In a bit of non-breaking news, I was right to assume that Attorney General William Barr would launch some bizarre conspiracy theories based on his interview with Bill Hemmer of Fox News. As it turns out, even I couldn’t contemplate how bizarre they would be.
If you recall, Barr told Hemmer that, as part of his investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, he was looking into the meeting in January 2017 in which James Comey told then president-elect Trump about the Steele dossier. Almost immediately, right-wing news outlets reacted by insinuating that it was people in the FBI who leaked the dossier and that perhaps Comey was attempting to blackmail Trump.
The facts are that when the New York Times published an article saying that the FBI had found no links between Trump and Russia, Steele got frustrated and began sharing his dossier with people in the media. Those involved with the investigation knew that it was only a matter of time before it became public, so they briefed both Obama and Trump about it on successive days.
The publication “American Greatness” (you can guess where they got that name) has decided that there was something nefarious about the decision to tell the president-elect about the dossier and that it must be Obama’s fault.
One question that Barr and his team should press is why did President Obama, in a meeting the day before, apparently give his blessing for the FBI director to warn the incoming president about the most outlandish accusation contained in the Steele dossier, one that remains unproven to this day. And it could lead to more questions about the handling of the dossier in the Obama White House weeks before Donald Trump was sworn in as president.
In their telling, giving Trump a heads up that a “salacious” document was about to be released was an attempt to “intentionally rattle” him. In their minds, that raises the question, “So, why didn’t Obama stop Comey?” You’ll never believe the answer they came up with.
Is there a possibility that the January 6, 2017 ambush by Comey was Obama’s revenge for Trump’s “birther” comments? Is there a possibility that the entire Trump-Russia election collusion hoax was meant as payback for Trump? Will any journalists bother to ask?
Got it? The entire Trump-Russia hoax was Obama’s payback for Trump’s non-stop peddling of all that birther nonsense. Wow! Why hasn’t someone come up with that one before? The right-wingers are sure that Attorney General Barr will get to the bottom of it all though.
To suggest that Trump’s troubles are all a plot by Obama to get revenge for his birther nonsense is almost too delicious. Underneath it all is a recognition that Obama deserved some revenge. Of course, the 44th president exacted that beautifully at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner. But that might have gone completely over the heads of Trump’s dedicated supporters—leaving them wondering how the former president would ever get payback. They’ve finally come up with an answer: the Trump-Russia hoax.
What kind of twisted mind does it take to come up with this stuff? Honestly, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
