The Russia Worm Is Starting To Turn On Trump Conspiracy-Mongers
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The Russia Worm Is Starting To Turn On Trump Conspiracy-Mongers
5:06 PM ET
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Scandals: The past few days have seen several interesting developments on the supposed Trump/Russia scandal. But instead of causing further damage to President Trump, they're making the entire story look like a multilayered smear campaign by Trump's enemies.
Over the weekend, the New York Post reported that the firm behind the infamous Trump dossier — Fusion GPS — has been stonewalling the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has been trying to get information on who paid the firm to produce it and how it was used by government officials.
It has been publicly known since at least early January that Fusion GPS was behind the discredited dossier, which claimed that Russia had backmailable information on Trump, and that it was a notorious opposition research firm that was often enlisted to dig up dirt on Republicans, including a 2012 smear campaign against a donor to Mitt Romney's campaign.
As the Post notes, one of the Fusion's founders, Peter Fritsch, contributed "at least $1,000 to the Hillary Victory Fund and the Hillary for America campaign."
The Post story has sparked renewed interest in this dossier, most of which has been discredited, but which appears to be serving as a "road map" to various investigations.
That was strike one against the anti-Trump conspiracy mongers.
Strike two happened Sunday when an internal memo from CNN Money's executive editor Rich Barbieri leaked. The memo told reporters that "no one should publish any content involving Russia without coming to me or (VP of Premium Content Video) Jason (Farkas) first. ... No exception."
That memo came after CNN was forced to retract a story it had posted on its website claiming that Trump advisor Anthony Scaramucci was under investigation for ties to Russia. Turns out the story — based on a single anonymous source — was false. CNN pulled the story and apologized to Scaramucci.
This wasn't the first Russia-related story pushed by the mainstream press that turned out to be exaggerated or false, but it was the most embarrassing one to date. And it showcased what many suspected — that Trump-hating reporters and editors had dropped all pretense of journalistic professionalism in order to peddle dirt on Trump.
Then, on Sunday, the Obama administration started to come under attack. That got started by, of all places, the Washington Post, which offered a detailed account of how the administration knew about Russia's efforts to influence the election months before the polls opened, but did nothing about it.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN over the weekend that "the Obama administration should have done more when it became clear that not only was Russia intervening, but it was being directed at the highest levels of the Kremlin."
On Monday, Trump amped the story up, tweeting that Obama "colluded or obstructed" with the Clinton campaign by downplaying Russia because he assumed Clinton would win.
Note what is missing from all these stories — any evidence that Trump had anything to do with Russia's efforts. Given that this yearlong investigation has turned up nothing, we'd argue that it's time for Robert Mueller and congressional investigators to start looking at whether the Obama administration broke any laws in its attempt to destroy the Trump presidency before it got started.
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Did Obama White House And Loretta Lynch Illegally Meddle In 2016 Election? http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-russia-worm-is-starting-to-turn-on-trump-conspiracy-mongers/
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It's Clinton and Obama who colluded with Russians.
It sure was and now that the truth is coming out the fake news outlets like CNN are scrambling to do damage control.
Project vertias just posted video of a CNN producer admitting their obsession with trump and Russia is a just a ratings ploy and that they have no evidence to support it.
I heard that on the radio news today. Not a real surprise anymore.