Uh Oh. Washington Post Calls President Trump Out On Russia “Hoax” and Then the Fun Started

Yesterday, the Washinton Post ran a story with Philip Rucker’s byline titled Trump’s Russia ‘hoax’ turns out to be real.

When Donald Trump finally acknowledged publicly that Russians had hacked Democratic emails and interfered in the 2016 presidential election, the then-president-elect immediately regretted it. He confided to advisers that he did not believe the intelligence. The last thing Trump wanted to do was to endorse the notion that his victory may have been caused by any force other than his own strategy, message and charisma.

“Russia talk is FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks!” Trump tweeted last Feb. 26.

But Trump’s own Justice Department has concluded otherwise. A 37-page federal indictment released Friday afternoon spells out in exhaustive detail a three-year Russian plot to disrupt America’s democracy and boost Trump’s campaign, dealing a fatal blow to one of the president’s favorite talking points.

A Russia “hoax” this was not.

The indictment — signed by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and announced by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, both of whom Trump has at times mused about wanting to fire — reveals that the scope of Russia’s alleged efforts to help Trump defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was extraordinary.

Factually, this is not true. The FBI investigation found that the Russian effort was minimal in terms of people and material. The indictment clearly states that the object was to create confusion, distrust, etc. And the Russians pushed ads and themes supporting Trump, Sanders, and Stein. They attacked Rubio and Cruz and Clinton in the primary. After the election they sponsored anti-Trump rallies.

The real question, of course is when did Trump refer to the entire investigation, as opposed to the Russia collusion part, as a hoax.

If you read the article, there is no evidence he ever did. But there is this correction:

Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story made reference to a May 2017 tweet by President Trump. That reference has been deleted.

What was that “May 2017” tweet:

Notice it refers specifically to the collusion narrative which seems more and more like a conspiracy theory every day.

The article itself notes that Trump admitted over a year ago that the Russians did attempt to meddle in the election.

It was not until January 2017 that Trump’s advisers persuaded him to acknowledge for the first time that he believed Russians were behind the cyberattacks.

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, sums it up:

This Post story is simply false throughout. It is false in its characterization of the information in Mueller’s indictement. It is false in its characterization of Trump’s view of Russian meddling. But is is also par for the course for a media that that is deeply invested in opposing Trump for no larger reason than opposing him.

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