Years after the fact, the Media Research Center has desperately clung to the right-wing narrative that any talk of links between Donald Trump and Russia is a “hoax.” P.J. Gladnick groused in a July 19 post:
How can it be that in 2025, some leftists are still pretending that Russian collusion is a theory that hasn’t been disproven? That it’s not “fully digested”? There’s still hope, even if “clarity never came.”
Such was the case with Keith Gessen, contributing writer for New Yorker magazine, who was reviewing a book bout the CIA, “The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century,” written by Tim Weiner (no relation to Carlos Danger aka Anthony Weiner).
Waves of Trump derangement flowed from Gessen in his Wednesday screed, “What Will Become of the C.I.A.?.”
[…]Apparently Gessen hasn’t (or pretends he hasn’t) heard about the results of the Mueller Report which concluded, as even the leftist NPR was forced to report that “Mueller Report Finds No Evidence Of Russian Collusion.”
If Gladnick had bothered to read beyond the headline of that NPR article he cited, he would have known that Mueller also found “two main efforts by the Russians to interfere in the 2016 presidential campaign.”
The next day, however, Trump official Tulsi Gabbard did a document drop regarding allegations of links between Trump and Russia. And Jorge Bonilla hyped the heck out of it in a July 20 post:
Across the legacy media Sunday dial, there was just one mention of the explosive declassification and publication of documents related to the Russia Hoax by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Rest assured, it wasn’t a bipartisan panel segment or an interview with Gabbard- but CBS’s Margaret Brennan bringing on the ranking House Intel Democrat in order to firefight the release and subsequent actions.
[…]The issue, of course, was never whether Russia may or may not have tried to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, but whether they colluded with then-candidate Donald Trump in order to do so (the Mueller Report found no evidence of such collusion). This collusive myth was the basis of the Steele Dossier, which undergirded the Russia Hoax that torpedoed the peaceful transition of power. ODNI Gabbard’s document drop confirms that subversion and establishes that it came from the very top.
This is what Brennan and Himes are firefighting here.
The real firefighter here is Bonilla — though, really, he’s more of an arsonist — because he has a partisan narrative to push. But as Mediaite’s Colby Hall reported, Gabbard’s document dump doesn’t support what Bonilla wants you to believe it does:
To anyone only casually following this ma[n]y iterations of this story — the Mueller investigation, the Durham Report — or feels like they are impossibly caught in the infotainment whirlpool of cable news, that storyline might have some resonance. After all, the Mueller probe did end without charging Trump or his campaign with criminal conspiracy.
But what’s been lost in the political trench warfare over “Russiagate” is a wealth of damning, meticulously documented findings that prove Russian interference wasn’t a hoax—it was a hostile operation. And one that had eager and knowing partners in key Trump associates.
[…]At best, she is playing fast and loose with the truth to curry favor with a media ecosystem that thrives on contrarian hot takes and Deep State paranoia. At worst, she is knowingly promoting a revisionist history that erodes public trust in institutions precisely when such trust is needed most. Most likely, she is following some sort whispered directive to create a distraction from the so-called “Epstein Hoax” that appears to be splintering Trump’s MAGA base and is currently on week three of a terrible news cycle for the White House.
Gabbard’s accusations don’t just rewrite the facts—they gaslight an entire nation. They imply that the Russian attack on our electoral system was either fabricated or exaggerated, despite overwhelming bipartisan agreement that it was real, sustained, and effective.
[…]If Gabbard wants to be seen as a truth-teller, she should start by telling the truth. Because in this case, the record is clear: Russia interfered. Trump’s campaign welcomed it. And no amount of Fox News conspiratorial pontificating will change that.
Again, that’s not the narrative that the MRC gets paid to peddle. So it was stuck hammering the “Russia hoax” hoax over the next few days:
- CNN’s Jake Tapper Joins Russia Hoax Declassification Firefight
- Rep. Jim Jordan: ‘There are 3 Key Dates’ in Crafting of Russia Collusion Hoax
- Legacy Media Parrot Obama Talking Points on Russia Hoax Doc Drop
- DNI Gabbard Embarrasses Liberal Journalists to Their Faces Over Russian Collusion Hoax
- OMISSION: Legacy Newscasts PUNT on Russia Hoax Doc Drop Revelations
- Big Tech Testimony, Twitter Files Corroborate DNI Tulsi Gabbard Memo on Trump-Russia Hoax
Gladnick returned to whine that people made a logical conclusion about Gabbard’s document dump:
Epstein! Epstein! Epstein!
Please keep your minds focused on Jeffrey Epstein and his connection to President Donald Trump! No other story should be allowed to divert your attention away from Epstein and Trump.
That definitely seems to be the attitude with Politico which is now treating the unfolding of the shocking details of Team Obama and their role in basically staging a coup against incoming President Donald Trump in December 2016 as really nothing more than an annoying diversion away from EPSTEIN! That is the basic theme of Tuesday’s article by Politico‘s White House correspondent Eli Stokols, “Deflecting Epstein questions, Trump urges DOJ to ‘go after’ Obama.”
[…]Stokols really really wants you to see the revelations provided by the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as nothing more than an obvious diversion from an issue that really matters (to Politico), Epstein.
But Gladnick offers no proof to the contrary. Meanwhile, Curtis Houck similarly whined in a July 24 post:
On Thursday, CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today seethed over President Trump and his administration — led by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — have continued to drive home the stunning report that then-President Obama and his Deep State leadership worked in late 2016 and early 2017 to lay the predicate for the Trump-Russia collusion hoax that cost the country years of wasted time and ruined lives personally and professionally.
This, they declared, was leveled “without evidence” to “rewrite” history and “change the subject” from what the liberal media have settled on as their latest possible white whale to remove Donald Trump from office: the Epstein files.
NBC senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake was particularly disgusted, huffing “the White House is dismissing” the Epstein hullabaloo “as fake news and seemingly moving to change the subject by attacking former President Obama over his handling of the 2016 Russia election interference investigation.”
Haake then lied himself about the real truth of the Trump-Russia probe, throwing around the dreaded “without evidence” line (which is almost always a tell from the liberal media that they themselves don’t want to talk about something):
[…]If there’s “no evidence,” then why was the lack of confidence in the particulars of Russia’s election meddling operation left out of a December 2016 Presidential Daily Brief and why was the Steele Dossier elevated inside and outside government if it was known to have scurrilous claims?
Houck is just cherry-picking here. And the MRC has already expressed its annoyance that non-right-wing media is covering the Epstein story, so it is gladly following Trump’s orders to distract, distract, distract.