Specifically DEMOCRATIC leaders - Schiff, Pelosi, Nadler........
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/russia-sanders-campaign-taibbi-957377/
Russiagate will soon be four years old. For the first three years, it pushed parallel themes: that Russia had “interfered” in the 2016 election, and Trump conspired in the fraud.
The latter theme at times garnered literal around-the-clock coverage. CNN and MSNBC especially (but also the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Daily Beast and other major outlets) preached to audiences that the fall of the Trump administration was imminent. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, news audiences were told, would reveal the Trump-Russia conspiracy and save the world.
After this story died a violent death when Mueller’s probe ended with no new charges, conventional wisdom shifted to a new gospel: Russiagate was about foreign interference.
Russiagate from the start smelled funny, like bad food. Multiple developments worsened the odor. Stories kept coming up wrong. There were too many unnamed sources, too frequently contradicting each other and/or overstating facts. Every hoofprint was a zebra’s. Outlets stopped worrying about relaying unconfirmed rumors, which is how terms like “blackmail,” “Trump,” “Russia” and even “Golden Showers” kept appearing in headlines, without proof there ever had been blackmail.
Moreover, while ordinary citizens like Reality Winner went straight to jail for leaking, senior government officials in the last four years repeatedly and with impunity leaked Russia-related tales. The leaks often pushed still more incorrect narratives, like for instance that that Trump aide Carter Page was a foreign agent.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/russia-sanders-campaign-taibbi-957377/
Russiagate will soon be four years old. For the first three years, it pushed parallel themes: that Russia had “interfered” in the 2016 election, and Trump conspired in the fraud.
The latter theme at times garnered literal around-the-clock coverage. CNN and MSNBC especially (but also the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Daily Beast and other major outlets) preached to audiences that the fall of the Trump administration was imminent. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, news audiences were told, would reveal the Trump-Russia conspiracy and save the world.
After this story died a violent death when Mueller’s probe ended with no new charges, conventional wisdom shifted to a new gospel: Russiagate was about foreign interference.
Russiagate from the start smelled funny, like bad food. Multiple developments worsened the odor. Stories kept coming up wrong. There were too many unnamed sources, too frequently contradicting each other and/or overstating facts. Every hoofprint was a zebra’s. Outlets stopped worrying about relaying unconfirmed rumors, which is how terms like “blackmail,” “Trump,” “Russia” and even “Golden Showers” kept appearing in headlines, without proof there ever had been blackmail.
Moreover, while ordinary citizens like Reality Winner went straight to jail for leaking, senior government officials in the last four years repeatedly and with impunity leaked Russia-related tales. The leaks often pushed still more incorrect narratives, like for instance that that Trump aide Carter Page was a foreign agent.
