The Briefing: Trump drowns out the danger he’s facing

Buffalo News (NY)

May 25--WASHINGTON -- The noise emanating from the White House is drowning out the news.

That's the only conclusion that can be drawn from a poll released this week that shows 59 percent of Americans surveyed think special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election has not uncovered any crimes.

In fact, it's uncovered plenty. Four people, including former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, with Flynn and Papadopoulos admitting they lied about their contacts with Russian apparatchiks. A fifth person pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge. All five are cooperating with the investigation.

Meantime, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort has been indicted on charges tied to his campaign work in Ukraine, and 13 Russian citizens and three companies were charged with spreading propaganda aimed at dividing the nation and aiding the Trump campaign.

That's a lot for the American people not to notice, and it's a sign that President Trump's media strategy appears to be working.

He spelled out that strategy in a speech four years ago, long before many people other than Trump himself thought he could be president someday.

"When somebody attacks you, attack them back, stop it," he said in a National Press Club speech at the time. "Get it stopped. It's so important. In my opinion, it's so important. So, that's the way it is."

That quote explains why Trump has been hitting the FBI so ferociously as the Mueller investigation has delved deeper into campaign, his presidency and his business connections.

Witness "Spygate," the latest chapter in Trump's effort to avert America's eyes from what's really happening in the Russia probe. Thirteen times between Sunday and Thursday, Trump tweeted an attack based on the fact that the FBI hired an informant to talk with various Trump campaign sources during the very beginnings of the Russia investigation back in the summer of 2016.

Here's how it started:

So suddenly, and with gusto, Trump turned a two-year-old investigation into possible foreign involvement in the 2016 campaign into a "scandal" possibly linked with the Obama administration.

Trump even keeps saying, incorrectly, that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper agreed that there was "spying" on the Trump campaign:

Those tweets serve as perfect examples of how Trump twists words and tweets outrage to blur the facts and sway public opinion.

For one thing, the alleged "spy," Stefan A. Halper, doesn't exactly conjure up images of James Bond. He's a rumpled and retired college professor, a foreign policy expert hired by the FBI to meet with Trump aides and ask questions about Russia and the campaign. And the FBI hires such informants all the time on all sorts of investigations -- so often that the Justice Department even has detailed guidelines on how to do it.

In addition, what Clapper said is nothing like what Trump said he said. Asked if the FBI spied on the Trump campaign, Clapper told CNN: "No, they were not. They were spying on -- a term I don't particularly like -- what the Russians were doing. Trying to understand were the Russians infiltrating, trying to gain access, trying to gain leverage or influence which is what they do."

On other words, the FBI was studying whether a foreign adversary was trying to build influence in the election. But millions of Americans probably won't know that because they're getting the news through Trump's tweets, which bill the probe itself as a scandal.

That being the case, it's no great surprise that 37 percent of the people surveyed in that poll want the Mueller probe to end quickly, or for Trump or Congress to put an end to it. They're listening to the noise, not the news.

But how to counter that? The folks at Navigator Research, which conducted that poll, offer some advice that the media ought to take to heart.

"For those trying to connect with Americans about the investigation and its future, an important first step is reminding them it has already resulted in serious criminal charges for people very close to Trump," the authors wrote.

Hence paragraphs three and four of this Briefing.

But those of us in the media face a huge disadvantage. Donald Trump has 52.2 million Twitter followers -- 10.1 million more than the New York Times, 11.7 more than CNN, and 39.6 million more than the Washington Post. And all those news outlets report on, and therefore amplify, Trump's tweets.

And Robert Mueller, the stolid, silent prosecutor, doesn't even have a Twitter page.

What Mueller does have, though, is a team of experienced prosecutors and the law at his side.

And if he really does find collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it will be news that will, by its very magnitude, drown out each and every Trump tweet, and perhaps his presidency, too.

Happening today

President Trump delivers remarks at the commissioning and graduation ceremony for the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 2018 ... U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis, senior judge for the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia, holds a motions hearing in the case against Manafort ... Solicitor General Noel Francisco reflects on the first year of his term at an event sponsored by the Federalist Society.

Good reads

Vox argues that President Trump's now-canceled summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was unrealistic from the start...Politico tells us that the group formed to push Sen. Bernie Sanders' message is in utter disarray...The Hill reveals a clash between Trump and Senate Republicans over trade...The New York Times takes a fascinating look at the parts of the United States that are most prone to natural disasters...And in Harper's Magazine, legendary journalist Seymour Hirsch looks back at how he uncovered the My Lai massacre in Vietnam a half century ago.

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