Whose Side Is He On?

You have to wonder... remember Trump and one of his lying rants about the fake news of the fake news?

Connecting the dots...

Dot #1

AP fact check: Trump’s exaggerations about the Russia probe

PBS

Apr 1, 2019

President Donald Trump is taking his interpretation of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation well beyond the facts.

He says he’s been fully exonerated based on a four-page summary of Mueller’s nearly 400-page report and is casting himself as a victim of illegal practices by the FBI because the agency investigated him in the first place.

But Trump is overstating his case. The FBI has legal grounds to open a probe if investigators have information they believe could lead them to a crime, even if one is not ultimately found. And the summary released by Attorney General William Barr says Mueller did not reach a conclusion about whether Trump obstructed justice.

[...]

Trump’s claims came in a week of plentiful exaggerations and misstatements, seen most prominently in a speech to Michigan supporters in which he sought credit for all manner of things, including money to clean up the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative actually was already getting that money ; Trump had proposed slashing it.

Dot #2

Shuttering of State office leaves US largely defenseless against foreign influence warfare, officials say

‘This is how we lose big wars,’ one former researcher said of the larger effort to eliminate or dismantle organizations that monitor and counter disinformation.

Defense One

By Patrick Tucker

April 17, 2025

A small office in the State Department tasked with monitoring foreign disinformation threats was shuttered Wednesday by the Trump administration, the latest in a series of steps the White House has taken since January to dismantle entities that monitor foreign influence and information campaigns, or respond to them. As that effort continues, experts say, the United States and audiences around the world could be left virtually defenseless against increasing Chinese and Russian efforts to turn global populations against the United States. 

But that’s not how the administration sees it. “Over the last decade, Americans have been slandered, fired, charged, and even jailed for simply voicing their opinions. That ends today,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted to X Wednesday in an announcement about the closure of the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference hub, known as R/Fimi. 

R/Fimi was a remnant of the Global Engagement Center, which was created in 2016 by the Obama administration to counter Russian disinformation efforts. Rubio said the GEC “actively silenced and censored the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving,” a claim that officials at the Global Engagement Center have denied and for which there is no evidence.

Dot #3

Russia is quietly churning out fake content posing as US news

A pro-Russian propaganda group is taking advantage of high-profile news events to spread disinformation — and they’re spoofing reputable news outlets to do it.

Politico

By Dana Nickel

08/17/2025

A pro-Russian propaganda group is taking advantage of high-profile news events to spread disinformation, and it’s spoofing reputable organizations — including news outlets, nonprofits and government agencies — to do so.

According to misinformation tracker NewsGuard, the campaign — which has been tracked by Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center as Storm-1679 since at least 2022 — takes advantage of high-profile events to pump out fabricated content from various publications, including ABC News, BBC and most recently POLITICO.

This year, the group has focused on flooding the internet with fake content surrounding the German SNAP elections and the upcoming Moldovan parliamentary vote. The campaign also sought to plant false narratives around the war in Ukraine ahead of President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

McKenzie Sadeghi, AI and foreign influence editor at NewsGuard, said in an interview that since early 2024, the group has been publishing “pro-Kremlin content en masse in the form of videos” mimicking these organizations.

“If even just one or a few of their fake videos go viral per year, that makes all of the other videos worth it,” she said.

Dot #4

What’s known and not yet known about the Justice Department’s scrutiny of Trump-Russia probe origins

AP News

By  ERIC TUCKER

August 5, 2025

News that Attorney General Pam Bondi is advancing a criminal investigation into the Obama-era origins of the Trump-Russia investigation means that one of the most studied, and politically polarizing, chapters of modern American history will be under the microscope yet again.

Here’s a look at what’s known and not yet known about the latest Justice Department revelation:

A saga with a long backstory

Perhaps no issue continues to aggravate President Donald Trump more than the assessment by intelligence officials that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on his behalf and the investigation by law enforcement into whether his campaign colluded with Moscow to tip the outcome of the contest.

Robert Mueller, the former FBI director tapped as special counsel by Trump’s first Justice Department to investigate, found that Russia had waged a multi-prong operation in Trump’s favor and that the Republican president’s campaign welcomed the aid. But Mueller did not find sufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign.

And the circle is complete!

Trump's claims of a "witch hunt" are now being turned into an official criminal investigation by his own Attorney General.

I asked Gemini AI... "How many time has this been investigated by congress?"

The topic of Russian interference in the 2016 election has been the subject of multiple, extensive investigations by Congress. Here are the key ones:

Senate Intelligence Committee: This committee conducted a bipartisan investigation that spanned more than three years. They produced a five-volume report that a bipartisan group of senators called "the most comprehensive description to date of Russia's activities and the threat they posed." The final report concluded that the Trump campaign's interactions with Russian intelligence services posed a "grave" counterintelligence threat and that the campaign welcomed the help it received from Russia.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence: This committee also conducted its own investigation. While the Democratic and Republican members reached different conclusions, with Republicans releasing a report that found no evidence of collusion, the transcripts of witness interviews released by the Democratic majority revealed significant evidence of the Trump campaign's efforts to seek and use Russian help.

Other Committees: Other committees, such as the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security panels, have also conducted their own reviews, particularly focusing on the origins of the FBI's investigation into the matter.

In summary, the issue has been investigated by multiple congressional committees, each producing their own reports and findings. The most thorough and bipartisan of these was the one from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Then I asked: "How many time has this been investigated by federal agencies other than congress?"

The matter of Russian interference in the 2016 election has been the subject of multiple, extensive investigations by various federal agencies. The most notable ones include:

The Intelligence Community: In January 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a declassified report, "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections." This report, a consensus view from the CIA, FBI, and NSA, concluded with "high confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign to help Donald Trump's electoral chances and harm Hillary Clinton's.

The FBI: The FBI initially launched an investigation, known as "Crossfire Hurricane," in July 2016 to look into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. This investigation was later taken over by a Special Counsel.

The Department of Justice (DOJ): The Special Counsel Investigation: In May 2017, former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed as a Special Counsel to lead the investigation into Russian interference and any links between Russia and the Trump campaign. The investigation produced a comprehensive report in March 2019, known as the Mueller Report. It documented a "sweeping and systematic" Russian effort to interfere in the election and found "numerous links" between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. While it did not establish a criminal conspiracy, it also did not exonerate Trump on the issue of obstruction of justice, detailing ten instances of potential obstruction.

The Inspector General's Review: The DOJ's Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, conducted a separate investigation into the origins of the FBI's "Crossfire Hurricane" probe. His report, released in December 2019, found significant errors and omissions in the FBI's applications for surveillance warrants but concluded that the FBI had an authorized purpose to launch the investigation. It found no evidence that the investigation was motivated by political bias.

The Durham Investigation: Attorney General William Barr later appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. The probe was ongoing for several years and ultimately produced a report that did not uncover evidence of a conspiracy by federal officials to sabotage Trump's campaign. It did, however, find significant flaws in the FBI's investigation. A criminal investigation into the matter continues.

In summary, federal agencies have investigated this matter multiple times from different angles, and their findings have been consistent in concluding that Russia interfered in the election.

What is the definition of insanity? And expecting different results... but if in this case if their new investigation finds some different then we will know who fudged their investigation to draw their conclusions.

What I would like to see after all of this is done... A FOI question: What was the bottom line of the cost of this investigation. And how does compare to the cuts to SNAP?

*****

P.S. I gave this to proofread by Gemini and it said...

The comparison you want to make is a powerful one: The government is spending tens of millions of dollars on an investigation to re-examine a conclusion that has already been reached multiple times, while at the same time, it is cutting billions from a program that provides food assistance to millions of low-income Americans.