President Donald Trump waves in New Orleans, La., January 14, 2019. (Carlos Barria/REUTERS)

The blockbuster New York Times story from over the weekend mentions some items that attracted the attention of the FBI. A number of them have been widely misunderstood by conventional wisdom. You would think the FBI would have a better understanding of these matters than the average reader of the New York Times and viewer of MSNBC, but perhaps not.


One suspicion-generating item was Trump’s call during the campaign on Russia to hack Hillary’s email, but he clearly meant it sardonically.

Another was the alleged softening of the GOP platform on Russian and Ukraine, which didn’t happen.

Then, there was Trump’s Lester Holt interview, where he didn’t actually say he was shutting down the investigation because of Russia.

Of course, Trump surrounded himself with reprobates like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone and fueled suspicions by never saying a discouraging word about Vladimir Putin, but none of the above were good supporting reasons for investigating him for allegedly being a Russian agent.