — and nothing is illegal about the practice.

Wikipedia comments on Fusion GPS:

Fusion GPS is a commercial research and strategic intelligence firm based in Washington, D.C. The company conducts open-source investigations and provides research and strategic advice for businesses, law firms and investors, as well as for political inquiries, such as opposition research. The "GPS" initialism is derived from "Global research, Political analysis, Strategic insight".

None of this is illegal under current law and regulations. Candidates for major offices routinely look for dirt to attack and smear their opponents with. The situation would change if (1) the Federal Election Commission ruled that accepting campaign dirt from a foreigner constitutes a "thing of value", or (2) congress passed a law making it illegal for a campaign ro accept or use dirt a foreigner provides.

Also relevant are the facts that (1) Trump himself has publicly stated that he would use dirt on an opponent if a foreigner offered it to him before the 2020 election, and (2) Trump actually tried to get the Ukraine to find dirt on Joe Biden in advance of the 2020 campaign. One source reports on Trump's public statement that he would use foreign-sourced dirt to attack an opponent:

In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, Trump said he’d consider any foreign-sourced information that would help his 2020 re-election bid.

“There is nothing wrong with listening,” Trump said. “If somebody called from a country — Norway — ‘We have information on your opponent.’ Oh. I think I’d want to hear it.” ..... But simply “listening” to information derived from foreign sources may not rise to the level of a campaign finance violation.

That makes it clear that, at least under current law, the president himself has no concern about obtaining and using dirt to attack a political opponent, regardless of its source. It is good to note that use of dirt from a foreigner to smear an opponent need to be directly used. Such information can be leaked to friendly sources who would be happy to smear the target candidate. Plausible deniability would likely protect all involved.

Unsubstantiated assertion of no FISA authority

Allegations that there was no FISA authority to investigate the Trump campaign or the investigation damaged the president's campaign are not supported by facts. Those assertion raises two questions: (1) what evidence is there to support that assertion, and (2) how could the FBI investigation have made any difference in the 2016 election outcome because it was in secret? Since the FBI investigation of Trump was not revealed to the public until March of 2017, about four months after the November 2016 election. Also, there was no evidence that Obama had wiretapped Trump, which Trump had falsely claimed.

One source writes about the origin of the investigation and authority for FISA surveillance:

The heavily redacted documents released Saturday comprise an application to, and subsequent renewals by, judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing the FBI to investigate Page, a foreign policy aide to the Trump campaign. But it's already been established by the House Intelligence Committee that the Russia investigation began after the FBI learned that another campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, had been approached by a Russian agent. The agent told Papadopoulos the Russians had incriminating information about Hillary Clinton, including emails, according to court documents.. Papadopoulos then mentioned to an Australian diplomat that the Russians had "dirt" on Clinton, the Australians contacted the U.S. government, and the FBI began to take a look.

One source reports on Papadopoulos:

In July 2017, Papadopoulos was secretly arrested for lying to FBI investigators about his correspondence with foreign nationals with close ties to senior Russian government officials. His indictment was revealed to the public after he pleaded guilty in October 2017. In September 2018, Papadopoulos was sentenced to 14 days incarceration, 200 hours of community service and a $9,500 fine.

That is evidence that the FBI had proper FISA authority for its investigation of the Trump campaign.

Despite the evidence outlined above, it is likely that all these false conspiracy theories, and probably many others, will be tested on the public in coming months to see which ones gain traction. This election is going to be very ugly.