Rather than actually defend Donald Trump and his staff for their alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 election, we now see his defenders attempting to change the topic or deflect blame to others.
Such was the case Wednesday evening on CNN, when Trump supporter Andre Bauer said “we need to get past this” and then attempted to pivot to an already disproven claim that Russia also helped the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation. That’s when host Don Lemon stepped in and laid some facts on Bauer, telling him:
“What does that have to do with anything? The Clinton uranium thing, as every single fact check has pointed out, got four Pinocchio’s from The Washington Post. There’s no truth to that at all.”
But Bauer persisted, again trying to say that the Clinton Foundation received money from Russia. And once more Lemon shut him down with facts:
“What does that have to do with anything? Hillary and Bill Clinton are not president of the United States. They are not the president.”
“How do we know Russia didn’t play both sides? The continual narrative is that Trump was somehow collaborating with the Russians.”
That’s because he’s the person who won the election! If Clinton had won, that might be a valid point, but she didn’t, so it’s moot.
Increasingly, we see those who are on the administration’s side using these same tactics. For example, Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Rather than make an honest attempt to determine the truth, as he said he would before the hearings began, Nunes has been trying to steer attention away from the Trump team’s actions and possible coordination with Russian agents and refocus it on the unproven narrative that Trump was somehow surveilled by President Obama. Does he have any evidence? None that he’s shared. We’re just supposed to believe him when he says someone gave him information that supports his bogus thesis.
All the spinning and attempts to reframe the debate only serve to reinforce what we’ve long suspected: This White House is up to its eyes in corruption.
Featured Image Via CNN Screengrab
