In the bureaucratic struggle to declassify Russiagate-related documents before the Nov. 3 elections and help ensure they aren’t buried forever, some valuable nuggets have just been partially unearthed by the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe.

Like handwritten notes by then-CIA Director John Brennan.

During the summer of 2016, he briefed President Obama and top advisers that the agency learned of startling intelligence about the Clinton campaign and Russia.

Brennan’s bullet points include:

• “cite alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on 26 July of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to villify (sic) Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.”

This was reportedly designed to distract attention from her private e-mail server scandal which simmered in the headlines.

Yet many questions remain – such as who was the Russiagate Hoax Mastermind alluded to by Brennan?

Americans need to know. The smear campaign wasn’t just a political dirty trick.  Nor was it proportionate to combat Trump supporters chanting “lock her up.”

No, the malicious lie was the acorn from which the mighty oak grew — one that launched the crime wave of the century.

Unprecedented and wrongful surveillance of a presidential campaign. Then a prolonged stealth coup to overturn the election. President Trump and over 50 associates were subjected to seemingly limitless investigations, Privacy Act violations, criminal leaks, defamation and ruthlessly pursued by overzealous prosecutors, including numerous Obama and Clinton political donors.

You know, the type of people who would wipe dozens of government phones from the century’s most sensitive investigation before an Inspector General could examine them. The kind who, according to testimony from one senior FBI Investigator on their team, would allegedly joke about wiping phones.  The sort who would boast about a Whodunnit-style game called “Collusion Clue” — only with real people as their victims, not imaginary characters like Professor Plum, Colonel Mustard or Mrs. Peacock. What barbarism.

Russiagate cost millions of dollars in personal legal bills and indicted six Trump associates who were innocent of the purported offense – colluding or conspiring with Russia to steal the 2016 election. It shattered many lives, including of families who had a loved one in presidential politics, as so powerfully stated by my former colleague, Asst. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Caputo.

So what kind of depraved person would start such a nationally destabilizing rumor, one which was magnified every, single, day by complicit figures in the media and activist groups?

Some point to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Chief Foreign Policy Adviser, Jake Sullivan.

Yes, the same Jake Sullivan who secretly began years of negotiations with the Iranians dating back to July 2012 in Oman over their nuclear program.  And yes, the same Jake Sullivan who is now a senior policy adviser to the Biden campaign.

During July 2016, Sullivan, along with senior campaign colleagues Robby Mook and Jennifer Palmieri, reportedly worked hard to spread the Trump-Russia collusion false narrative in the media. That includes the GOP Platform change hoax about a rejected proposal of “lethal defensive weapons” for Ukraine, of which I became the principal victim by simply protecting Mr. Trump’s public policy statements and maintaining the Obama administration’s status quo. Mook nevertheless continued to repeat such slanderous misinformation on CNN as recently as Jan. 2019, months before the Mueller Report thoroughly debunked it.

Paul Sperry, a Media Fellow with the Hoover Institution and writer for Real Clear Investigations claimed Sullivan was the Russiagate originator, tweeting on Oct. 5, “Hillary OK’d his proposal July 26, 2016 – days before FBI probe opened.”

Having personally served in a roughly equivalent position to Jake’s on the 2016 Trump Campaign as the Director of National Security, I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt.

After all, I wouldn’t want to get blamed for the actions of my colleagues. It wasn’t feasible to know everything they did.

Yet it wasn’t impossible either. Hundreds of investigators eagerly dug into us.

In addition to federal surveillance beginning with Carter Page and radiating into the campaign, many of us were also hit with federal and Congressional subpoenas, subjected to years of Senate and House investigations, Special Counsel interrogations and the resulting harsh media spotlight.

Even though most of my colleagues and I weren’t accused of any wrongdoing by investigators, over the course of three years, the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senate Judiciary Committee and House Intelligence Committee still brought me in separately for testimony and the House Judiciary Committee eventually requested years-old documents.

I was also called to testify three times before the Special Counsel, the first of which in August 2017 was apparently leaked to the Washington Post’s 2018 Pulitzer-Prize Winner Roz Helderman, per my descriptions on One America News and Fox & Friends.

So while it’s beyond my purview to uncover the Russiagate Hoax Mastermind who damaged America so badly, it’s entirely appropriate for Congress and the Attorney General.

Thus the Senate should immediately subpoena Clinton 2016’s foreign policy team. The Judiciary Committee already voted to subpoena 53 Obama/Comey-era officials in June 2020 over the origins of Trump-Russia — now they have probable cause for more. Attorney General William Barr ought to ensure U.S. Attorney John Durham adds Sullivan, Mook, Palmieri, et al to his investigation too, if he hasn’t already.

Failure to hold those responsible for Russiagate will guarantee repeats.  The rule of law and concept of equal justice must be preserved.

J.D. Gordon is a former Senior National Security & Foreign Policy Advisor to Donald Trump.  Previously, he served as a Pentagon spokesman during the George W. Bush Administration and is a retired Navy Commander.