"Can the

Washington Post

prove they're not a Russian asset?" one

wrote

. "Until then they are not exonerated."

With the Washington Post stuck in a mud-slinging meme war with Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump, the capital's paper of record has found itself on the receiving end of internet trolls' meme-cannons.Confused? The sordid saga began Friday, when the Post published an op-ed titled "Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset," in which columnist Dana Milbank accused the Senate Majority Leader of selling out to the Kremlin by refusing to bring a trio of anti-election-meddling bills to the Senate floor. That the bills came bundled with untenable (to the GOP at least) Democratic demands was immaterial;Asked by reporters on Tuesday to respond, President Trump said, "The Washington Post called Mitch McConnell what?Though Trump has called the Post "garbage,""fiction," and "more like a poorly written novel than good reporting," "Russian asset" is a new one for the president.The irony wasn't lost on McConnell, however.tweeted his campaign team, with the patronizing just dripping from the emojis.The president's re-election "War Room" followed suit, jabbing the paper with a snarky rewording of the Mueller Report's insinuations about obstruction of justice:"If we had confidence that the @washingtonpost is not a Russian asset, we would so state. Based on the facts, however, we are unable to reach that judgment."Other twitter users joined in with glee,faced in 'Russiagate' inquiries.This may sound harsh, but the Post only has itself to blame. Over the past three years, the paper has devoted itself to treating Trump's every word as a serious statement of deadly intent, and ran columns listing "18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset,"