Former U.S. attorney and writer Andrew McCarthy has a new book out titled, “Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency,” in which he makes the claim former President Barack Obama must have known about the investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged Russian collusion.

And McCarthy has been making the rounds.

For the second time this month, McCarthy made the claim, as he told Sean Hannity this week, that the nature of the Russian collusion investigation into the Trump campaign made it more than likely — and, in fact, probable — that Obama was informed.

“What I’m saying is not that the president sits there and directs that there be counter-intelligence investigations,” the National Review contributing editor responded.

“What I’m saying is that unlike criminal investigations, counter intelligence investigations are done for the president. The only reason to do them is to inform the president with the information he needs to protect the United States from foreign threats,” McCarthy explained.

“They’re not like criminal investigations in that regard. So in principle, the information from a counter intelligence investigation is for the president. And here we know at various junctures we have actual factual information that this investigation was well-known to President Obama,” he said.

“So, if he knew, and this is all happening, he had to know about it from the get-go. Doesn’t that also imply that he would have been updated on this if he’s the one that needs it for national security decision-making?” Hannity asked.

“If things were working properly the president should have been alerted about it and informed about it –  it was a very important investigation,” McCarthy replied. “If they actually believed what they were telling the court, that it was a possibility that Donald Trump was actually a plant of the Kremlin, it would have been derelict on their part not to keep the president informed.”

McCarthy appeared on Fox & Friends earlier this month and told the hosts there was enough evidence to suggest Obama knew about the investigation even if the counterintelligence probe didn’t work the way it was supposed to, i.e. at the behest and to the benefit of the president.

A surprised Doocy replied, “this goes to the West Wing?”

McCarthy “It goes to the president. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. If it’s not working that way, then it shouldn’t be a counterintelligence investigation in the first but here we don’t have to speculate because there is plenty of indication that President Obama was informed and knew what exactly what they were doing.”

In his book, “Ball of Collusion”, McCarthy makes the case that collusion certainly occurred in the 2016 election, but it came from “agents of the federal government that intentionally perpetrated a fraud on the American people through the Russia collusion hoax in order to undermine the duly elected president of the United States.” 

Real Clear Investigations has an excerpt. It reads in part:

On her way out the door and out of her job as national-security adviser, Susan Rice wrote an email-to-self. Except it was not really an email-to-self. It was quite consciously an email for the record.

…

Rice’s memo concerns January 5, 2017, when President Obama met with national security officials regarding their assessment of Russia’s interference in the election. Of course, Russia had not actually interfered in the election; it interfered in the campaign by publicizing stolen emails and peddling propaganda, most of which was too ridiculous to influence anyone (except, I suppose, the rare voter who decided based on the depiction of Hillary, in Satan’s horns and boxing gloves, squaring off against Jesus). No ballots or voting processes were manipulated.

But let’s not quibble over a good story, which was then being composed. The president had ordered this intelligence assessment to be rushed to completion while he was still in office. By the time of the January 5 Oval Office confab, Obama had already started taking theatrical action based on it. So, let’s pause over the president’s sudden, post-election decision to treat Russia’s provocation as if it were a national security emergency, if not an act of war.

In reality, Obama and U.S. intelligence agencies had been intimately aware of the Kremlin’s cyber operations while they were taking place during the campaign. Indeed, on August 4, 2016, CIA Director John Brennan cawed about it to his Russian counterpart, FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov. Subsequently, in early September 2016, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in China, Obama himself delivered directly to Putin what we’re assured was a stern warning to cease and desist. The administration knew exactly what Russia did, in real time and well in advance of the election. In fact, on October 6, Obama’s Office of the National Intelligence Director (James Clapper) and Department of Homeland Security (under Secretary Jeh Johnson) issued a joint statement expressing “confiden[ce] that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations,” such as the DNC.

McCarthy’s assertions have all been made by other people over the course of the last several years, but his book is likely to be a must-read for a couple of reasons: 1.) he’s a great and thoughtful writer and 2.) his book will be codifying in one place the whole sordid timeline and behavior of all the players.

This one just went on the top of the bedside books to complete before the 2020 election.

McCarthy’s interview with Hannity embedded below.