In the third 2016 presidential debate, then-candidate Trump refused to say he would definitively accept the results of the election.  In the spin room afterwards, Hillary Clinton declared her shock that a candidate would express such a thought.  Citing the fact America had free and fair elections, she continued: “Somebody wins and somebody loses. So what he said tonight is part of his whole effort to blame somebody else for his campaign.”  Who knew at the time she was warning us about herself.

Her assumption was that she would win and Trump would disagree thus delegitimizing the results.  In the final analysis, we know that some Russian agents tried to sow discord and some of their efforts may have been with the intention to help Trump.  We now sadly know that it was also the Clinton campaign that worked with Russians through a British intermediary to compile a phony dossier on Trump.  That campaign then turned the dossier over to the FBI who then used it to spy on the Trump campaign.

We find out that Trump was right after all- the election was rigged against him.  Less than two months after taking office, Trump tweeted out the infamous message that “Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower…”  Whether there was electronic surveillance is besides the fact.  The media rushed in and called the accusation baseless and without evidence.

Consider how far we have come with this story.  We know things now we did not know when Trump fired off that message.  We know that Trump did not conspire with the Russians and we know that he did not obstruct justice of the Mueller probe.  We know that there was indeed spying on the Trump campaign, and possibly afterwards.  We now know that Trump won the election fair and square.

What we do not know is why and the who that was behind the whole Russian collusion hoax.  For more than two years we were treated to stories about the walls closing in on the Kremlin puppet in the White House.  We were told what a threat to democracy Trump was.  Most recently, announcing his entry into the Democratic 2020 sweepstakes, Joe Biden described it as a fight “for the soul of the country.”

What we are left with is a series of interactions where Trump associates talked to Russian nationals, or associates of Russian nationals, or someone who new an associate of a Russian national.  There were people who self-proclaimed their ties to the Kremlin who, we find out, were not what they advertised themselves to be.  There is nothing inherently wrong and certainly nothing illegal about talking to Russian nationals.

We found out that Attorney general Jeff Sessions was actually a jerk.  The Mueller report determined that his “talks” with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak were “brief, public and non-substantive.”  The media frenzy over those reported meetings directly led to the Sessions recusal which directly led to the Mueller probe.  The Mueller report even calls that “smoking gun” Trump Tower meeting between Natalia Veselnetskaya and Trump, Jr. as almost farcical with someone texting others to call and make an excuse to get out of the meeting.

The whole “Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress” was essentially a sub-hoax perpetuated by Buzzfeed.  Despite Cohen’s sensational testimony before Congress in an effort to ingratiate himself to prosecutors, we found out that even this “bombshell” was nothing.

Taken altogether, what we know is that the entire Russian collusion story was nothing but a huge hoax foisted upon the American public, but one we should all be worried about.  What has become increasingly clear is that there was a story developed by a strange incestuous group involving the media, the Clinton campaign, deep state Obama bureaucrats and the DNC to derail the Trump administration.

The question now remains when we will see pre-dawn raids on the homes of those who hatched the plan?  Will we see SWAT teams entering the home of James Comey at 5:30 AM with a CNN van coincidentally standing by?  Will we see FBI agents descending from helicopters into the home of James Brennan?  Clapper?  Strozk, Page, or the Ohr residence?  How about Sally Yates, Rod Rosenstein and Comey who used a discredited piece of opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign and DNC to obtain a FISA warrant against Carter Page?

With the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal, at least there was a stained dress.  With Watergate, at least there was a burglary, hush money and an enemies list.  With this hoax, nothing… not even Russia.  The whole Mueller investigation was launched on phony grounds.

So why persist?  The two main culprits are Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff who are basically nobodies hailing from districts where a sea slug with a “D” after its name will win an election.  It provides them with daily press opportunities to feed their worthless egos.  Nixon was accused of going after his political enemies, but what are Schiff and Nadler doing?  Further, they are dupes in the whole affair.  By going after Trump, now that they have lots of egg on their faces, they are playing the “a good offense is the best defense strategy” game.

They then shift the goal posts in the middle of the game.  The talk now is not of Russian collusion now that their last best hope let them down in that area.  The alleged acts of obstruction, however, are actions any President could have legally taken or ordered.  Even the “go light on Flynn” accusation against Trump in a conversation with Comey was resolved.  Apparently, according to the Mueller report, the request from Flynn was that the Russian response to sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration be “light,” to which Kislyak agreed.  This is the stuff of collusion?

Mueller was stifled.  The intelligent among us knew that there was no collusion and that obstruction was all they could really play.  Mueller talked a tough game in public and brooded in private.  This became apparent especially after the White House gave Mueller unprecedented access to documents and personnel.

Instead, the real scandal and the real bombshell is yet to be revealed.  And this one has already been set into motion and should become apparent in the coming months.  There is likely more evidence that it was the Obama administration that embarked on a campaign of surveillance using private contractors to go after political enemies.  There is the pending Justice Department IG report.  The Chief Judge of the FISA court, Rosemary M. Collyer, has already ruled the FBI broke the law.

According to some reports, there is a hero in all this mess- NSA Chief Adm. Mike Rogers.  It is he who went to the FISA court and informed them of illegal spying by operatives within the Obama administration.  He worked closely with Collyer over months.  Apparently, the FISA court has already informed Attorney General William Barr who lied to the court to illegally obtain warrants.

When Obama was elected, he promised to “fundamentally transform America.”  If all this comes to fruition- that the Obama administration usurped the intelligence apparatus of this country to spy on an opposing political party- it goes far beyond one election in 2016 and one candidate in Donald Trump.  The weaponization of the IRS against Tea Party Patriots focusing on intimidation and harassment are a sideshow, but indicative of the the lengths the Obama administration and the Democrats would go to “transform America.”

If the Obama administration coopted the FBI and intelligence community to spy on Trump or an opposition party, it will render Watergate nothing more than a third-rate burglary.  So while the Democrats dither away and subpoena tax records in a fishing expedition that should have every American wary, perhaps it is best to harken back to the days of Watergate and that infamous question of James Baker: “What did Obama know and when did he know it?”

The Democrats may not like the answer when all is said and done because although there may be multiple layers of plausible deniability, just seeing their asses hauled before a Senate committee and watching them squirm, or seeing Brennan, Clapper and Comey in orange jumpsuits would be sweet satisfaction for the last two and half years of the true threat to democracy they represented.