by: Glenn Greenwald March 16 2017, 11:41 a.m. FROM MSNBC POLITICS shows to town hall meetings across the country, the overarching issue for the Democratic Party’s base since Trump’s victory has been Russia, often suffocating attention for other issues. This fixation has persisted even though it has no chance to sink the Trump presidency unless it is proven that high levels of the Trump campaign actively colluded with the Kremlin to manipulate the outcome of the U.S. election — a claim for which absolutely no evidence has thus far been presented. The principal problem for Democrats is that so many media figures and online charlatans are personally benefiting from feeding the base increasingly unhinged, fact-free conspiracies — just as right-wing media polemicists did after both Bill Clinton and Obama were elected — that there are now millions of partisan soldiers absolutely convinced of a Trump/Russia conspiracy for which, at least as of now, there is no evidence. And they are all waiting for the day, which they regard as inevitable and imminent, when this theory will be proven and Trump will be removed. Key Democratic officials are clearly worried about the expectations that have been purposely stoked and are now trying to tamp them down. Many of them have tried to signal that the beliefs the base has been led to adopt have no basis in reason or evidence. The latest official to throw cold water on the MSNBC-led circus is President Obama’s former acting CIA chief Michael Morell. What makes him particularly notable in this context is that Morell was one of Clinton’s most vocal CIA surrogates. In August, he not only endorsed Clinton in the pages of the New York Times but also became the first high official to explicitly accuse Trump of disloyalty, claiming, “In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” But on Wednesday night, Morell appeared at an intelligence community forum to “cast doubt” on “allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.” “On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire at all,” he said, adding, “There’s no little campfire, there’s no little candle, there’s no spark. And there’s a lot of people looking for it.” Obama’s former CIA chief also cast serious doubt on the credibility of the infamous, explosive “dossier” originally published by BuzzFeed, saying that its author, Christopher Steele, paid intermediaries to talk to the sources for it. The dossier, he said, “doesn’t take you anywhere, I don’t think.” Morell’s comments echo the categorical remarks by Obama’s top national security official, James Clapper, who told Meet the Press last week that during the time he was Obama’s DNI, he saw no evidence to support claims of a Trump/Russia conspiracy. “We had no evidence of such collusion,” Clapper stated unequivocally. Unlike Morell, who left his official CIA position in 2013 but remains very integrated into the intelligence community, Clapper was Obama’s DNI until just seven weeks ago, leaving on January 20. Perhaps most revealing of all are the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee — charged with investigating these matters — who recently told BuzzFeed how petrified they are of what the Democratic base will do if they do not find evidence of collusion, as they now suspect will likely be the case. “There’s a tangible frustration over what one official called ‘wildly inflated’ expectations surrounding the panel’s fledgling investigation,” BuzzFeed’s Ali Watkins wrote. Moreover, “several committee sources grudgingly say, it feels as though the investigation will be seen as a sham if the Senate doesn’t find a silver bullet connecting Trump and Russian intelligence operatives.” One member told Watkins: “I don’t think the conclusions are going to meet people’s expectations.” https://theintercept.com/2017/03/16...-to-expect-evidence-of-trumprussia-collusion/
Funny how CNN spends all their time trying to debunk the Trump wire tap claims, but zero time on the now thoroughly discredited Trump Russia collusion story the dems and left wing media have been trying to sell.
Who needs evidence of Russian conspiracies? Wild eyed speculation is all the typical leftist requires to march forward with claims of Manchurian candidates infiltrating the white house.
What are you talking about? They reported the latest developments and continue to follow on what remains undetermined. Do you actually watch CNN or just listen to those who supposedly do? Meanwhile, Fox et al continue to get Trump into trouble because he actually believes them.
The left cover media put down is invaluable. Democrats can literally throw enough shit at the wall until something sticks and the media will ignore every time they got it wrong. Maintains the illusion of credibility as everything is lost down the memory hole.
The whole thing is so patheticly shameful that it borders on the unbelievable. Compare trump's allegation to the left's allegation. Not even counting that the NYSlimes ran front page articles telling how trump's people were recorded on 'wiretap', their words, we also had illegal leaks of transcripts of what trump's people actually said. If this isn't enough to raise a credible suspicion of wiretap, then what is? So what about the left's allegations that the russians hacked the dnc and trump's people colluded? They have absolutely not a damn thing to warrant any charge of trump's people colluding with russia. Nothing at all. What about the allegation that the russians hacked the dnc? That's just taken for granted, but what makes it so? First of all, the dnc refused to let the FBI look at it's servers. FBI Says the Democratic Party Wouldn't Let Agents See the Hacked ... https://www.wired.com/.../fbi-says-democratic-party-wouldnt-let-agents-see-hacked-e... Jan 5, 2017 - FBI Says the Democratic Party Wouldn't Let Agents See the Hacked ... to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and .. Second of all, the firm that was allowed to look at the dnc's servers was a firm called Crowdstrike. It's a firm that is up to it's eyeballs in leftard connections. DNC rejected FBI request to examine hacked email server, law ... www.theblaze.com/.../dnc-rejected-fbi-request-to-examine-hacked-email-server-law-enf... Jan 5, 2017 - Crowdstrike, a Kalifornia, leftist, Soros funded, “DNC friendly” organization is the ... This private firm can afford to hire the hackers to do what the ... So a Soros funded firm did the job that they wouldn't let the FBI do, and voila, they determined that 'the russians did it!" Then they hand the results over to the IC, and they use this info to have "high confidence" that the russians did it. And we're not supposed to even consider the fact that the IC has a part of it's operations devoted to framing third parties for things. (Russia) (#vault7) And to top it all off, Trump's supposed to put up or shut up one week after his allegation and the horsesht allegation from the left has no shelf life. It can go on forever. Why doesn't trump just tell them to shove it up their ass.
Outside of the open and close, where im listening to CNBC, im on CNN all day, 95% of the coverage is negative Trump, if you want ill do up an excel spreadshee starting on monday to prove my point story by story. Last night on Wolf Blitzer they even trotted out some left wing liberal whose claim was that Cutting the EPA was going to hurt veterans because there is some veterans working at the EPA, even though Trump has specifically pledged more money to the V.A. and more money to the military. Im pretty sure you could find a veteran negatively effected by tax increases, or just about any policy for that matter, so why does CNN try to sell that kind of story unless its biased? This of course came with all the chyrons at the bottom saying "New Trump budget hurting Veterans" How is that any different than Fox news reporting everything negative on Obama day after day? There is studies out showing that cuts on the EPA will save consumers hundreds of millions of dollars a year, why is it that none of those stories ever make it on there? Someone is going to get hurt by most policies regardless, there is no free lunch, who CNN decides to put on is a very specific choice to sell a narrative. Its like when you choose to put on people serving 25 year in jail for dealing weed, instead of putting on the drug addict whose life was ruined when talking about drug legalisation. Funny how when you watch these farce townhalls CNN keeps putting on, that atleast 80% of people who get to ask questions are negatively effected. With Obamacare there was lots of losers, why is it CNN never felt the need to trot out the people who got screwed on Obamacare when that got passed?
Damning. Wow. It's painfully obvious wtf is going on here. Everything's Soros-connected. Hes got his hands in everything Secret Service Agent had her car just robbed (unlocked), laptop containing Trump Tower floor plans/security detail, and ongoing hillary email investigation info/status of investigation etc. Highly sensitive. Ongoing NYPD manhunt.
Sensitive info on laptop, left in unlocked car? Sounds like somebody wanted it to be "stolen" (wink, wink).