Matt Taibbi: As the Mueller Probe Ends, New Russiagate Myths Begin
"Donald Trump couldn’t have asked for a juicier 2020 campaign issue" On Sunday, Attorney General William Barr sent a letter to Congress , summarizing the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller ’s Russia investigation. The most telling section, quoted directly from Mueller’s report, read : “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” That one sentence should end a roughly 33-month national ordeal (the first Russiagate stories date back to July 2016) in which the public was encouraged, both by officials and the press, to believe Donald Trump was a compromised foreign agent. After the 2016 election, the storyline instantly became that Trump was an illegitimate president, a foreign operative who’d cheated his way into office and would therefore need to be removed ahead of schedule. There were...