I’m still occasionally hearing people claim that the “stories” about “Russia” were “proven.”

This article by Matt Taibbi was so well researched that I want to repost it, so you can have it ready to share. Written on March 18, 2021, the article is titled, “Master List Of Official Russia Claims That Proved To Be Bogus: The Director of National Intelligence releases a report, and the press rushes to kick the football again.”

There were 21 such false stories, to which Taibbi cites, chapter and verse.

Taibbi himself tweeted the above article today, probably in response to this feeble tweet by the Seattle Independent:

Here is Volume I of Robert Mueller’s March 2019 Report.

I’ve still occasionally hear from some people (informally, and on the street) that “Trump conspired with the Russians to interfere with the 2016 election.”  When you next hear that claim, refer them to page 1 of Mueller’s report and ask them whether, if Mueller had concluded the opposite, whether they would have believed that:

As set forth in detail in this report, the Special Counsel’s investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.