The Real Russiagate
By 
….has always been the ongoing Russian efforts to ratfuck American elections with the active collaboration of the Republican Party and in many cases the mainstream political press:
The former FBI informant charged with fabricating the Burisma bribery story about President Biden and his son Hunter had “extensive and extremely recent” contacts with foreign intel services, prosecutors alleged Tuesday in a court filing.
Yes, including Russian intel.
The revelation came in arguments that Special Counsel David Weiss, who is also prosecuting Hunter Biden, made for detaining Alexander Smirnov pending his trial. (Smirnov was ultimately released under conditions yesterday.)
The implications of this Russian operation are staggering, especially for the willing Republicans and right-wing media stooges who were the useful idiots propagating the disinformation for years. The James Comers, Chuck Grassleys, Jim Jordans of the world have been trafficking in this stuff as the purported basis for a Biden impeachment, which is itself tightly yoked to Trump’s campaign for re-election. Right-wing outlets, most notably Fox News, have been amplifying the claims not dozens or hundreds but thousands of times over the past several months.
Everywhere you turn, it’s Russia either helping Trump directly or indirectly by damaging Trump’s foes. The pattern is clear and persistent but also so sweeping and far-reaching that it really requires taking a step back to grasp the full scope of it all. It has dominated right-wing media, become an accepted “fact” among MAGA adherents, and allowed elected Republicans to play mainstream media like a cheap fiddle. All those breathless Biden impeachment process stories? They’re an outgrowth of this disinformation campaign.
If not quite on a level with “compliance with email server management best practices,” the star witness for the Republican impeachment effort being a Russian disinfo plant seems like a pretty major news story! I’m sure the country’s most important newspaper is all over it:
This is arguably the biggest, most important news of the past 18 hours: An FBI informant allegedly gave Kremlin anti-Biden propaganda to top Republicans who built a fake impeachment case on it. It has Putin's fingerprints all over it.
The New York Times published it on page A16 pic.twitter.com/Otyx5OZotf— David Badash (@davidbadash) February 21, 2024
Fake scandal on A1 for days on end, story on how it was all malicious bullshit on A16 — same as it ever was.