Trump presented his Russia hoax theory to a court. It went poorly.

[Nevilledog]

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Philip Bump
@pbump
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Donald Trump and his friends spent years cultivating a theory about the Russia probe in the safety of their conversational universe.

Then he brought it out into the real world and showed it to a judge and the judge laughed at it and stomped on it.

washingtonpost.com
Analysis | Trump presented his Russia hoax theory to a court. It went poorly.
Perhaps the theory should have been kept in the media bubble where it originated and thrived.
9:26 AM · Sep 9, 2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/09/trump-2016-russia-clinton/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/xgpT2

One of the hallmarks of Donald Trump’s tenure in American politics has been the extent to which he remained cocooned in his own world.

As president, that was often literal: He moved from the White House to his properties to tightly controlled events and to boisterous political rallies, rarely coming across critics or skeptics. It was also true of his presence in the public conversation. He had his Twitter universe and his Fox News conversations and he was content. Outsiders would peek in and report on what he was doing and saying and how it was received, but with a Star-Trek like result: There was no observable impact on the universe being watched.

It was a rhetorical terrarium, self-contained and self-sufficient. An ecosystem where nonsense thrived and spread, where conspiracy theories competed Darwinistically for dominance. So his vague dismissals of the Russia investigation as a hoax in early 2017 had, by 2021, become complicated organisms, vines stretching and intertwining throughout the pro-Trump media universe.

And then, earlier this year, a change. Trump proudly removed his Russia theory from its home and presented it to the court, like a kid digging up a dandelion he’d been watching in his yard and offering it as a horticulture contender at the state fair. The verdict, offered in a filing on Thursday, was probably not what Trump would have hoped.

Suffice it to say, he did not earn a blue ribbon.

*snip*

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Why Trump World is suddenly focused anew on the Russia scandal

The Senate intelligence committee found that Russia interfered with the 2016 election but TFG and his supporters want to rewrite history and pretend that Putin did not help elect TFG

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https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-world-suddenly-focused-anew-russia-scandal-rcna45243?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma

To be sure, on the surface, this isn’t altogether new. Republicans were eager to dismiss, discredit and disregard the Russia scandal since its origins, largely out of partisan necessity: The truth was a disaster for Trump and his political operation, so their allies set out to assure Americans that we need not trust our lying eyes.

But the matter has taken on new urgency in recent weeks, as the former president faces an intensifying scandal over classified materials he brought to his glorified country club and didn’t want to give back. The implicit pitch from Trump and his allies is far from subtle: Sure, federal law enforcement is investigating a series of possible felonies, and sure, it looks like the former president is in real legal jeopardy. But the Justice Department took the Russia scandal seriously, too......

But for everyone else, now seems like a good time to review five core truths about the Russia scandal.

Russia attacked the American elections in 2016
Every U.S. intelligence agency and lawmakers from both parties have long agreed that the Kremlin launched an expansive and expensive covert military intelligence operation that targeted the U.S. political system in 2016. This basic fact is no longer contested — except by Trump, who publicly declared that he found Vladimir Putin more reliable than his own administration’s officials — and its importance is too often overlooked.

Russia’s goal was to put Trump in power
The Kremlin’s operation was not politically neutral: Moscow attacked our elections in the hopes of helping dictate the outcome. According to the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies, the Mueller investigation, and the multi-step investigation from the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee, Russia saw Trump as a prospective ally and believed it would be in its interests if the Republican were in the White House.

Russia and Team Trump were political allies
As regular readers know, investigations from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team and the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee documented the extent to which Trump and his team welcomed, received, and benefited from Russian campaign assistance. (They also obstructed the investigation into this assistance — by some measures, 10 times.)

The evidence also showed there was coordination and high-level connections between Trump’s political operation and those responsible for the attack on our elections. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report at one point literally described a “direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services.”

Team Trump lied about its communications with Russia
No, really, Team Trump lied about its communications with Russia. A lot. Out loud and on record. Over and over again, Trump and his spokespersons insisted there were absolutely no interactions between the Republican, his political operation, and their Russian benefactors. We now know definitively that they were lying — though they still haven’t been forthcoming about why.

The Russia scandal led to a series of felony convictions and prison sentences
For an alleged “hoax,” the Russia scandal led to an amazing number of federal prosecutions. In fact, the investigation — the one Lowry derided as “a national fiasco” — led to the convictions of, among others, Trump’s White House national security advisor, campaign chairman, deputy campaign chairman, foreign policy advisor, personal lawyer, and to the indictment of 13 Russian nationals who interfered in our elections as part of the larger plot.

[crickets]

2. Ah, that was a pleasure to read. nt

[Duppers]

3. K & R