There’s something darkly funny about liberal journalists insisting any new focus on the Russiagate frenzy of 2017-19 is a “distraction” from their current obsession over Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. One can argue that their entire Russiagate obsession back then was a massive distraction from the actual business of America. Call it The Story That Ate Trump’s Presidency.
We counted 2,284 minutes of Russiagate coverage just on the evening newscasts during Trump’s first two years in office. Now that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has reopened the window on their first-term obsession, they’re trying to ignore it.
“The Daily” podcast at The New York Times summarized Gabbard’s new mission as “the sudden re-emergence of the Trump-Russia saga and what happens when the heads of the CIA, FBI, and DOJ all turn their attention to the president’s domestic enemies.” That sounds undemocratic and dangerous? These journalists shamelessly pretend that they didn’t collude with their fellow liberals inside government agencies to undermine their domestic enemy Trump at every turn of his presidency. That’s not even mentioning the screws they put to Trump under Biden.
New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt, a major promoter of the Russiagate frenzy, came to “fact-check” Gabbard. Perhaps because he’s part of the conspiracy to make Trump look like an illegitimate president, he insisted Obama can’t be blamed for pushing the intelligence agencies to rush forward with a report on Trump before he took office.
Schmidt claimed “there’s nothing in that report, like an email from Obama to his intelligence community saying, ‘I don’t care what the evidence shows, we need to get Donald Trump’ -- that proves or shows or raises even questions about a larger treasonous conspiracy.” Podcast host Michael Barbaro underlined it: “There’s no evidence, it sounds like, of any kind, to suggest a conspiracy.”
It was routine for Democrats and cable-news hotheads to accuse Trump of treason, but now it’s ridiculous to throw the charge back in their face. Why would they try this bizarre no-conspiracy line of argument at this very late date? They were all engaged in an obvious attempt to ruin Trump with the collusion delusion.
Back before the first inauguration, The Times turned to Adam Jentleson, a top aide to retiring Senate Democrat leader Harry Reid, who threatened: “There’s not going to be a grace period this time because everybody on our side thinks he’s illegitimate and poses a massive threat.” That was the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” spirit that also moved the “objective” media.
Now they struggle to move the goalposts. They no longer say Trump plotted with the Russian government. They pretend that this was all about the fact that the Russian government engaged in election interference. That’s not Trump colluding with foreign enemies.
In school, they used to teach that journalism was defined as informing the public about what happened today, and who did it, where it happened, how, and why. But what happened in Russia coverage was the “what has happened” part was routinely shunted aside in favor of prattling endlessly about the doom about to happen next. They talked about the serious crimes Mueller was going to find, or how Trump might fire Mueller, or the man who appointed Mueller, Rod Rosenstein. Collusion with Putin turned out to be a fantasy. Their reality was the constant speculation that Trump was illegitimately elected and would not finish his term.
The "news" was political weather, perpetually floating black clouds over Trump's head.