Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
WSJ, May 26, 2023
“The press continues to distort the plain words of the Justice Department inspector general, who explained at length why he is prohibited from inferring improper motives from improper acts by FBI officials. And when all else fails, rely on insinuation and the unprovability of a negative.”
Millions of Americans despise Donald Trump and probably think it was justified or at least good clean fun when the Hillary Clinton campaign manufactured fake evidence of collusion with Russia, and the FBI and other branches of government used this information to trammel his presidency. At least this view, whatever its faults, isn’t stupid.
But stop the presses: Now we have a real case of collusion. Since the Ukraine war, Russia’s PR operation has published lists of individuals under meaningless Kremlin sanctions. These lists are scanned by pundits, wonks and politicians to see if they can brag about being unpopular with Vladimir Putin.
Last week Russia came out with 500 more names, including some criticized by Donald Trump, like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who certified his 2020 defeat in the state, and the Capitol policeman who shot Ashli Babbitt during the Jan. 6 riot. Press commentary universally portrayed this as a Kremlin attempt to “help” Mr. Trump, but how does it help Mr. Trump, and how could Russia fail to know exactly how its action would be played in the U.S. press? How is the press, therefore, not playing along with Russia?
The word we’ve needed all along for the press and its fellow collusion-hoax promoters is disingenuous—defined by Oxford as “not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.”
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