It was Netanyahu and Israel that were behind the push to get Trump elected in 2016, and not Russia. The whole Russiagate thing was a distraction.
Author and investigative journalist James Bamford shows how Israel subverted the democratic process to benefit Israel:
JIM, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. Take us on this journey. Talk about what happened, why we know a lot about Russia, or at least a lot is made of, in going after Russia, saying it tried to overthrow the 2016 election or spin it for Trump. What actually is documented here is Israel’s involvement, and yet the Mueller report, Senate Intelligence Committee, it looks like they knew but just didn’t want to talk about it.
JAMES BAMFORD: Well, exactly. The documents I got are from the FBI. There are the FBI affidavits about this. The documents, numerous quotes from the secret agent, the Israeli secret agent sent by Netanyahu, talking about the “PM,” which the FBI agent indicates was the prime minister, and lays out a months-long plot, basically, from May of 2016 ’til the fall of 2016, right up to the election.
This was investigated by the Mueller team. It was the Mueller team, the Mueller FBI agents who actually got a search warrant for the secret agent’s communications. And that’s what these documents are. These are the basis of that investigation from the FBI and the Mueller team. But all this was redacted from the final Mueller report. All they focused on was Russia...
Trump vowed to throw out the nuclear agreement with Iran that the Obama administration worked very hard on and was very useful to the United States. And Netanyahu didn’t like it. He didn’t want it. He wanted Trump to get rid of it, and Trump was planning to do that.
But he wanted a second thing, too. The Obama administration was putting a great deal of pressure on Netanyahu to work out an agreement with the Palestinians over Jerusalem, which was divided — the final agreement over Jerusalem was going to be divided between the Palestinians and Israel. Israel wanted — Netanyahu wanted the entire city to be Israeli. And so they were putting pressure on the Trump campaign, saying, “Look, this is what we want, and we can help Trump get elected, but we have to have a — basically, have to have an agreement that he’s going to help us on this issue over the sovereignty of Jerusalem.”
And in the very end, that’s what happened. There was a secret meeting, or at least a private meeting, in the Trump penthouse in New York just between Netanyahu and Trump. And after it was over, Trump came out, and that’s what he said. He said that “If I’m elected president, I’m going to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel.” So, the Israelis got what they wanted, and Trump got what he wanted, and the American public was screwed in the meantime.
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/3/24/james_bamford_2016_israel_netanyahu_trump"Roger, hello from Jerusalem," read the message from the Israeli secret agent. Dated August 12, 2016, it was addressed to Roger Stone — at the time a key player in Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign. “Any progress? He is going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intel. The key is in your hands! Back in the US next week.” Later, the agent promised, “October Surprise coming!”
While the American media and political system fixated on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his armies of cyber warriors, trolls, and bots, what was completely missed in the Russiagate investigation of 2016 was the Israeli connection. No details of it were ever revealed in the heavily redacted Mueller Report. Nor was there any mention of an Israeli plot in the similarly redacted Senate Intelligence Committee Report on collusion charges in the 2016 election, or in any of the indictments or trials stemming from the Russia charges. Nor did any mention of Israeli involvement ever leak into the press. Yet I can reveal here the details of an elaborate covert operation personally directed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that aimed to use secret intelligence to clandestinely intervene at the highest levels in the presidential election on behalf of Trump...
In the spring of 2016, no issue was more important to Benjamin Netanyahu than Donald Trump winning the White House. The GOP presidential candidate was key to everything he was after, from ending the Iran nuclear agreement, to recognizing Jerusalem — rather than Tel Aviv — as Israel’s capital, to continuing the occupation of Palestine. But November was months away, and there was no guarantee Trump would win. In the meantime, Netanyahu was under mounting pressure from President Barack Obama to finally resolve the issues surrounding Palestine. Leading the charge on behalf of Obama was Secretary of State John Kerry, who was equally determined to find a solution after many years of trying.
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-israel-collusion/