The word “Obamagate” has recently become ubiquitous in the news, referring to spying by Obama administration officials on the campaign and then the transition and administration of President Trump.

The use of the “gate” suffix of course hearkens back to the scandal known as Watergate, the affair that drove President Nixon from office in 1974. Like Obamagate, the Watergate scandal was also about spying by those in power on opposition political actors.

Because of the close similarity of subject matter, it is appropriate to compare the facts of the two scandals.

Have you been thinking lately that the more we learn about the Obama administration’s Russia hoax, the less sense it makes? For years now, the working hypothesis of conservative pundits has been that the narrative of Trump campaign collusion with Russia was a Deep State plot from the likes of Brennan/Comey/McCabe/Strzok to weaken and potentially remove Trump from office — a “soft coup,” if you will.

That hypothesis was always hard to understand — why would such high ranking officials take big risks with such a transparently ridiculous narrative with little chance of succeeding? — and in my view has become even less consistent with what we know as more facts have recently come out.

So what was the Russia hoax really about? Here’s my alternative hypothesis. Its origin was entirely about giving Hillary an illicit assist in winning the 2016 election.