Trump’s Claim Of “Russia Hoax” Worked Like A Charm

Created
Thu, 16/11/2023 - 07:00
Updated
Thu, 16/11/2023 - 07:00
Philip Bump took a deep dive into Trump (and Barr’s) successful effort to turn Russia’s manipulation of him into a “fake news” story. There’s a lot there and I can only excerpt a piece of it. But you can read the whole thing with this link: Out there in the broader world, the “Russia collusion hoax” skeptics are abundant, if not a plurality of the public. There has perhaps been no sales pitch offered by Donald Trump that has paid larger dividends than his immediate, long-standing push to cast any questions about Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 campaign as the deranged rantings of weirdo liberals. He’s inculcated an immediate, visceral reaction from members of his base as well as Americans more broadly that when they hear “Russia” in the context of “Trump,” they should dismiss what follows as false and defamatory. This reaction has provided him an enormous amount of space to avoid very serious questions about the ways in which Russia worked to his benefit while he was in office — and may continue to do so. There is news on this front. On Monday, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) brought charges of treason against Oleksandr Dubinsky, a former member of the Ukrainian parliament. Dubinsky is accused of helping Russia to spread “fakes about the alleged interference of Ukrainian high-ranking officials” in the United States’ 2020 presidential elections, according to a Post translation of the charges. Dubinsky has long been an ally of another Ukrainian politician, Andriy Derkach. The SBU accused Derkach last year of having…