Democrats and the media have been falling over themselves trying to dig up evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
For over a year they have insisted evidence exists.
Now one bombshell has taken the investigation in an unthinkable direction.
The latest Russia “bombshell” is a series of emails from Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen.
They showed that Cohen and the Trump Organization pursued a licensing deal for Trump Tower in Moscow in September 2015.
But the deal was abandoned in January 2016 and Trump never visited Moscow and the deal never got through the planning stages.
Cohen’s correspondence with Russian developer and Trump Organization associate Felix Sater excited the media.
But it proved to be yet another example of an overhyped Russia “bombshell” failing to live up to the hype.
Sater wrote that the deal would help Trump become President.
The Huffington Post reports him bragging in an email to Cohen:
“Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,” Sater wrote. “I will get all of Putins [sic] team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”
“I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,” another email said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
But documents Cohen turned over to Senate investigators do not include any responses, and Cohen himself said he didn’t take what Sater said seriously considering his history of colorful language and boasting.
In addition, the story continued to fall apart when it was revealed that Cohen emailed Putin government spokesmen Dmitri Peskov for help with permits.
The media treated this as definitive proof that Trump’s businesses and the Russians were in bed together.
But New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman threw cold water on that story.
She pointed out that Cohen emailed a general Russian government address and that he did not have Peskov’s personal email.
It was the equivalent of emailing a company’s “contact us” form at their website and hoping to get a response from the CEO.
Anyone who had any real connections or was actually trying to obtain an answer would not use such an email address.
Michael Cohen did indeed email Putin flak Peskov…at a general email addy equivalent to the [email protected] Not Peskov's email.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 28, 2017
It suggests he did not actually have access to Peskov, as opposed to being evidence of his strong connections. https://t.co/IGSbU6XwPj
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 28, 2017
In addition, this story proved Trump’s continued insistence throughout 2016 that he had no ties or deals to Russia.
In July 2016, Trump also tweeted that he had no deals or ties to Russia.
That was true.
This proposed deal never got off from the planning stages and quickly fell apart.
Far from proving collusion, this story about a failed real estate deal actually showed how nonexistent the connections between the Trump Organization and the Russian government actually were.
And once again, it offered no evidence of any collusion between the Russians and Trump associates.
The meat of the story was about a real estate deal and had nothing to do with the 2016 contest.
It was just another case in point of media hype and sensational headlines failing to hold up under scrutiny.
