One thing to remember about today’s IG report is that this all grew out of Trump’s 3/17 tweet claiming Obama had his “wires tapped.” That was insane, but rather than reject it, the GOP rallied around a parallel allegation: that Carter Page was illegally surveilled. 1/
There was no evidence to back that up, but Sessions asked the IG to investigate the conspiracy theory. Then Rosenstein gave in to Trump and asked the IG to investigate another insane claim, that the FBI had “spied” on his campaign. 2/
Today we may find out that both allegations were false. But it won’t matter: Trump got his investigations, he effectively cast doubt over what should have been accepted reality, and he has an AG in place now who still isn’t accepting it. And of course he and Fox won’t now. 3/
The exact same thing is happening now with Ukraine. Trump has made an insane claim that Ukraine hacked the DNC. The GOP can’t defend that, so they’re advancing parallel theories about Ukraine meddling. They have raised doubts and will surely get investigations into it. 4/
So the beat goes on. Trump, with the GOP in his corner, will surely find a way to get some investigation launched into the Democratic nominee in 2020. It is their core playbook now. But the lessons here goes back to the mistake Sessions and Rosenstein made at the outset. 5/
Don’t launch investigations when there’s no evidence of wrongdoing just to satisfy people who don’t want to be satisfied. You’re not knocking down conspiracy theories, you’re furthering them. 6/
And for the press, same thing. Ignore the nonsense. Not all “questions” deserve answers. Try not to chase every shiny object, even when it has the gloss of an official investigation. That no longer means what it used to, sadly. END
