Behind the sensational Western media coverage now linking the US
president’s son to alleged Russian collusion in the American election, the real
euphoria stems from relief that, at last, some «evidence» has been found.
For more than
seven months now, the US corporate media have been running unrelenting claims
that somehow Donald J Trump colluded with Russian state-sponsored hackers to
get elected over his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton.
The media
campaign has been dismissed as a witch hunt by Trump. Perhaps more sinisterly,
US-Russia relations have also become deeply toxic due to the allegations. Not
even a friendly meeting between Trump and Putin at last weekend’s G20 summit in
Germany seems able to lift the poisonous cloud over bilateral relations.
However, the
never-ending «Russia-gate» story was, to be frank, at risk of boring people to
death from the sheer lack of evidence to shore up the conjecture of Trump being
a Russian stooge. Despite the fact that three separate government probes have
been working on the issue, they have nothing to show for it.
Then this
week the «Russia-gate» story-tellers got a lifeline with reports that the
president’s eldest son, Donald Jr, held a meeting with a Russian lawyer over a
year ago at Trump Tower in New York City. The disclosure came from emails sent by
Trump’s son to a mediator who promised «dirt on Clinton» that would damage her
election campaign.
Democrats,
Republicans, supporters of Clinton and the anti-Trump media are now cock-a-hoop
that they have a «smoking gun» to prove the narrative of Trump-Russia
collusion. Trump Jr is being accused of betraying his country by consorting
with a foreign enemy, Russia.
A Washington
Post comment noted:
«Donald Trump Jr’s emails are the clearest indication yet that Trump campaign
officials and family members were willing to deal with a foreign adversary in
their mutual goal of taking down Hillary Clinton, and their revelation is
dramatic proof that the Russia investigation is alive with no end in sight».
Meanwhile,
the New York Times reported: «Rancor at
White House as Russia Story Refuses to Let the Page Turn». It goes on to
comment with a tone of satisfaction: «Every time the president tries to put the
furor behind him, more disclosures thrust it back to the fore, and people close
to him are anonymously blaming one another».
What the
media outlets decline to say is that the Russia-gate story has not gone away
precisely because the media have dutifully amplified leaks and anonymous
intelligence claims – more accurately, innuendo – pillorying Trump as a Russian
patsy.
The Deep
State rulers of the US, comprising the military-intelligence apparatus, never
wanted businessman Trump to become president. Unlike Clinton, Trump was
insufficiently hawkish towards Russia. Ever since his shock election last
November, the Deep State and its media machine have been full throttle to oust
the «wrong president». The «Russian collusion» claims are the spearhead of this
attack, an attack could qualify as a «soft coup» against the elected president.
With Trump’s
son now admitting that he met with a Russian lawyer last summer as the head of
his father’s election campaign, the anti-Trump campaign senses a mortal wound
and are going full pelt to exploit it.
But the drama
has the hallmarks of yet more media-driven sensation that is out of all
proportion to the facts. Trump Jr’s lawyer dismissed the latest claims as «much
ado about nothing».
The Russian
government, which has consistently rejected any claims of interfering in the US
election, said that the
speculation about Trump and the «Kremlin-connected attorney» is «making a
mountain out of a molehill».
As Trump Jr
told Fox News this week, he held the meeting simply because he was interested
in hearing «opposition research» on Hillary Clinton. As it turned out, no such
information was forthcoming and the meeting ended inconclusively after only 20
minutes. That was the end of it. Apparently, Trump Sr wasn’t even told about
the brief interview, so insignificant was it at the time.
It seems a
fair and plausible observation that Trump Jr was simply doing what any
political campaigner would do. Get dirt on opponents.
The US media
are thus guilty of «protesting too much» about what is a rather prosaic matter.
Apart from the obvious axe they want to grind against President Trump, the
other reason for the media hysteria over the latest twist in the Russia-gate
affair is that the Deep State and their media machine have, at last, something
resembling hard evidence. This is why they are grandstanding. It is from relief
that they have found something approximating a story to justify all the months
of shrill speculation.
The hypocrisy
of the pious media, pundits and politicians over Trump Jr’s betrayal is quickly
revealed when one considers that Hillary Clinton’s campaign actively worked
with the CIA-backed Kiev regime to dig up dirt on Trump during the election,
as reported by
Cristina Laila. «Where is the call for Hillary Clinton and her aides to be
interviewed by the Senate intelligence panel», she asks.
According to
US media interviews given by
Nataliya Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer at the center of the Trump brouhaha,
she is adamant that she was not acting for the Kremlin. The Kremlin also denies
knowing her. She maintains that she not did approach the Trump campaign to
provide «dirt» on Clinton, but rather to lobby against US sanctions imposed on
her Russian business clients.
The claim
that Veselnitskaya was «acting on Russian government information to help Donald
Trump» apparently stems solely from the assertion made by the former British
tabloid journalist Rob Goldstone, who wrote to Donald Jr to set up the meeting.
It was Goldstone who described the meeting with Veselnitskaya as conveying
«Russian government information to help your father’s campaign».
In other
words that is not «proof» of Russian government involvement. It is simply
hearsay from a tabloid hack with self-serving reasons.
Questions
that the US media should be asking are: Was Goldstone hamming up his Russian
government claims in order to sell Trump a mediation service and a scoop? Also,
how did private emails between Goldstone and Trump end up in the possession of
the New York Times? Did Goldstone flog them to the newspaper in order to cash
in on the brewing Russia-gate scandal?
The lawyer
for the family of Emin Agalarov, the Russian singer who asked Goldstone to set
up the meeting between Trump Jr and Veselnitskaya, has now come out to rubbish
the claims made by Goldstone.
«The vast
majority of what Rob Goldstone said in email exchange with Donald Trump Jr is
not accurate», Agalarov’s family attorney, Scott Balber, told RT. «The only thing that’s
true is that Emin asked the meeting to be arranged. The rest of it is not true,
it’s false».
As with so
much else in the Russia-gate affair, the latest twist seems to be another
concoction to turn wild speculation into the semblance of fact. It is as if the
US media conceived the headline «Trump colluded with Russia» a long time ago,
and have ever since been chasing to find a «story» to fit the headline.
There are too
many holes in the whole Russia-gate affair for it to stand up. It is only the
servile US media operating on the agenda of the powerful anti-Trump Deep State
that make this non-story appear to stand up.
So desperate
is the Deep State to oust Trump from office, it is willing to damage US-Russia
relations beyond repair, to the point of risking all-out war.
