Thread by @jholbo1

It's very neat and tidy, as Philip Bump notes. And that's suspicious. So here are the possibilities. It's real or fake. It was leaked deliberately by the Kremlin or not. It's supposed to hurt Trump or not. 1/ washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/…

It might seem obvious at least that it's supposed to hurt Trump. But it's not obvious. Because, almost certainly, it won't hurt Trump. The Kremlin leaking that it has kompromat on the sky, to the effect that it's blue, won't cause more people to believe the sky is blue. 2/

There's a good chance it will help Trump, therefore. Normally we don't apply the 'no such thing as bad publicity' show biz rule to political scandals. But the effect of this leak is to put the focus back on 'Russia Russia Russia' and that's good for Trump. 3/

Per that viral thread Greenwald helped spread, 'Russia Russia Russia' is Trump's best justification for keeping up the Big Lie. He is entitled to say 2020 was fraud, even without evidence, as payback for the Russia 'hoax' from 2016. 4/ outsidevoices.substack.com/p/author-of-th…

So suppose - just suppose - you are Putin and you want to help Trump, in 2021, going forward to 2024. (Because you've got kompromat on him or just because he's a known fool and ongoing threat to US stability.) How would you? You could fake up stuff, like this, and leak it. 5/

Or, strange to say, you could just leak real documents from 2016. What's harm in showing your real cards, if you're Putin? Sane people have already guessed with high confidence. You aren't telling the crazies anything bad that will disabuse them of their Trump cultism. 6/

You hereby keep 'Russia Russia Russia' in the news, while Trump trumps around, trumpeting the Big Lie. And that's good for Trump. But it also serves as a gentle reminder to Trump: remember who got you here. 7/

Of course that raises the question: what kompromat could they have that would be worse than, say, an open leak that they have kompromat? In 2016 this leak would still have killed Trump, probably. In 2021 even bad leaks are a wash in MAGA-land. 8/

I'm not a peeliever, particularly. I always figured it was most likely financial. These papers apparently say the evidence was gathered while Trump was visiting Russia, but that could still be financial. Whatever. It could be something Trump would deem more embarrassing. 9/

Anyway, let's continue on the assumption that this is a deliberate Kremlin leak to help Trump - and send him a gentle 'remember' reminder. Do you leak real papers or fake ones, if you are Putin? It's sort of a toss-up. Start with fake. 10/

Fake may be debunked in weeks or months to come. That will for sure feed the MAGA narrative that 'Russia Russia Russia' is fake. If I were writing the Ludlum novel, I'd call this one "The Gettier Conundrum". Leaks of fake material, by the Kremlin, telling the truth. 11/

Leaking real documents, on the other hand, will cause them not to be debunked in the weeks, months, years to come; will lead to an absolutely unbridgeable epistemic gap in 2024. MAGA will believe this stuff is fake, hence 'all is permitted'; everyone else will know it's real. 12/

Final possibility. What if you leak documents that are half-true? What do reasonable people know at this point? That there were ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Putin. The Trump Tower deal Trump lied about. Manafort. Meetings to coordinate re: Hillary's emails. 13/

It could be that the Russia stuff doesn't really go much beyond what we know. What we know is really bad, but it could be worse. But we don't know it's worse. But that leaves Putin with flexibility to fake up credible evidence that it's much worse and we're none the wiser. 14/

If I were Putin and I wanted to farm chaos, going into 2024, I'd get creative about leaking - real and/or fake - from 2016. That's the point when the epistemic world-lines split into the MAGA-verse of Madness, in which 'Russia Russia Russia' is fake, and the real world. 15/

Final thought: Trump and the GOP. Kremlin Papers, real or fake, the GOP is hell-bound in a deplorable handbasket. If it turns out that the Kremlin Papers are real, the GOP still has precisely one plank in its platform: Trump. Their nearest exist is far behind them. 16/

I do not hereby opine on the authenticity of these Kremlin Papers. They are suspiciously tidy and the timing is odd. But they won't hurt Trump, and will probably help him, enlivening MAGA's bitter, implanted 'memory' that 'Russia Russia Russia' was a Deep State hoaxcoup. 17/

Am I missing anything? 18/

Final thought: if Putin were going to leak real/fake docs about Trump being compromised, to help Trump - if that makes sense - why wouldn't he have done it already? Answer: before Jan 6 we didn't know that we were through the looking-glass. MAGA is with him no matter what. 19/