The New York Times once again tried to further the Russia-Trump collusion conspiracy narrative with a downright laughable article Wednesday headlined “Top Russian Officials Discussed How to Influence Trump Aides Last Summer.” As usual, the story is dependent on “unnamed” sources who claimed that Russian officials had conversations about targeting Trump advisers Paul Manafort and retired General Mike Flynn, both of whom are no longer with Trump.

After painting a sinister picture of Russians actively seeking to meddle in the American political system by the implied use of some form of blackmail, the story finally gets around to its most significant sentence — a sentence that exposes the article for being nothing more than water-cooler gossip: “It is unclear, however, whether Russian officials actually tried to directly influence Mr. Manafort and Mr. Flynn.”

It’s a good bet that these same Russian intelligence officials also had conversations about who within Hillary Clinton’s camp might be influenced. In fact, it’s a good bet the Russians have been having these types of conversations since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. For that matter, U.S. intelligence officials also engage in conversations about how and who might be influenced in Russia as well as numerous other countries. This is what the intelligence community does.

By the way, back in 1984, Ted Kennedy sought Soviet interference in the U.S. presidential election on behalf of Democratic candidate Walter Mondale. And then Ronald Reagan won 49 of 50 states. But we digress…

There is so little to this Times piece that one can’t help but wonder how many trees the Gray Lady has wasted while printing evidence-free hearsay stories in search of a conspiracy theory. Fiction is clearly a hot seller for the Times these days.

(Edited.)