Forget the dubious Donald Trump/Russia collusion conspiracy that Hillary Clinton funded — it now appears that the real story is a much deeper and more insidious Russian collusion scenario, which goes back to Clinton’s time as head of the State Department. Tuesday evening, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson detailed information received from a source familiar with the ongoing Mueller investigation into Russian election interference. This new information essentially flips the script on the whole collusion narrative.

Carlson explained that Paul Manafort, the man who has been at the center of the Mueller investigation and who for several months worked as Trump’s campaign manager, used to work with the Podesta Group — an operation of Democrat hacks John and Tony Podesta — on behalf of Russian government interests. Manafort and the Podesta Group’s working relationship goes back to at least 2011. Carlson states, “He [the source] saw Paul Manafort in the Podesta Group offices, ‘All the time, at least once a month.’ Manafort was not there to socialize. He was representing Russian business and political interests, who sought to influence Capitol Hill, Hillary Clinton’s State Department and the Obama administration.”

Carlson continued:

> The central effort to extend Russian influence was focused on the executive branch, the Obama administration. The vehicle through which Manafort worked for the Russians was a shell group called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. The group was supposedly based in Belgium but had no offices there. It had only two employees, both based in Ukraine.

> Their telephone number in Brussels rang in Kiev. It was a sham, yet it had a presence in Washington. The European Centre for a Modern Ukraine was a major client of the Podesta Group. Why did the Russians choose the Podesta Group? Because both Podestas were close to the Clintons, and Hillary was then secretary of state. She could get things done for the Podestas’ Russian clients. It was influence peddling — the most obvious kind.

> Sometimes, our source told us, ties between the Podesta Group and the Clintons were explicit. Tony Podesta spoke regularly to Hillary Clinton while she ran the State Department. Our source remembers Podesta’s assistant announcing that Secretary Clinton is on the line.

> According to our source, Manafort was clear that Russia wanted to cultivate ties to Hillary Clinton, in the belief she was likely to become president. These links to Hillary were apparently valuable; our source believes that the Russian money Manafort funneled to the Podesta Group greatly exceeds the roughly $1 million they were officially paid. Some of these payments, he said, could be hidden kickbacks that would be hard to trace. He described the Podesta Group’s books as a “treasure trove” and highly secret. He told us the Podesta Group had no board, and all financial decisions were personally made by Tony Podesta. The Group’s employees, he said, included a person whose only official job was managing Tony Podesta’s art collection. It would be easy for such an organization to conceal financial transactions.

> Our source says investigators are very interested in Manafort’s behavior while he ran the Trump campaign, but otherwise that description is mostly bogus. The investigation has broadened to determine which people and organizations in Washington have spent years working secretly as de facto operatives on behalf of the Russian government. The Podesta Group is chief among these de facto foreign operatives. “They are more focused on facilitators of Russian influence in this country, not election collusion,” our source said. The Podesta Group is “in their crosshairs.”

It appears that Mueller may have hooked a much bigger fish than the Washington swamp thought possible, and, as with the phony dossier, Democrats should have been more careful what they wished for.

Here is Carlson’s report.