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The news of the Russiagate Hoax appears to be reaching the public after all … — 19 Comments

1. The Federalist “Washington Post Hides Russiagate Facts From Readers While Peddling PR For Disgraced Hoaxers”
   https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/08/washington-post-hides-russiagate-facts-from-readers-while-peddling-pr-for-disgraced-hoaxers/

2. sdferr:

   That’s the first link in my post.

3. Ah, sorry neo, I checked your links first, thought I got all of them but evidently was mistaken! Apologies again. Eyesight is going to crap, so I expect this sort of dumbf-ery to increase. (And heck, as Plato says “Two and three times, the good things” dis kai tris t’agatha)

4. They don’t gatekeep information any more.

   Over the years they have lost the capability to gather facts, instead they must be fed facts, by big corporations and government who give them press releases that reporters can stick their bylines over. But people don’t want to hear what the government or big corporations want to tell them. People have caught on that this is not information, but marketing.

   So of course they go to crazy people, usually podcasts and YouTubers I guess. I too am getting old and cranky, though not so far along as the median here, and don’t appreciate audio or video: the information transfer is too slow and the format discourages critical thinking as it is difficult to find again where something was said to compare it to something else.

   We’re back to the pamphleteers of the eighteenth century, and people have to decide who they are willing to listen to. They are not going to be any better factually informed, but at least they have a choice of narratives. No one is ever going to be able to set up an institution to relieve us from the obligation of thinking critically about what people are trying to tell us; in the mid-20th century, the Age of Cronkite and Lippmann and such people, we only had the illusion of it.

5. sdferr:

   No need to apologize. It’s fine.

6. Sean Davis speculates on Hans Mahncke’s observation.

   Mahncke:

   One of the most striking revelations in the newly released Durham Appendix is that the steady stream of intelligence flowing from Russian sources throughout 2016 abruptly ended in late July. This intelligence covered everything from Hillary Clinton’s efforts to cover up her email scandal to her campaign’s plan to smear Donald Trump with false Russia collusion allegations. The documents span from January through late July 2016, the moment when U.S. intelligence discovered that Russian operatives were aware of Clinton’s plan to vilify Trump.

   Here is where the story takes a darker turn. That crucial late July intelligence was briefed to President Obama by then–CIA Director John Brennan on August 3. The very next day, Brennan placed a direct call to his Russian counterpart, Federal Security Service Director Aleksandr Bortnikov. Officially, Brennan warned Russia to cease election interference. Yet at that time, no confirmed interference had occurred. In fact, even months later, both the FBI and NSA expressed strong skepticism about the central claim that Russia had hacked and leaked Democratic National Committee emails.

   So what did Brennan really communicate to Bortnikov? The sudden stop of the intelligence stream right after the Clinton plan was exposed strongly suggests Brennan signaled to the Russians—either directly or indirectly—that U.S. intelligence had uncovered their knowledge of Clinton’s scheme. The result was the immediate drying up of that valuable intelligence channel.

   https://x.com/HansMahncke/status/1951367026901131483

   Davis:

   If Brennan deliberately tipped off the Russians, who were unaware their communications had been compromised, that they needed to zip their lips to protect Hillary, that moves the whole discussion from a conspiracy to defraud the the U.S. to a discussion about actual sedition and treason committed by Brennan.

   https://x.com/seanmdav/status/1951377206560579853

7. Of course, while a lot of Democrats may well concede that crimes were indeed committed against Trump, I’ve no doubt that many of them will feel those crimes were fully justified. They’ll believe that Obama and Hillary’s scheme was necessary to stop the Bad Orange Man, or at least they’ll believe that it was well intentioned but maybe a bit foolish at worst. They’ll view it as a lesser evil to protect us from the greater evil… or whatever delusion they concoct to justify the actions of the Saintly Obama and company.

8. The news of the Russiagate Hoax appears to be reaching the public after all …

   But why is this so surprising?

   History moves in cycles, not straight lines.

   America is a very dynamic country. The rules have changed again.

9. But what will be done to the perpetrators of the Russia Hoax?
   Call me cynical, but if they aren’t jailed it’s all mute. They can’t be shamed, because they have no shame. They and the MSM and their followers will claim all is well because there was no prison sentences.

10. @John: But what will be done to the perpetrators of the Russia Hoax?
    Call me cynical, but if they aren’t jailed it’s all mute.

    OK, you are cynical. Is there some Olympic medal for cynicism which conservatives compete for? It sure seems like it.
    ____________________________

    You can’t always get what you want
    But if you try sometime
    You just might find
    You get what you need.

    –Rolling Stones, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” (1969)
    ____________________________

    We need the truth of Russiagate in the record. That’s not nothing.

    Now we are also getting public awareness. That’s not nothing either. Who knows how far this will go.

    It won’t all be for nothing unless we see the Whole Lot frogmarched in orange jumpsuits to prison, as satisfying as that would be.

    Already we have seen many miracles of turning back the Woke Democrat tide. Attitude of gratitude and all that.

11. The stage is being set for ” all the sudden”, syndrome!

12. Hispanics are more cynical about the scandal than either black or white voters, with 66% saying serious crimes were committed and 74% wanting accountability, compared to 51% and 65%, respectively, for blacks and 53% and 69%, respectively, for whites.

    This is perhaps because there is some memory—often passed down through generations—of misgovernment in the countries where they or their forbears came from. This could make them more aware of, more sensitive to misgovernment. A former neighbor told me his grandparents fled revolutionary violence—10% of the population killed—in Mexico in the 1920s. Or the neighbor from Venezuela—though she left Venezuela years before Chavez. When hitching I once got a ride with a guy driving back to Mexico for vacation, who complained about the extortionate car insurance rates he got charged for 2 weeks there. (But there are many Hispanics in Texas whose ancestors were there before the Anglos came…)

13. “Hispanics are more cynical about the scandal than either black or white voters, with 66% saying serious crimes were committed and 74% wanting accountability”

    Silver lining – Democrats will now favor border control, except for Middle East terrorists, I mean “asylum seekers”.

14. @ FOAF > Silver lining – Democrats will now favor border control, except for Middle East terrorists, I mean “asylum seekers”.

    I suspect they will continue to favor importing illegals so long as the criminals, I mean “asylum seekers,” are counted in the census for apportionment. The benefits outweigh any losses in genuine votes, and there are too few of them voting to make a difference for Democrats (yes, Virginia, illegals have been caught voting).

    I hope Trump keeps fighting this fight, because NO illegal alien should affect representation.
    They are NOT “residents” anymore than a legitimate visitor (tourist, diplomat)is.

    https://thenewneo.com/2025/08/07/trump-calls-for-new-census-that-doesnt-count-illegal-aliens/

15. @ Gringo >”(But there are many Hispanics in Texas whose ancestors were there before the Anglos came…)”

    Also in California, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona – maybe other states.

    RANT:
    I am NOT a “Welsh-American” or “Irish-American” despite my genetic inheritance.

    Continuing to call people with Spanish ancestors “Hispanics,” or all black people “African-American,” is an attempt to perpetuate racial and ethnic strife for political purposes.

    They have NO political ties to South America or Africa now, any more than I do to Wales or Ireland.

    My naturalized Liberian friends are African-Americans (if we are willing to set aside Teddy Roosevelt’s advice), but their children born here are unhyphenated Americans with a lovely dark complexion.

    It is obviously different in other places, but in the schools my children and grandchildren went to (Texas and Colorado), if you listened to a bunch of the kids talking without LOOKING at them, you could not tell what their skin colors were.
    And the kids did NOT care at all.

16. This is why you’re seeing the slow movement by the Administration on Epstein. The media is so hung up on the fleeting hope they could use it to destroy Trump that they’ve totally ignored Russiagate.

17. @ sdferr in re Brennan tipping the Russians in 2016: He was a Communist in the past. There is no evidence he ever quit being one.

    Politifact tries to downplay that with a “fact check” in 2018, and makes a couple of claims (without evidence, in the current parlance).
    Fisking ensues.
    https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/jul/19/ron-desantis/was-john-brennan-once-member-communist-party/

    According to Brennan, the polygrapher asked him, “Have you ever worked with or for a group that was dedicated to overthrowing the U.S.?”
    …
    “I froze, because I was getting so close to coming into CIA and said, ‘OK, here’s the choice, John. You can deny that, and the machine is probably going to go, you know, wacko, or I can acknowledge it and see what happens,'” CNN has quoted Brennan as saying. (We searched for video but did not find it.)

    Brennan told the polygraph operator that he had voted for Hall, but added that he was never a member of the Communist Party.

    [AF: Consider how Brennan explained his decision: he was afraid the polygrapher would notice an outright lie, but would disclosing one vote satisfy the polygraph question?]

    Speaking at the conference, Brennan said he was relieved to have been accepted into the CIA, because he worried about having compromised his chances by being forthcoming.

    “I said I was neither Democratic or Republican, but it was my way, as I was going to college, of signaling my unhappiness with the system, and the need for change. I said I’m not a member of the Communist Party, so the polygrapher looked at me and said, ‘OK,’ and when I was finished with the polygraph and I left and said, ‘Well, I’m screwed.'”

    [AF: And he should have been rejected; ask anyone who takes those tests for their clearances and are bounced for much less.]

    [AF: AND given the revelations of CIA shenanigans now, and the speculations over the years, Brennan may have been accepted BECAUSE he was a Communist.]

    Brennan’s former CIA deputy chief of staff Nick Shapiro told PolitiFact Florida that it wouldn’t make sense for someone who was a secret communist to out themselves repeatedly.

    [AF: Excuse me? That’s a staple of political suspense thrillers for disarming suspicion.]

    Our ruling
    DeSantis said Brennan “was a member of the Communist Party during the Cold War.”

    Brennan has openly confirmed voting for a Communist Party candidate for president in 1976 [Gus Hall]. But the DeSantis campaign did not provide evidence that he was a card-carrying party member, and we did not find any.

    [AF: How hard did they look? I have seen occasional reports over the years indicating that some functioning members of CPUSA were instructed to NOT “carry cards” so that they had plausible deniability of their membership. Try finding those on the internet again! PS I am not a “card-carrying” member of the Republican party – am registered as Independent – but I vote GOP exclusively these days.]

    Voting for a particular candidate in a party does not make the voter a member of that party.

    [AF: They got that correct, but any vote indicates at least some sympathy and support for the selected candidate’s party platform (or actual policies, given the sometimes wide deviance from the published preferences).]

    Because it contains an element of truth but twists facts to give a different impression, we rate this claim Mostly False.

    [AF: Politifact just described the modus operandi of the Regime Media, most notably the NYT and WaPo, which manage to write stories in which every statement is objectively true, but the selection of what to print and what to omit makes the story as a whole Fake News.]

18. What was that saying oh yeah: The truth will out!

19. @John,

    I think you mean “moot”.

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moot

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