The Patriot Post® · The MSM Russian Obsession

Mainstream media outlets across the nation this morning essentially ran the same headline — Attorney General Sessions Lied About Not Meeting With Russians. Democrats couldn’t cue up fast enough to offer their best renditions of Joseph McCarthy in calling for Sessions’ immediate resignation. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who had been an especially vocal critic of Sessions during his confirmation hearings, bloviated, “We need a special prosecutor totally independent of the AG. We need Attorney General Jeff Sessions — who should have never been confirmed in the first place — to resign. We need it now.”

So what’s the story here? Did Sessions lie? The short answer is no, because context is crucial. It was revealed Wednesday that Sessions had met twice with the Russian ambassador before the election. One meeting was in an official capacity in his role as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the second was a public meeting at the Heritage Foundation directly after a speech Sessions gave. Neither meeting had anything to do with Donald Trump’s campaign. At his confirmation hearings, Sessions was asked if he had communications with the Russians regarding the Trump campaign. Sessions responded, “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in [Trump’s] campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.” In a questionnaire, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asked whether Sessions “had been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day.” Sessions’ replied, “No.”

In reality, there are two components to this story, the Leftmedia’s fiscal bottom line and the Democrats’ resistance agenda. The mainstream media is trolling a molehill of a story, seeking to play it up to scandal proportions as a means to gain attention and sell advertising. There is almost nothing to this story, but because of the juicy Russian component the MSM can feature it for great click bait. For the Democrats, the story serves as yet another vehicle to further their “Trump is an illegitimate president” mantra and the narrative of the Russian election-meddling conspiracy. We’re sure it’s pure coincidence that this story broke just after Trump’s hugely successful speech.

So, stay tuned, as one can expect more of these types of non-scandal scandalous stories from the Leftmedia far into the foreseeable future.