Thread by @DrewHolden360

Remember Spygate?

Last week, an FBI agent announced he was pleading guilty to forging documents to spy on @realDonaldTrump’s campaign.

Democrats & the media assured us months ago that it was a malicious hoax, a conspiracy theory.

I think apologies are in order.

🧵THREAD🧵

We’ll start with the electeds. When AG Barr suggested that the FBI had potentially spied on the Trump campaign, many Dems were outraged.

Here’s @SenSchumer accusing Barr of “perpetuating conspiracy theories” with the suggestion.

Care to revisit, Senator?

He wasn’t alone. Here’s @ChrisVanHollen talking to, who else, @maddow, who relentlessly pushed the Russian Collusion conspiracy.

We now know that the idea that a rogue cohort within the FBI, at the blessing of Andrew McCabe, was deliberately spying on the Trump campaign.

Other senators simply laughed the whole thing off, like @SenWarren.

It wasn’t just the Senate. The lower House also got in on the fun. I’m sure you remember @RepAdamSchiff.

Still calling it “liegate” these days, Congressman?

His stance shouldn’t surprise us though, because the entire Dem leadership was onboard.

Here’s @SpeakerPelosi herself.

You didn’t think there was a dumb idea that @RepSwalwell hadn’t jumped aboard, did you?

And no one beat the drum louder for the Russian Collusion hoax than @tedlieu.

The idea that we can “thank @FBI agents like Peter Strzok who set aside his personal views...and did his job” didn’t age well.

There were lots more I just don’t have the time and space for. Here’s:

@RepTedDeutch
@MarkWarner
@RepJerryNadler

This article is a good walk through many: google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.…

And the Dems were downright restrained compared to the criticism of the mainstream media around Spygate.

Unsurprisingly, at the front of the charge was @nytimes.

Other than the Russian Collussion conspiracy theory, no single trend has degraded the present state of the media more than the prevalence of “news analysis.”

@washingtonpost made liberal (pun intended) use of it for Spygate.

But the real champion was @MSNBC. Here’s just a small cross section of the round-the-clock conspiracy theory coverage they pushed when Russian Collusion was the scandal du jour.

Also special shoutout to @ChrisMurphyCT and conspirator in chief @MaddowBlog.

You couldn’t have thought that @CNN wasn’t going to make an appearance, right?

This from @CillizzaCNN is my personal favorite.

But this was all over the news from plenty of other outlets and these threads are constrained by a tweet limit, so here’s:

@GQMagazine
@RollingStone
@politico
@VanityFair

And many of the usual galaxy brain twitter thinkers had Big Thoughts to share on the matter.

We’ll start with a solid @SethAbramson four-boxer (there were many, many more. These are just my favorites.)

Most of the usual suspects were all over this particular talking point. Here’s @JRubinBlogger accusing Barr of “conspiracy-mongering.”

Do we still call them conspiracies when they’re proven true? Asking for a pundit.

I’m reasonably sure that @MaxBoot has written at least one incorrect column about every facet of the Russian Collusion conspiracy theory. Spygate was no different.

Still think the “spying scandal” was “deranged” and “with no factual support” Max?

Noted man with podcast @jonfavs has thoughts.

Still confident it’s a “cult” Jon?

Still stand by your prediction that “it will turn out that the FBI was only trying to PROTECT the Trump campaign” there @WalshFreedom?

That’s starting to seem unlikely to me.

The Funny People™️got involved.

At the risk of sounding like a scold, I really do miss the days of humor. One of the many casualties of the everything-is-political movement.

@funder only takes homerun swings and is left waving at air almost every time.

@EvanMcMullin really went to the mat on this one. It’s almost impressive.

And from behind the block is @therickwilson.

I’ll ask again, in all seriousness: has Rick ever been right about anything since the end of the 20th century?

I’m short on space and shorter on patience. Here’s @JoyceWhiteVance, @BillKristol (go figure), @joelockhart (Barr must resign or be removed...alright), and @Susan_Hennessey

Democrats, media outlets & blue checks pushed a baseless Russian Collusion conspiracy theory, all while attempting to paint the real scandal - Spygate - as a contrived hoax, and did enormous damage to our country in the process.

And we’ve seen zero accountability. Just shameful.

A few bonus ones here because there’s too much to ignore.

Here’s @DavidCornDC, who runs @MotherJones, one of the overlooked propagandists who pushed Russian Collusion and wrote off Trump’s team being spied on.

Still think “Spygate is over. Or should be” David?

Bonus media mention. Here we have:

@BBCNews
@Reuters
@latimes
@Newsweek

Again, it’s hard to overstate how wrong the coverage here has proven. This is just a listing of some of my favorites.

And a bonus pundit round. Here we have:

@JillWineBanks (still calling it a “legit investigation”?)
@Mimirocah1
@lawfareblog (shameful what they’ve become)
@JohnJHarwood

Ditto the above sentiment: everyone with a blue check was saying the same thing. This is just a sampling.

It is patently absurd to me that everyone - EVERYONE - missed on this and NO ONE is willing to talk about it.

No accountability for the Democrats. No accountability for the media who got this story entirely wrong.
No accountability for any of them.

It’s unconscionable.

There’s been a lot of valuable discussion about the rise of conspiracy theories and the danger they pose to our body politic.

But insofar as those discussions omit the left-wing conspiracies supported by Dem electeds and the media, it’s entirely insufficient.

Active spying against a presidential campaign - a fact rejected by the entire media until it became an inescapable reality - should be an enormous, wall to wall story on government corruption.

Instead we’re talking about post office boxes being moved.