WHAT A NASTY PIECE OF WORK: John McCain associate planned leaks to Post’s Ignatius.

The associate of John McCain who spread anti-Trump dossier claims around Washington post-election planned to leak a story to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius about Paul Manafort, according to court testimony.

Mr. Ignatius wrote the Jan. 12, 2017 column that eventually doomed retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s first and brief national security adviser. The source was an Obama administration official, Mr. Ignatius wrote.

The McCain evidence emerged in July in a London courtroom, where dossier creator Christopher Steele faces a defamation lawsuit from a Russian CEO. Mr. Steele compiled the dossier for the Democratic Party. After Donald Trump won the presidency Mr. Steele provided memo copies to the Republican McCain and his associate David J. Kramer.

Trial evidence showed that Mr. Kramer not only took the dossier to the Obama White House and news media, he also tried to help reporters confirm its dozen or so felony allegations against Mr. Trump.

Mr. Kramer and Mr. Steele engaged in across-the-Atlantic messaging as the former State Department official would receive followup questions from reporters and relay them to the former British intelligence officer.

Andrew Caldecott, the attorney for Russian Aleksej Gubarev, read in court messages between Mr. Kramer and Mr. Steele, according to transcripts obtained by The Washington Times.

“The Flynn calls story is picking up legs,” Mr. Kramer says. This is a reference to the Ignatius column that Mr. Flynn had spoken to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition.

Then Mr. Kramer tells Mr. Steele, “I think it’s time to get that other [Manafort] story out there. Get some sleep. Best, D [avid].”

“Thanks.”

Mr. Kramer says, “And Ignatius is the one I’ll feed it to.”

By then, the dossier had been published by BuzzFeed. Mr. Steele alleged that Mr. Manafort, the campaign manager, and volunteer Carter Page worked as a team to conspire with the Kremlin on election interference.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s March 2019 report disproved this claim. The two men did not know each other.

This was a seditious coup attempt.