The Democrats’ “Russian collusion” crusade was never about national security — and now the American people are finally learning the truth.

Contrary to the protestations of Obama administration officials and their allies in the mainstream media, the collusion narrative was designed to accomplish the following objectives: first, to discourage voters from supporting Donald Trump in 2016; second, in the event that Hillary Clinton won the election, to ruin Donald Trump personally and destroy his business professionally; and third, to serve as a so-called “insurance policy” to remove President Trump from office.

Indeed, the entire Russian collusion hoax was put in motion even before Donald Trump became the Republican Party nominee in July 2016. The thing is, no Democrat actually expected that it would become necessary to pursue the third objective. Throughout the 2016 election campaign, Clinton’s closest allies were convinced that she would win the presidency in a landslide, in which case the American voters would never have found out about the tactics James Comey’s FBI used to establish the “predicate” to spy on the Trump Campaign.

Following Clinton’s defeat, however, the Obama administration was left with no choice but to shift gears from insurance to vengeance. We’re only beginning to scratch the surface of this scandal, but what we’ve already discovered should shock even the most cynical Americans. Here are seven key facts that we were never supposed to learn about the Russia collusion hoax:

1. The truth about Russian interference

According to the newly declassified testimony from Crowdstrike and the testimony of the former Obama national security officials, there is no clear evidence of a focused Russian effort to favor any single political candidate in the 2016 election — its activities were solely intended to be disruptive. The Russian government, it turns out, did not “hack” the Democrat National Committee server, and not a single Russian official was colluding with the Trump Campaign.

2. The real Russian collusion

The only evidence of collusion with Moscow was the Christopher Steele dossier — a document that contained Russian intelligence deception and was financed by the Clinton Campaign and the DNC.

3. The FBI’s dirty tricks

After almost four years, the FBI has finally been exposed for spying on the Trump campaign. Christopher Wray has remained silent since his appointment as director of FBI. Why? Everything we now know, he knew years ago and said nothing.

4. The “Insurance Policy” against President Trump 

If Clinton had won the 2016 election, the American people would also be in the dark about how former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and former FBI agent Peter Strzok set up the so-called “insurance policy” against a possible Trump presidency. This bombshell revelation was the first development that convinced many Americans that something fishy had been going on behind the scenes in the Obama administration.

5. The partisan targeting of Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn

According to the Susan Rice memo regarding the January 5, 2017 Oval Office meeting, the Obama White House directed then-FBI Director James Comey to target President Trump’s first national security adviser, Mike Flynn.

6. The Democrat propaganda campaign

Democrat lawmakers were well aware that there was no evidence of collusion with Russia — but that did not stop them from lying to the American people virtually non-stop for more than three years. The recently-released transcripts from the House Intelligence Committee probe into Russia’s election meddling, for instance, show that Representative Adam Schiff falsely claimed to have proof of collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign despite knowing full well that his own star witnesses had claimed just the opposite.

We were never supposed to learn these details about the Russia collusion hoax and its partisan origins — what is frightening is the fact that had Hillary Clinton won the presidency, we would likely never have known the scope of abuse and deception. There will be more revelations to come about all of the secrets that the Democrats have been hiding from the American people all these years. These revelations will require action and accountability that must be done to insure the preservation of our Republic.

Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer is a retired senior intelligence operations officer and President of the London Center for Policy Research.