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EPILOGUE
I am not a Trump apologist or sycophant. He will be the first to tell you that.
In the handful of conversations and meetings I have with the president over the past year, he gently reminded me of my earlier reporting that he regarded as negative or critical of him. He had a right to do so, and it was fair. Why, then, would I write a book that is, in large part, a defense of Trump?
In truth, this book is a defense of the rule of law. It came under sustained attack by high government officials who abused their positions of power to subvert our system of justice and undermine the democratic process. Trump was their target and their victim.
As facts emerged, I became incensed that top figures at the FBI and Department of Justice misconstrued the law in a manner that could only have been deliberate. They absolved Hillary Clinton of the felony statutes she so flagrantly violated. They weaponized other laws and regulations to investigate Trump without legal justification in an effort to destroy him.
The law is inviolate. If it is to function properly as the foundation of democracy, it must be fairly and equitably administered without favor regardless of politics and circumstances. This did not happen. When the legal system is corrupted, all Americans suffer. We lose confidence in our government of laws. As Adams warned, it becomes a government of men who empower themselves to transgress the very righst and liberties we cherish.
In this endeavor, the press plays a vital role. It is an indispensable check on excessive government authority. This is what the Framers envisioned when they embraced the First Amendment in our Bill of Rights. Sadly, it did not always occur in the reporting of of this story by mainstream media. All too often, journalists were complicit in advancing our excusing the abuse of power. They convicted Trump in the court of public opinion without evidence cognizable in law. This is another reason why I decided to write this book.
Fueled by the FBI's unwarranted investigation, reporters became advocates. They condemned Trump for the least infraction and inflated any encounter with persons connected, however tangentially, to Russia. Many in the media, motivated by their own bias, drove the constant narrative that Trump and those in his orbit "colluded" with Moscow to steal the 2016 presidential election from Clinton. When the new president fired FBI James Comey, the action was immediately interpreted and portrayed by the press as irrefutable proof of obstruction of justice.
Some journalists accused Trump of being "Putin's puppet" or "a de facto agent" of the Kremlin. Articles were published implying that Trump was a "Manchurian candidate." The unfairness of the media was palpable. Rank speculation was treated as fact. Stories were agenda-driven, not information-driven. Indictment and impeachment were persistent themes in both print and television news. At every turn, the media demonized the president by declaring him guilty of the conjured crime of "collusion." It became the favored truncheon.
Examples of this abound. When Trump's lawyer, Jay Sekulow, was interviewed on ABC News by anchor George Stephanopoulos, the following exchange took place about a Trump adviser who spoke to a person with Russian contacts:
SEKULOW: There is no crime of "collusion." What is a violation of law here?
STEPHANOUPOLOS: Collusion is cooperation!Viewers were left with the impression that the act of talking with someone constituted "collusion," which equaled the commission of a crime. Yet, there was no evidence of a secret agreement to achieve some fraudulent or illegal purpose. It was all too easy for the anchor to insinuate a crime by using a word that connotes a crime. The appearance of criminality seemed sufficient for many reporters.
CARL BERNSTEIN (ON CNN): I think this is a potentially more dangerous situation than Watergate. We're at a dangerous moment. And that's because we are looking at the possibility that the president of the United States and those around him during an election campaign colluded with a hostile foreign power to undermine the basis of our democracy-free elections.
DAN RATHER (ON MSNBC): Donald Trump is afraid. He's trying to exude power and strength.He's afraid of something that Mueller and the prosecutors are going to find out. A political hurricane is out there at sea for him. We'll call it Hurricane Vladamir, if you will, the whole Russian thing. It is approaching Category Four.
JAKE TAPPER (CNN ANCHOR): This is evidence of willingness to commit collusion. That's what this is on its face.
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL (MSNBC HOST): Donald Trump now sits at the threshold of impeachment.These were, by no means, the only instances in which the media proclaimed Trump and his associates culpable of criminal "collusion." One anchor averred with certainty, "they're confessing to colluding with the Russians." Another speculated that "people might go to jail for the rest of their lives." Still another insisted that "they're acting super guilty because they're guilty." But guilty of what specifically? That vexing tidbit of information was conveniently omitted.
Throughout the Trump presidency, the media has obsessed over "collusion" without defining it. They assumed it was a crime that surely must exist buried somewhere in the vast body of dusty law books. One anchor became so giddy over the prospect of Trump's arrest, she fantasized on air about the day he would barricade himself inside the White House as federal marshals banged on the door to take him into custody. The president's imminent demise became daily fodder.
There has been no shortage of media malpractice in the age of Trump. Motivated by political bias and personal animus, some journalists were relentless in their quest to prove the president's illegitimacy and drive him from office. They abandoned objectivity and suspended their sense of fairness. They allowed enmity to cloud their judgement. In the process, the media squandered credibility, its only currency. It is no wonder that many Americans have little trust in journalists to be honest in their reporting.
The people who should read this book, probably won't. Democrats, the liberal media, and the legion of Trump-haters have convinced themselves that his election was misbegotten. But they are intellectually dishonest in believing that the president must have committed some crime with Russia. Most have never bothered to examine the facts or consult a statute. Their confidence in "collusion" is bereft of proof. They accept it as a matter of faith driven by their own bias, and teased by hope out of ignorance.
I have no illusion that what I have written in these pages will persuade them otherwise. The anti-Trump crowd is so adamant in their disdain that no amount of reason will reach them. Yet, they are equally blind to the astonishing level of corruption by those in government who sought to sabotage the president with false claims and drive him from office. Individuals who are sworn to uphold the law manipulated it for their own partisan purpose. Their self-righteous compulsion to correct what they perceived to be wrong in the electioin of Trump serves as the quintessential example of the arrogance of power.
It has been both challenging and frustrating to compose a book as event were still unfolding. It was akin to the struggle of keeping pace with a fast-moving train. There will be more revelations to come, as the Justice Department examines the venal conduct of those who cleared Clinton and targeted Trump. It may take months, if not years, before a true accounting is divulged. This is how cover-ups work. The truth is slow to emerge. Until then, the story told here presents more than sufficient facts for the reader to reach the inexorable conclusion that Trump was a victim, not the villain.
There was never any plausible evidence that Trump or his campaign collaborated with Russia to win the presidency. The FBI had no legal basis to initiate its investigation. Facts were invented or exaggerated. Laws were perverted or ignored. The law enforcers became law breakers. Comey's scheme to trigger the appointment of his friend as special counsel was a devious maneuver by an unscrupulous man. His instinuation that the president obstructed justice was another canard designed to inflame the liberal media. Sure enough, they became witting accessories.
When powerful forces in government abuse their positions of trust to subvert the legal process,and when the media acts in concert to condone or conceal corrupt behavior, democracy is threatened. Revernce to the rule of law is lost.
This is the story of The Russia Hoax.
Footnote: As some will have learned, new disclosure has surfaced about Hillary Clinton's email server having been hacked by China.
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