We begin today’s roundup with an editorial from The Los Angeles Times which puts recent news stories about the Trump dossier into perspective:
Who paid for the 35-page report compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele is far less important than whether any or all of the allegations it contains are true.
As for a cover-up, it long has been known that the dossier was part of an opposition research project financed by Democrats after originally being funded by unidentified Republican primary opponents of Trump. [...]
Not for the first time — remember the bogus scandal about the supposedly improper “unmasking” of Trump transition officials whose names appeared in intelligence intercepts? — the president and his allies are seizing on a sideshow to distract attention from the main event: Russian interference in last year’s election and allegations that the Trump campaign colluded in that interference — and that Trump tried to frustrate investigations of that conduct, including by firing former FBI Director James B. Comey. Neither the public nor federal investigators should be fooled into taking their eyes off the ball.
Jonathan Chait explains the tactic of projection used here:
Having apparently decided that defending the Trump campaign against charges of collusion with Russian cyberattacks is an impossible task, the Republican Party has decided to go on offense. The House Intelligence Committee, putatively assigned to investigate collusion, is instead running a counter-investigation into Trump’s nemeses. Their argument, incredibly enough, is that the FBI and Robert Mueller are the real perpetrators of collusion with Russia. “No puppet, no puppet, you’re the puppet” has become the new Republican argument against Mueller.
