The Democrats are stuck on Russia because they’ve got nothing else, and their base has swallowed their lies about “muh Russia” over the past three-and-a-half years – hook, line, and sinker. The latest Russia hoax being played out in the Democrat-media echo chamber is that, according to the Washington Post:

[Acting Director of National Intelligence] Joseph Maguire had been considered to be nominated for the DNI post, but Trump’s opinion shifted last week after he learned from a Republican ally that the intelligence official in charge of election security (Shelby Pierson, who works for Maguire) gave a closed briefing last Thursday to the House Intelligence Committee. The Post claims that while we don’t exactly know what Pierson said in the meeting, “the president erroneously believed that she had given information exclusively to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the committee chairman, and it would be helpful to Democrats if released publicly, the people familiar with the matter said.” And what did the Post claim that information was? According to their narrative: “Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, in a disclosure that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him.”

But that’s not all, as the Democrats have added a twist in which they are using that fake news to smear Democrat Socialist Bernie Sanders, too.

US intelligence officials reportedly believe the Kremlin is attempting to manipulate both sides of the upcoming presidential election — boosting Bernie Sanders and President Trump. The cascade of revelations reached a fever pitch on Friday as Trump heatedly disputed the assessment that Russia was helping him, and The Washington Post reported that officials told Sanders about the Kremlin’s support for him in this year’s hotly contested Democratic primary. Sanders said he was briefed about the Kremlin’s attempts to intervene in the 2020 election last month and questioned the timing of the story, which broke the day before Nevada voters caucus. “Why do you think it came out?” Sanders sarcastically asked. “It’s The Washington Post? Good friends.”

Hilarious! Even Bernie knows he’s being set up. How do you like them apples, Bernie, as you get a little taste of what the President has had to endure over the past 3+ years?

And lightning struck at CNN as Jake Tapper – he of Russian dossier advocacy fame – has essentially debunked that WaPo report (although the Democrat-media complex is trying to keep the story alive for political purposes):

A national security official I know and trust pushes back on the way the briefing/ODNI story is being told, and others with firsthand knowledge agree with his assessment. Thread/ — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

On her Fox News program, Laura Ingraham explored the topic with Eric Felten, a reporter at Real Clear Investigations, and Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). You may remember that Felten broke the story that FBI agents in Rome passed classified information to Christopher Steele in October 2016, as reported here. Here is some of their Q&A:

Ingraham: This all happened a week ago, but we’re hearing about it now after a horrifically bad debate performance by the guy they thought was going to drop in with all this cash and take it from the socialist. How convenient. Nunes: Thank you for pointing out how ridiculous this is. Maybe all the fake news reporters will finally find the nude pictures of Trump that Adam Schiff and the Democrats were looking for. This is so idiotic. Notice how when they win elections, the Russians didn’t do anything [e.g., in 2018]? If the Russians and Putin supposedly only like Republicans, why did they let the Republicans lose the House of Representatives, and Nancy Pelosi won last time? It’s never gonna stop because they don’t have any other issue. Ingraham: Here is the list of sanctions that President Trump has actually put on Russia in 2019 alone: Dec: Sanctions for $10M hacking scheme

Sep: Sanctions for 2018 election interference

Sep: Sanctions for Syria sanctions-evading scheme

Aug: Sanctions for Salisbury attack

May: Sanctions for human rights abuses

March: Sanctions for Ukraine aggression

March: Sanctions for Venezuela dealings That’s just a smattering of what [has been put in place]. How does any of this make sense [that the Russians are “pro-Trump”]? Felten: Well, part of what makes sense of this all is that the President has some reason to be dubious about his intelligence community. If we look at the first instance of the President’s interaction with the intel community, you had that defensive briefing [during the 2016 campaign] that had agents from the Crossfire Hurricane team there to try to get information they could use on the President. The FBI also lied about the FISA [warrants] to the FISA court to get information that would allow it to do wiretaps on Carter Page. I reported last week at Real Clear Investigations that the FBI team met with Christopher Steele in Rome a month before the election and gave him highly classified information. So there are all these reasons for the President to be distrustful of his intel community, which is a really damaging and dangerous thing. You need trust and cooperation between the chief executive and the intel community. Ingraham: Former CIA chief and noted Russian hoaxer John Brennan tweeted today: “We are now in a full-blow national security crisis. …” We are now in a full-blown national security crisis. By trying to prevent the flow of intelligence to Congress, Trump is abetting a Russian covert operation to keep him in office for Moscow’s interests, not America’s. https://t.co/Vj6lUV5ZNu — John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) February 21, 2020 Is there any evidence that Trump tried to keep this briefing from any of you [members of Congress]? Nunes: No, and it’s totally idiotic. Don’t forget another thing that happened today. Another thing that really set them off is yesterday [Wednesday] the President summoned back Ambassador Richard Grenell from Germany. Amb. Grenell – a very accomplished person – has done a great job in Germany … has really led the fight for NATO to pay more. And so this is somebody that they don’t want because he’s not one of them, and they know that they can’t control Amb. Grenell. And that’s been one of the problems throughout the whole Deep State affairs that we’ve been dealing with for three-and-a-half years. If you actually say something like, “Hey, we’ve got some dirty cops here, and there might be a problem with the FISA, or the whole thing was a hoax, or the Mueller people wrote a bunch of garbage…” If you say any of that, you were immediately [marked as] a denier. But the fact of the matter is that these guys have lost their minds. Vladimir Putin is not running some operation with Donald Trump. There’s no evidence of that. All this is, is they don’t have anything to run on, and so they’ve gotta make up Russia again. Ingraham: It’s the party who cried “Russian wolf.” And nobody believes them. They keep promising their base this big payoff – “now we’ve got him.” And the Democrat Party base is getting angrier and angrier … [but] nothing is happening, and his approval rating is at an all-time high. And by the way, consumer confidence, business confidence is up, up, up. The natives are getting restless in the Democrat Party because they keep over-promising that they’re gonna get Trump and not delivering anything. Felten: I think your analogy of the boy who cried wolf is apt, which is you can’t have the intel community saying the Russians are doing this [and the Russians are doing that] when they’re not actually doing them in the way that the intel community is saying they’re doing them because when the Russians do show up with bad intent, people are not going to believe them. Ingraham: By the way, Joe Biden weighed in on the Russian news tonight. Here’s what he said at the latest CNN unending town hall. Biden: “We were deeply involved in the intel community when I was vice president. We knew it then they [the Russians] had been involved. They continue to be involved, and I guarantee you they’re involved, and the fact is, I expect whoever did that briefing is about to be fired.” We saw the circular reporting last week – intel leaked to the Democrat House members, then it goes to the media so they can create a news cycle. This keep happening. Leak, news cycle, Trump’s in bed with some nefarious force, etc. Nunes: This is the same play that they run over and over again. It’s like the famous movie “Groundhog Day.” For three-and-a-half years, we wake up and see the same old thing, but … I don’t think anyone is buying it [anymore]. I just left a huge Republican dinner here in the San Joaquin Valley in California. President Trump was out yesterday. It was actually a joke tonight. Everybody was actually talking about how the news is back to Russia again. Nobody is going to believe this garbage. Ingraham: By the way, China’s economy has just a slightly bigger economy than Russia – the size of France’s [actually China’s economy is 10 times the size of Russia’s]. Nobody’s worried about China. Everybody [in the Democrat-media complex] is believing them on the coronavirus … China never tells a lie, China never cheats on trade deals, but Russia is always the big problem. Follow the pattern and you’ll know what the factual conclusion should be.

End of the Q&A. The general agreement is that no one believes this latest Russian hoax except for the Democrat base, who have been conditioned by the Democrat-media echo chamber to accept every new “Trump-Russia claim” as gospel, no matter how outlandish. Fool me once; shame on thee. Fool me twice, shame on me. Except for Democrats, it’s apparently: fool me as many times as you like because it’s what I want to hear. But then, maybe the light went on upstairs for a few Bernie bros who are scratching their heads after their tin god Bernie got painted with the same brush, too. Stranger things have happened!

Cynical me believes that even the Democrats know their continuing string of Russian hoaxes are dead on arrival with most of the American public, who have seen the leak-media-leak-echo spin cycle on Russian allegations repeated and debunked enough times to have figured out the Democrats’ game. That means the real Democrat objective is to keep the hoaxes alive for their base because that’s all they’ve got at this point to keep their voters motivated – just as Devin Nunes said.

The end.

Stu Cvrk served 30 years in the US Navy in a variety of active and reserve capacities, with considerable operational experience in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. An oceanographer and systems analyst through education and experience, Stu is a graduate of the US Naval Academy where he received a classical liberal education which serves as the key foundation for his political commentary. He threads daily on Twitter on a wide range of political, military, foreign policy, government, economics, and world affairs topics. Read more by Stu Cvrk