Lack of Evidence

With insider information on the Trump administration being leaked to the press with ritual frequency, Americans can be fairly certain that if any incriminating evidence regarding Trump and the Russians existed, it would have already been leaked. Sensitive conversations shared between the highest political posts in the Oval Office are repeatedly revealed to the media, often read as word-for-word accounts of conversations between Trump and important foreign officials.

So far, White House leaks have allowed the press—and therefore, the American people—unprecedented access to office gossip between low-level aides and internal disputes involving belligerent staffers. More serious breaches of national security include phone calls between the president and foreign heads of state as well as undisclosed Oval Office meetings with Russian officials.[3]

Though President Trump has been the subject of persistent systemic efforts to leak compromising information, his approval rating remains fundamentally unchanged in the wake of any damaging direct evidence.

Partisan Double Standards

It is simple to imagine an America where Hillary Clinton is president and, much like her predecessor, the toughest question the media asks her is: “What . . . enchanted you the most about serving in this office?”

The former Secretary of State would certainly get a free pass on ties to Russia. In one particular transaction, Clinton sat on a secretive board that swiftly approved the sale of 20 percent of America’s uranium reserves to a state-owned Russian company despite the potential national security threats such a deal entailed.[7]

Meanwhile, a French-owned company seeking similar board approval for the purchase of significantly less risky defense assets waited two years to have their own proposal approved. Perhaps the sudden urge by investors involved in the uranium deal to donate tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation or the generous Russian bankers’ payment of $500,000 for a one-hour speech by Bill Clinton would grease the wheels that produced the board’s approval for the deal.

Evidence of a similarly controversial deal between the Trump team and Russian big business would surely result in impeachment hearings. After all, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was compelled to recuse himself from any Russiagate investigations for simply bumping into a Russian ambassador in the presence of numerous other state diplomats at the Republican National Convention in summer 2016, demonstrating the complete intolerance of lawmakers for any interaction with Russian officials.

Unreliable Sources

An alarming percentage of media reports making bold accusations about the Trump White House today rely upon uncorroborated sources to support claims of Trump-Putin collusion. Anonymous sources claimed that Comey was requesting more assets to conduct his investigation into Trump’s ties with Moscow just before he was fired.

Justice Department spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores called this accusation “totally false.” Similarly, unnamed “officials” also claimed that the mass departure of senior State Department officials was motivated by a lack of respect for the incoming president. The truth, according to actual named sources, was that Trump requested the exodus in preparation for installing his own team.

Across the nation, unimaginative journalists are increasingly depending on unreliable or anonymous contacts to describe a chaotic, self-destructive White House living on the edge of impeachment. To relate the story of Comey’s ouster, The Washington Post relied upon “the private accounts of more than 30 officials at the White House.”[9]

In many cases, stories are going to print in which an anonymous source cites an anonymous source. To reinforce the claims of their unnamed sources, news agencies are frequently turning to each other and former Obama appointees, as if to check the journalistic box requiring at least one verifiable reference per article.