A piece in New York magazine has drawn attention for a graphic element that purports to sketch the multiple connections between President Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin and suggest their plot to place Trump in the White House began in 1987.
On the Trump side of the graphic are names such as Felix Sater, Michael Cohen, Erik Prince, Rex Tillerson, Roger Stone and Paul Manafort. On the Putin side are Natalia Veselaitskaya, the Russian lawyer who set up the Trump Tower meeting with an offer of dirt on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, former Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak, Julian Assange and the Alfa Bank.
But the material in the story itself is perhaps more illuminating. It says Trump began commenting on world affairs in 1987, the same year he published “Art of the Deal,” his bestselling book. He also visited Moscow that year and came away questioning why the U.S. was paying to defend countries in Western Europe that could afford to defend themselves.
“How do you even think about the small but real chance – 10 percent? 20 percent? – that the president of the United States has been covertly influenced or personally compromised by a foreign power for decades?” writes Jonathan Chait.
“The unfolding of the Russia scandal has been like walking into a dark cavern,” Chait wrote earlier in the piece. “Every step reveals that the cave runs deeper than we thought, and after each one, as we wonder how far it goes, our imaginations are circumscribed by the steps we have already taken.” – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Last week a group of Republican legislators traveled to Russia to meet with lawmakers on a host of issues. But if one was to watch MSNBC – specifically, Rachel Maddow’s program – they would walk away thinking the Republicans didn’t bring up election meddling or Russia’s invasion of Crimea.
On July 3, Maddow used her eponymous program, which is second only to Sean Hannity in number of average viewers, to falsely suggest the GOP lawmakers didn’t even bring up these hot-button topics during their four-hour meeting with Russian lawmakers.
“[Russian parliament] has also been bragging about how the Americans haven’t raised any real complaints at all; not on Crimea, not on them messing with the election … uh, it’s been awesome,” Maddow said. “That is not how these things usually go.”
Maddow then brought on a guest, former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, to agree with her that it was “disappointing” that the GOP delegation didn’t discuss tough issues with Russian lawmakers.
On Maddow’s MSNBC blog, Steve Benen published a piece two days later making the same claim, and included two paragraphs from a Washington Post article that quoted Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), who attended the meeting, as saying: “I’m not here today to accuse Russia of this or that or so forth.” From that quote, Benen made the claim that Republicans didn’t discuss Russia’s election meddling or its invasion of Crimea. – READ MORE
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