The overarching trend in the Russiagate investigation has been to make sweeping gestures that fill headlines and then never follow up on those headlines, as key information is retracted or forgotten about. A prime example of this happening is when media outlets reported that all 17 U.S. Agencies had confirmed Russia meddled in our election; that number was later retracted to 4 Agencies. But people don’t remember the retraction; they remember the sensationalized headlines and will, to this day, repeat the lie that all 17 Agencies confirmed Russia “hacked our election.”
This pattern continues as Mueller announces indictments on 12 Russians for “hacking the DNC.” Since no evidence has been presented that Russia hacked the DNC emails, instead the indictments themselves are touted as ample evidence to support that claim; which is simply absurd. Additionally, the timing of these new indictments is suspicious, because of the other recent indictments made against Paul Manafort for criminal corruption charges. Now these Russiagate conspiracy-mongers can lump in these erroneous, baseless indictments with the valid corruption indictments, as if they’re all valid. And again, you’re not allowed to accurately point out that there is no evidence to back up these indictments, because the indictments themselves are somehow evidence that Russia hacked the DNC. Clearly, Mueller doesn’t actually want these indictments to reach any new truth; the only point is for this to litigate in court for years, so that they can leave the evidence in question and keep the truth in the dark. By the time they actually get around to revealing that their evidence won’t hold up in court, the Russiagate conspiracy-mongers will have moved onto a new target, meanwhile this grand, baseless headline will remain in the consciousness of those who buy into this Red Scare McCarthyist narrative.
Of course, while those in power withhold information from the public, we can assess the information discerned by professionals according to the metadata. With the metadata, they can see how much data was transferred from the DNC server, when the transfer started, and when the transfer ended. Using those three pieces of data it was deemed physically impossible, due to the speed of the transfer, for the data to be traveling to Russia. The quick speed of the transfer, instead, indicates that the data was stolen using a USB drive – meaning the emails were not “hacked” at all, they were leaked. So for those of us privy enough to understand the conclusions of the metadata, these paper tiger indictments are a show of how deeply Mueller and his team are willing to sully their names to cover for Hillary’s embarrassingly epic loss.
Yet for those of us with a political memory longer than a goldfish, we remember that Mueller has no integrity and is a full-throated liar. Mueller was one of the intelligence officials who testified that Iraq had WMDs and was an imminent threat and we had to invade, and now liberals hang on his every word as if he’s not a lying scumbag.
I’m not defending Trump or Russia, I’m just pointing out facts. The crimes between Trump and Russia will surmount to corruption; because Trump is a corrupt businessman – a fact we knew before he ever took office. But it’s inconvenient for Russiagate conspiracy-mongers to point out that Trump’s foreign collusion also applies to Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and the list goes on. During the campaign Trump registered 8 new businesses in Saudi Arabia, then got in power and gave them a massive weapons deal. Why is there no hysteria about Trump being a puppet for Saudi Arabia? Only Russia? The narrative makes no sense and reveals itself to be exactly that: a narrative. Clearly, they are using Russia as a scapegoat so that the establishment never has to have an introspective look as to the real reasons why Hillary lost.
The McResistance can continue clutching their pearls over imagined Russian hacking, as if that is the straw that will break Trump’s back. They could already impeach Trump on the Emoluments Clause alone (because of his business dealings with foreign governments), so searching for another reason to impeach is pointless, because this Congress clearly will never impeach. The truth is, most Americans don’t care about or believe this Russiagate narrative, and those who do vote Democrat anyway; thus continuing this pointless narrative will actually empower Trump’s second presidential run, when it turns up that there is no evidence to back up the Russiagate claims and all of this has been for naught, just like all nine Benghazi hearings. And meanwhile, you could have been fighting for policies that people actually care about and that actually help people; those of us who actually care about defeating Trump in 2020 will be doing just that: fighting for Medicare-for-All, tuition-free education, Net Neutrality, abolishing ICE, ending our foreign wars, ending the drug war, and starting a Green New Deal to transition off of fossil fuels. Remember: the same people who want us to focus on Russia are the same people who lost to Trump the first time.
James P. W. Martin 