Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Kremlin-linked attorney stands as the first publicly confirmed example of a Trump campaign member’s intent to collude with Russia. The seemingly never-ending scandal reached new heights when the eldest Trump son released his emails, which actually showed that he believed “damaging” information about Hillary Clinton would be up for grabs at this meeting. The ongoing aftermath has yielded panicky White House aides, a new slice of notoriety for a Russian pop star, and an oddly jubilant Sean Hannity (because everything is a Trump win for him).
Currently, a chaos-filled Team Trump is licking its wounds and preparing for revenge. President Trump initially pretended to be fine (while praising his “high quality person” of a son), but the Washington Post reveals that he’s secretly “enraged” at another example of how the Russia “cloud” obscures his presidency. In that spirit, a team of his supporters is plotting to smear the New York Times journalists who dared to report this story. And here’s the alleged plan:
A handful of Republican operatives close to the White House are scrambling to Trump Jr.’s defense and have begun what could be an extensive campaign to try to discredit some of the journalists who have been reporting on the matter.
Their plan, as one member of the team described it, is to research the reporters’ previous work, in some cases going back years, and to exploit any mistakes or perceived biases. They intend to demand corrections, trumpet errors on social media and feed them to conservative outlets, such as Fox News.
So, who are these “Republican operatives” that have a close relationship to the Trump administration? Could be anyone, even someone like Roger Stone — he could easily whip up a frenzy of Pepes to overtake Twitter with harassing behavior against these journalists for their perceived “mistakes.” Don Jr. even preemptively tossed a punch at the press when he scooped the New York Times by a few minutes while unleashing his emails, which he knew were about to surface. Thus, the retaliation began.
WaPo notes (after speaking with “more than a dozen” White House sources and associates) that the whole Don Jr. scandal has also inspired a new round of “infighting” within the White House with many speculating upon who leaked information about this meeting in the first place. Yet one Trump advisor has warned that further vengeance against reporters may be “futile” because there’s no disproving that this meeting happened.
“It’s tough to go to war with the facts,” said the advisor. However, that hasn’t stopped Team Trump’s tactics in the past.
(Via Washington Post)