Here's the Real Trump-Russia Hoax - David Corn

[DonViejo]

It’s Trump defenders and lefty Russiagate skeptics claiming there is no scandal.

DAVID CORNMARCH 29, 2019 11:25 AM

There has been much crowing from Trumpsters on the right and Russiagate skeptics on the left about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. That is, the three-and-a-half-page letter Attorney General Bill Barr sent to Congress summarizing Mueller’s work. (The report itself remains secret and is reportedly over 300 pages.) Pointing to Barr’s citation of a single, partial sentence from the report (“[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities”), Trump and his partisans, as well as the small number of lefty Russiagate deniers, have declared that because Mueller found no direct collaboration, the Trump-Russia scandal is kaput. Some have even declared it was a hoax—and a gargantuan media con job—from the start.

These critics are wrong. And here’s an easy way to tell whether they are engaging in honest discourse.

Two fundamental facts were established long before Mueller completed his investigation. First, the Russians attacked an American election in order to sow chaos, hurt Hillary Clinton, and help Donald Trump. Second, Trump and his top advisers during the campaign repeatedly denied this attack was underway, echoing and amplifying Moscow disinformation (the false claim that Russia was not attacking). Whether or not the Trumpers were directly in cahoots with the Russian government, they ran interference for Vladimir Putin’s assault on the United States, and they even did so after the intelligence community had briefed Trump on Russia’s culpability.

So to determine if the Barr triumphalists are acting in good faith, you need only ask them a simple question: do you accept these basic facts and acknowledge the profound seriousness of each one?

The Russian attack on the 2016 election was an attempt to subvert the foundation of American society: the democratic process. How can Americans have faith in their government, if elections are undermined by secret schemers, including a foreign government? It is certainly arguable that the Russian intervention—particularly the stealing and drip-drip-drip dumping of the John Podesta emails across the final four weeks of the election—was one of several decisive factors in a contest that had a narrow and tight finish. Consequently, there is a strong case that Moscow helped shift the course of US history by contributing to the election of Trump. (And recognizing this is not the same as defending Hillary Clinton or concocting an excuse for the Democrats’ embarrassing loss to Trump.)

more
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/heres-the-real-trump-russia-hoax/

[smirkymonkey]

1. K&R

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Yes. Putin did not do Trump's bidding. tRump did Putin's bidding. Trump-Republicons provided cover

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211971260

Republicons like Mitch McCONnell blocked the information from being explained to the public as the election drew near. He is complicit.

The Trump-Republicon Party laid down covering fire so that Putin's Web Brigades could do their work in the three swing states for the Electoral College.

[anarch]

3. I hadn't encountered the skeptics from the left until the other day...seems so weird

thanks for posting the article; will have to give it a read...

I have to say, my mind was kinda boggled the other day, reading some ostensibly socialist opinion that the whole thing was cooked up by the centrist/capitalist mainstream Dems or something, and none of it was real, and that the media and capitalist powers that be only perpetrated the hoax because they don't approve of Individual 1's non-aggression toward Russia...or something?

I don't know, is there some weird fetishism toward Russia, due to historical connections with communism? Meh...I'll go read the article....

[srobertss]

7. Michael Isikoff interviews Glenn Greenwald...

...in the latest podcast of Skullduggery, entitled “Trump’s Bullshit.” I found this to be helpful, even though I’ve read some far left critiques of the Russia investigation. What finally boiled it down for me was when Isikoff posited that maybe Greenwald wasn’t bothered by Trump welcoming Russia’s help and Greenwald agreed. He thinks that Dems would have done the same in the reverse position and that jeopardizing relations with a nuclear power over this is dangerous. I think Greenwald also feels that the US doesn’t behave any better than Russia on the world stage. He doesn’t seem to care that Russia is opposed to democracy.

[plimsoll]

10. Mr. Greenwald wants perfection.

Glenn Greenwald is an absolutist. He isn’t wrong that our government does bad things too, but in his mind doing bad things means we’re no different than the Russians.

Being aware of the skullduggery the US has engaged in is not a reason to support attacks on the US. It is a reason to try and change the way we behave. From my observations I’d say that the GOP has never thought covert invasions, interfering with other peoples elections was wrong, and it’s not wrong to say that Democrats hands are far from clean. On the other hand if I want to change that, do I try to elect people who will listen and I might be able to influence or people who are going to double down on the bad behavior.

We’re still dealing with a party run by people who think the US should thrash some small country every now and then just to show the world we can. Perfection is the enemy of the good, but it seems willing to tolerate evil.

[Wounded Bear]

4. K & R...for visibility...

Don't forget that one couldn't walk around Trump Tower during the campaign without tripping over some Russian oligarch.

[Scarsdale]

5. Same at the innaugual

festivities, too. Seems that not too many of them attended the actual swearing in, since his "crowd" was sparse. They donated plenty, as we will eventually discover. Most of it ended up in tRump's bank accounts.

[Raastan]

8. K + R

[plimsoll]

9. And nothing about the Foreign Corrupt practices.

I’m not a skeptic, but I also wasn’t surprised that the Mueller didn’t contain an outright statement of collaboration between Trump, his campaign and the Russian government. That last phrase seems critical to me, Russian government. We talk about oligarchs, but don’t seem to understand what that means. If a small cartel of extremely wealthy people are pulling the strings of the government, would they let the government get it’s hands dirty when it found a kindred spirit running for election in a hostile country?

Donald Trump has come out as being opposed to the Foreign Corrupt Practices laws. He is a white collar criminal the Trump Tower Moscow was a kickback scheme. This is more about institutionalizing kickbacks to the oligarchs, which Trump believes himself to be.

As such I wasn’t surprised that there was nothing to convict him of collaborating with the Russian Government, he was working with the governors of the government. Legally it’s not the same thing.

Now we’ve established that he didn’t collaborate with the government, how about the Foreign Corrupt Practices. There wasn’t any word of him not being guilty of those. Should I assume that Bill Barr put out what he did because there was ample evidence of that?

[DeminPennswoods]

12. Remember Jeremy Bash's succinct summary

Trump Asked for, Received, Benefitted from and Rewarded Russia's assistance.