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Trump Russia Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 11, 2017 51 Comments
The NY Times has an article today about email exchanges between Donald Trump Jr. and a person setting up a meeting with a Russian lawyer promising damaging documents and information about Hillary Clinton's connections to Russia. In a preemptive move, Trump Jr. published the email exchange on Twitter (here and here) just before the Times published its story. The emails are highly embarrassing and politically damaging, but as usual, the media and other Trump opponents are overstating the case. The media overstating the case and popping the champagne corks are probably the best things Trump Jr. and the Trump administration have going for them.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on July 11, 2017 28 Comments
On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough stared into the camera and invited people to contact him if they're aware of a presidential campaign that accepted "oppo research or support" from a foreign power. The question was based on a quote, shown on the screen, from former Romney campaign strategist Stuart Stevens asking whether any other campaign in history had received "oppo from foreign interests." Joe's invitation came in the context of a discussion of a meeting of senior Trump-campaign people with a Russian purportedly offering oppo info on Hillary Clinton. Of course, based on what's now known, Trump's campaign people didn't actually receive oppo research, just an offer of such in order to get a meeting.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 10, 2017 11 Comments
Richard Painter is the Vice Chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a left-wing activist group. In December 2016, Painter replaced in the position of Vice Chair ... wait for it ... David Brock. Yes, that David Brock, the consummate Democratic oppo-research attack dog, leader of Media Matters, and now American Bridge. That David Brock was Vice Chair of CREW tells you everything you need to know about the group. But you will almost never hear this part of Painter's resume when he appears on TV, which he does quite often. You might hear that he's a professor at U. Minnesota Law School. But most of all, you will hear that he is a former George W. Bush administration Chief Ethics Lawyer (2005-2007).

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 10, 2017 110 Comments
The NY Times breathlessly reported yesterday that Donald Trump, Jr. and others involved in the Trump campaign met with a Russian lawyer who got the meeting by claiming she had damaging information on Hillary Clinton. So the Trump people did what any campaign would do when promised damaging oppo research - they took the meeting. Does anyone in their right mind think the Clinton campaign (and the media) would not have taken the meeting with such a tease of information? There is no indication that the promised information related to hacking or anything illegal. The media has been pushing the mostly (if not entirely) bogus "Dossier" on Trump, which reportedly was based on Russian sources, so the feigned outrage is hardly credible.

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 07, 2017 8 Comments
*This post will be updated as more information comes out.* President Donald Trump met privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany. At first, media thought Trump would not bring up accusations that Russia interfered with our presidential election in 2016. But after the two hour meeting ended, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that is the first topic Trump brought up.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 30, 2017 21 Comments
Trump's Twitter activity sucks the oxygen out of almost all other news. So much so that nemesis Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill getting caught in another lie about never meeting the Russian Ambassador flew mostly under the media radar. Back in March 2017, when Russia-mania was in full fury, Claire McCaskill attacked Jeff Sessions for allegedly (but not in reality) answering a confirmation hearing question inaccurately concerning meetings with the Russian Ambassador. The confusing compound question to Sessions focused on meeting the Ambassador as a campaign surrogate, which Sessions denied doing.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 28, 2017 28 Comments
James O'Keefe's Project Veritas dropped the second video of a series to expose the media's bias against President Donald Trump. This video catches CNN's Van Jones, one of the more prominent leftist contributors, admitting the Trump-Russia narrative is mostly a "nothing burger." Yesterday's video showed a CNN producer calling the narrative "mostly bullsh*t."

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 27, 2017 17 Comments
James O'Keefe's Project Veritas released the first video in a series they claim will expose the bias of mainstream media outlets. The video released Tuesday shows an investigator questioning CNN producer John Bonifield about the President Donald Trump-Russia narrative that has dominated the news cycle. Bonifield admitted to the investigator that Trump "is probably right to say, like you are witch hunting me" and that the narrative is "mostly bullsh*t right now" and the network doesn't "have any giant proof."

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 26, 2017 14 Comments
CNN has changed rules on how the company handles stories about Russia after the network had to retract and delete a story on Friday. BuzzFeed reported that CNNMoney executive editor Rich Barbieri sent out an email on Saturday that told employees they should not "publish any content involving Russia without coming to me and [CNN Vice President] Jason [Farkas]."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 26, 2017 13 Comments
In a transparent attempt at blame-shifting, former Obama spokesman Josh Earnest has tried to place responsibility for President Obama's failure to respond effectively to Russian meddling in the election . . . on Republicans. It's been reported that Obama was paralyzed into inaction by fears of seeming to help Hillary during the campaign. Appearing on today's Morning Joe, Earnest said:

"The first time, [McConnell] didn't have time to schedule time to talk about it. This is something that Republicans did not take seriously, and that did hamstring our efforts to respond to this as effectively as we would have liked."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 24, 2017 17 Comments
Yesterday, we noted Kellyanne Conway mocking CNN's Russia fixation. Conway told Alisyn Camerota: "I know that we just like to say the word 'Russia, Russia' to try to mislead the voters. And I know that CNN is aiding and abetting this nonsense as well.” Well, if CNN likes to say "Russia, Russia," we'll need to multiply that 28 times to understand the depth of MSNBC's obsession with the subject. In the first hour of Joy Reid's MSNBC show this morning, the word "Russia" or "Russian" was heard . . . 56 times!

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 23, 2017 38 Comments
When Robert Mueller was first appointed Special Counsel, I thought, given his generally good reputation, that this might be a streamlined process with fewer leaks, focused on either proving or disproving allegations of Russian interference. But I did acknowledge, for example in this radio interview, that there was a risk that in the wrong hands the powers vested under the Order appointing Mueller could be abused:

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 23, 2017 10 Comments
Interviewed by Alisyn Camerota on CNN this morning, Kellyanne Conway wanted to discuss the progress that the Trump admin has made on a variety of fronts, from job creation to regulation roll-back to health care. But Camerota cared about one thing only: Russia, and a just-published Washinton Post report that Putin ordered efforts to hurt Hillary and help Trump. Eventually, Conway had enough:

"Alisyn, I know that we just like to say the word "Russia, Russia" to try to mislead the voters. And I know that CNN is aiding and abetting this nonsense as well."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 22, 2017 21 Comments
On today's Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski strongly suggested that President Trump is in cahoots with the Russians, saying "it's kind of hard not to think that [Trump] might be in on some sort of scheme." Earlier, Mika recycled the Trump/Nazi card. She invited Jon Meacham to draw a historical parallel to President Trump. When she asked him "what this is reminiscent of if you had to make a parallel," Meacham drew the comparison to President Nixon at the end of his tenure. That wasn't what Mika was looking for, so she tried again: "what is this reminiscent to, even outside of the United States?"

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 21, 2017 31 Comments
The Democrats' obsession with Russia-Trump collusion conspiracy theories has been long on innuendo, and short on facts. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy has been a leader in spreading the innuendo. During a February interview with CNN, Murphy warned it's "as scary as it gets":

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 19, 2017 47 Comments
It seems ages ago, but was just a couple of months ago that controversy swirled around former National Security Advisor Susan Rice's "unmasking" of names from classified intelligence reports. We reported on the inconsistencies in Rice's story on April 3, Susan Rice unmasked? Previously said “I know nothing about” Nunes allegations, and the following day on her interview by Andrea Mitchell, Susan Rice: Sought unmasking but “absolutely not for any political purpose”:
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