New President Trump Collusion Claim: Did His Campaign Work With An Israeli Intelligence Firm?

Rick Gates, a top Trump campaign aide, expressed interest in an Israeli company’s proposal for a social media manipulation effort in 2016, documents and interviews show.Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times

New York Times: Rick Gates Sought Online Manipulation Plans From Israeli Intelligence Firm for Trump Campaign

WASHINGTON — A top Trump campaign official requested proposals in 2016 from an Israeli company to create fake online identities, to use social media manipulation and to gather intelligence to help defeat Republican primary race opponents and Hillary Clinton, according to interviews and copies of the proposals.

The Trump campaign’s interest in the work began as Russians were escalating their effort to aid Donald J. Trump. Though the Israeli company’s pitches were narrower than Moscow’s interference campaign and appear unconnected, the documents show that a senior Trump aide saw the promise of a disruption effort to swing voters in Mr. Trump’s favor.

The campaign official, Rick Gates, sought one proposal to use bogus personas to target and sway 5,000 delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention by attacking Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Mr. Trump’s main opponent at the time. Another proposal describes opposition research and “complementary intelligence activities” about Mrs. Clinton and people close to her, according to copies of the proposals obtained by The New York Times and interviews with four people involved in creating the documents.

Read more ....

Update #1: Trump official sought Israeli help to defeat 2016 campaign opponents – report (The Guardian)
Update #2: NYT Claims Trump Campaign (Almost) Colluded With Israeli Spies (Zero Hedge)

WNU Editor: The Russian collusion story is dead .... so let us have a new one (even though the New York Times admits that there is no evidence it was pursued).