The Russia Hoax Was Just The Beginning: The Left’s Plan To Undermine Trump’s Second Term

The Durham Report rightly concluded that the Russia Hoax should never have made it out of the corrupt incubator. It highlighted a number of irregularities, some would even say illegalities committed by the FBI along the way — contending that the FBI “failed to uphold its mission of strict fidelity to the law.” It was similar to National Intelligence Director Clapper saying he gave the “least untruthful” answer possible.

One of the most audacious and consequential political scandals in our nation’s history, the Russia Hoax, was both simple and fantastical and had what most outside observers would have considered long odds for success.

The plan looked something like this:

1. Conceive of a traitorous crime supposedly committed by President Trump.
2. Fabricate damning evidence of that crime. 
3. Engage key politicians, governmental agencies, and media confederates to validate and publicize that false evidence.
4. Use the fabricated evidence to impeach the president.
5. Remove the president from office in a wake of shame.
6. Draw out all of the steps above in a protracted manner to both cripple his credibility and consume as much of the president’s term in office as possible.

Particularly given the preposterous premise upon which it was built, the scheme was hugely successful, no doubt wildly exceeding the expectations of its creators. They were, in fact, able to achieve all but step five above.

In retrospect, given the serious nature of the accusations — arguably rising to the level of treason — it raises an important question: Why weren’t the founding perpetrators more concerned with the hoax and themselves being exposed, and the repercussions that should have followed? It is likely because they were supremely confident that regardless of whether exposure materialized, no such repercussions were likely or even possible. Especially since Democrats possessed solid control of so many other political power bases — chiefly, The House of Representatives, the mainstream, social, and search media channels, and many top agents across a wide variety of governmental agencies, including the courts. While that control would be more pervasively and evidently wielded in the run up to the 2020 election, it was still a huge factor in 2016.

Insurance Policy #1

A small example of that control was hinted at in the texts exchanged by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page in August of 2016 in which he assured her of an “insurance policy” in the unlikely event of a Trump victory. Judicial Watch submitted a FOIA request for the additional texts exchanged by the two lovers that year. The request was initially denied by the FBI and appealed by Judicial Watch. Eventually, the FBI released a few pages of texts, but they were almost completely redacted — in some cases with, not merely names or titles, but entire conversations blacked out.

FBI agent Peter P. Strzok. MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images.

Any further review may not even be possible at this point. Recall that more than two dozen cell phones of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team were wiped clean before the Justice Department’s inspector general could examine them. Deputy Andrew Weisman’s phone actually had the extraordinary experience of being “accidentally wiped” twice.

Insurance Policy #2

Fast forward a few years to Insurance Policy #2 as Donald Trump’s nomination for the Republican presidential candidate in the 2024 election became increasingly likely. This strategy employed a familiar playbook with a few twists and looked something like this:

1. Conceive of crimes (criminal and/or civil) supposedly committed by candidate and former President Trump.
2. Pretend that damning evidence of those crimes exists.
3. Engage key politicians, governmental agencies, and media confederates to validate and publicize that false evidence.
4. Use the fabricated evidence to file suits/charges with carefully shopped courts/judges to successfully prosecute, smear, and hopefully imprison candidate Trump.
5. Destroy Trump’s candidacy through physical imprisonment and/or a wake of shame.
6. Draw out all of the steps above in a protracted manner to both cripple his credibility and consume as much of the candidate’s time and financial resources as possible.

Once again, the perpetrators experienced a fair degree of success with their plan — accomplishing nearly all but step five above. In violation of countless legal and departmental precedents, and logic, candidate Trump was charged in various venues with attempting to overthrow the 2020 election, improper handling of classified documents, defrauding a lender in a commercial real estate loan, sexual abuse and defaming Jean Carroll decades prior, falsifying hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, election interference, and much more. In all, candidate Trump faced more than 90 different charges — with potential consequences of significant prison time and financial penalty (the latter of which he certainly experienced).

Unfortunately for Democrats most Americans saw the over-the-top lawfare for what it was — politically motivated and corrupt persecution. And they voted accordingly.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Insurance Policy #3

Now, here we are in 2025 with President Trump in office and hoping to execute the agenda on which he was soundly elected. We are now seeing Insurance Policy #3 unfolding. Not surprisingly, it has similarities to the first two, and looks like this:

1. Conceive of constitutional violations supposedly committed by President Trump and/or his administration.
2. Pretend that damning evidence of those violations exists. 
3. Engage key politicians, governmental agencies, and media confederates to validate and publicize these violations.
4. Use carefully shopped courts/judges to successfully sue for Temporary Restraining Orders/National Injunctions of President Trump’s executive orders and policies. 
5. Draw out all of the steps above in a protracted manner to neutralize the Trump agenda, damage President Trump and his Administration’s credibility, and consume as much of his time in office as possible.

Once again, Democrats are experiencing success with most of these. They have managed to block or partially block the following: termination of birthright citizenship; dismantling of the Department of Education; stoppage of federal funding to sanctuary cities; termination of a special counsel; stoppage of foreign aid; firing of “probationary employees” from several federal agencies; expedited removal of Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang members; and much more.

Jim WATSON / AFP

And since the Kennedy administration, no president has endured more injunctions than Trump. According to a 2024 article in the Harvard Law Review, “Just over half (64) of the injunctions issued since 1963 were issued against Trump Administration policies.”

Now, President Trump has barely been in office for 100 days and judges have already imposed 25 nationwide injunctions against his orders. Compare that to six over the course of George W. Bush’s entire eight-year presidency and 14 during Joe Biden’s single term. At this rate, his administration will have incurred some 360 nationwide injunctions during this term.

The Harvard Law Review article also points out that “Structural features of litigation exacerbate the politicization of the injunction.” Indeed, in his first term, more than 90% of the 64 injunctions issued against his administration were leveled by Democrat-appointed judges. They observe that judges who are “unelected and unaccountable” end up determining policy for the rest of the country concluding:

 … for each policy challenged, the asymmetrical effects of preclusion ensure that nationwide injunctions are a powerful tool for political opponents who can challenge the policy in multiple venues. Practically speaking, a successful defense against a nationwide injunction in one court is barely a win for the government at all: because that decision has no preclusive effect on new plaintiffs, other plaintiffs are free to bring the exact same lawsuit elsewhere and “[s]hop ’til the statute drops.

The irony of this quagmire is that the messes this administration is now trying to clean up — illegal immigration, violent crime, DEI discrimination, men in women’s sports and transgenderism, out of control federal spending and related issues such as fraud, waste and employee bloat, and much more were nearly all created without any legislation or votes, but by unilateral executive or agency order. Now, when the public and their elected president would like to correct many of those bad decisions, they are being hamstrung at every turn with legal tape and accused of acting unilaterally and unconstitutionally.

As Mark Levin observes:

These judges are abusing their power. They know they’re abusing their power. They’re issuing these national injunctions to cripple the Executive Branch, to overturn the results of an election. It is an insurrection. That’s exactly what it is.

Jonathan Turley calls this “chronic injuntivitis” and points out that Democrats and Republicans alike have long complained about out of control federal judges and their use of the national injunction to freeze an entire executive branch for years on a given policy or policies. He argues that it is time for the Supreme Court to end the ridiculousness.

In his well considered piece, “The Best Way to Fix National Injunctions” GianCarlo Canaparo at the Heritage Foundation observes that the power to issue a national injunction makes a single district court judge as powerful or more powerful than a majority of Supreme Court justices:“With that power, a single judge can block the government from enforcing a rule or policy as to anyone, anywhere, at any time.”

If this precedent is allowed to stand, it will essentially render elections moot. Any one of some 677 district court judges has the power to thwart and/or overturn the will of a president, of an entire branch of government, of an entire party, and indeed, the entirety of the U.S. voting majority with the stroke of a pen.

Absent a solution, Insurance Policy #3 will have accomplished all five steps of its mission. Canaparo says that there are only two fixes: legislation or a decree from the Supreme Court. Let’s begin pressuring our elected representatives to work for both.

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Greg Salsbury, Ph.D. is former president of Western Colorado University and Board of Advisor member for STARRS.US.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.