Trump's 2020 campaign is suing The New York Times for libel over an op-ed from last March about his campaign's collusion with Russia in 2016.
There's just one problem: Just about everything the op-ed alleges is true.
themoscowproject.org/dispatch/trump…
There's just one problem: Just about everything the op-ed alleges is true.
themoscowproject.org/dispatch/trump…
Here’s the op-ed in question, which says that “the Trump campaign and [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy … had an overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy.” nytimes.com/2019/03/27/opi…
That’s all pretty clearly accurate. The Trump campaign knew full well—months in advance, in fact—that Russia was attacking the 2016 election, and decided to exploit that attack rather than blow the whistle. themoscowproject.org/explainers/aid…
Meanwhile, they advocated a shockingly pro-Russia foreign policy, which, yes, included Trump suggesting he’d remove sanctions on Russia—which Putin himself said is why the Kremlin supported Trump in 2016.
politico.com/story/2018/07/…
politico.com/story/2018/07/…
And then, when Trump was elected, they began delivering on that pro-Putin platform, in ways that go well beyond their efforts to undermine sanctions. themoscowproject.org/reports/putins…
The lawsuit obviously isn’t about seeking truth. If it was, it wouldn’t suggest that the author somehow should’ve known what Mueller was going to conclude a month ahead of time, or lie about what the report ended up saying.
Instead, it’s about shutting down criticism of Trump—just like when Trump threatened to sue Mueller or the women who’ve accused him of sexual assault, or change libel laws to make it easier for him to do so. nytimes.com/2018/01/10/bus…
This is more anti-democratic behavior from Trump, the kind you typically see from, say, an authoritarian leader, or a Russian oligarch like Dmitry Firtash and Oleg Deripaska. politico.com/blogs/under-th…
It’s all part of a sustained effort to discredit the very real proof of Trump’s attacks on democracy—and to further erode democracy by establishing a presidential right to abuse power and the law to silence critics in the press and elsewhere. themoscowproject.org/dispatch/trump…
