Manufacturing disinformation is important to Trump and the GOP because all that ‘perfection’ isn’t. Greg Sargent demonstrates that even as Trump admitted to shaking down Ukraine, documents need to be doctored to prove something, something. Propaganda is being marshaled against actual fact.

President Trump is now openly calling on his Republican allies to produce doctored transcripts of witness testimony that will exonerate him. Trump did not put it quite that directly, of course. But given all the known facts — and given everything we’ve seen from Trump over the last few years — there is simply no other way to read them.

It’s hard to imagine that even Trump’s GOP allies would attempt something so spectacularly absurd, and if they did, it’s even harder to imagine it would be successful.

Trump's demand that Rs falsify congressional testimony shows how his propaganda works: 1) Trump/Rs claim witness testimony privately collapsed 2) When transcripts show that's BS, media has moved on 3) Trump/Rs substitute new set of lies New piece:https://t.co/MATtG03al0 — Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) November 4, 2019

has a well documented history of manipulating government resources to prop up his lies — is calling on Republicans to create fake versions of what happened. So this is a nonsensical demand by Trump. In reality, Trump — whoof manipulating government resources to prop up his lies — is calling on Republicans to create fake versions of what happened.

But here’s the really important point: Trump and Republicans know they can right now inject the claim into the discussion that the revelations were secretly debunked, because the media coverage won’t return to this, once the transcripts show what nonsense it is. Note how the Times simply allowed Rep. Turner to float that claim, without pointing out its core absurdities.