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'Full of Schiff': Top House Democrat Has His Trump-Russia Lead Blow Up In His Face

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  February 01, 2019 6:35 AM

Another day and another Trump-Russia story has blown up. Remember the Trump Tower meeting that Donald Trump, Jr. held in 2016, where he met some Russians who totally wasted everyone’s time? Supposedly, the meeting was made under the pretense that this group of Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Some have suggested that Trump Jr. committed treason and that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya just wanted to talk about the Magnitsky Act instead, which targets human rights abusers and bars them from entering the U.S. It was named after the death of tax attorney Sergei Magnitsky, who died while in custody of Russian police in what many alleged was politically motivated incarceration. Russia was furious over the bill passed in 2012 and banned some U.S. officials from entering the country along with the adoption of Russian children by Americans. 

It was a colossal waste of time for all involved. The story didn’t go anywhere. It was another Trump-Russia nothing burger that has seen multiple attempts to be resurrected as some nefarious rendezvous by the liberal media. Just stop. Then, CNN reported that Michael Cohen had knowledge that Donald Trump knew about the meeting his son had with the Russians. 

The July 2018 story read, “Then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, sources with knowledge tell CNN.” Cue up the Russian collusion machine again, right? Who was the source? Oh, that would be Lanny Davis, Cohen’s attorney, who then backtracked…everything.

“I made a mistake…I did not mean to be cute,” Davis later said. But what about the two blocked calls Trump, Jr. made before and after the dud meeting. Those had to be to then-candidate Trump, right? Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, sought to investigate these calls, but guess what: the blocked calls weren’t to Trump (via Axios):

The Senate Intelligence Committee has obtained phone records showing that President Trump was not one of the blocked numbers his son Donald Trump Jr. called before and after the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, CNN first reported and ABC News later confirmed.

The big picture: Trump Jr. made phone calls to two blocked numbers the same day he spoke with Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, who helped set up a meeting three days later with a Kremlin-linked lawyer claiming to have dirt on Hillary Clinton. He made another phone call to a private number several hours after the meeting. There has long been speculation that the calls were to his father, and that then-candidate Trump had advanced knowledge of the meeting — an allegation he has denied.

Oh, you bet Donald Trump, Jr. responded (via Fox News):

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Donald Trump Jr. late Thursday laid into House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., after reports appeared to vindicate the younger Trump of Democratic suspicions that he made phone calls to President Trump around the time of the Trump Tower meeting with Russians in June 2016.

[…]

Has anyone heard from Adam Schiff?” Trump Jr. tweeted. “I imagine he’s busy leaking other confidential info from the House Intelligence Committee to change the subject?!?”

Democrats have long suspected the calls were between Trump Jr. and his then-candidate father regarding a meeting with Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.

Schiff appeared on MSNBC Thursday night and said that Democrats were unable to confirm the reporting "because the Republicans wouldn't let us get the phone records."

The Russian collusion hysteria on the Left continues. The desperation to find some smoking gun has led to scores of pundits and Democratic lawmakers making total fools of themselves. It’s also led to appalling journalism. BuzzFeed had to eat it after two reporters, one of which was flagged by the Columbia Journalism Review as a total fake news generator, wrote that President Trump directed ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about a real estate deal in Russia. Nope. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the DOJ’s Russia probe, which never comments to the press, had to issue a statement to quell the impeachment talk that infested liberal airwaves. The Washington Post, which cleaned up BuzzFeed’s mess*, wrote:

People familiar with the matter said after BuzzFeed published its story — which was attributed to “two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter” — the special counsel’s office reviewed evidence to determine if there were any documents or witness interviews like those described, reaching out to those they thought might have a stake in the case.

They found none, these people said.

The fact that one reporter said he didn’t see the evidence to back up his story, while the other said he’s seen documents should’ve been a huge red flag. Also, the anonymous sources for the Trump-Russia collusion beat have to be taken with severe skepticism. How many times will the liberal media embarrass themselves on this front? This isn’t Watergate. Anonymous sourcing, for this beat, appears to increasingly become a cover for lefty reporters to just back up their shoddy narratives about the president being a Russian agent.

It’s sad, actually. But it’s also immensely entertaining. How many times can you bash your head against the wall and expect a different result? In the meantime, I’ll be enjoying another defeat for the Democrat-media complex.

*Though they have been a total disaster in covering Virginia Democrats' push to legalize infanticide as of late.