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WHY WAS THE SENATE INTEL TRUMP-RUSSIA REPORT SO BAD? Remember the Senate Intelligence Committee’s big investigation into the Trump-Russia affair? It was going to be the bipartisan, flagship, gold standard probe into collusion, back when there were people who still believed in collusion. But then other investigations beat the committee to the punch — the Mueller report was released more than a year ago — while the Senate investigation went on, and on, and on. The committee released its findings in pieces, finally getting to the grand finale — its finding on collusion — in a report released April 21. But the grand finale wasn’t grand at all. The committee got a few headlines with its verdict that Vladimir Putin specifically wanted to help elect Donald Trump, as opposed to simply sow discord in the U.S. political system — a finding some Republicans still dispute. (One GOP senator told me he strongly believes Putin was trying to damage the anticipated presidency of Hillary Clinton, which is a different motive from seeking to elect Trump.)
But besides that, the committee had nothing. The bipartisan, flagship, gold standard probe flopped. Why? “It was pretty clear early on that there was no collusion, and this was mostly Mark Warner in 2017 trying to have his Watergate moment,” said one GOP senator, referring to the ranking Democrat on the Intel Committee. Beyond that, the senator said, after a hot period in 2017, most senators simply lost interest. “There were not a lot of committee resources dedicated to this,” the senator said, “and there was not much member interest in the last two years.”
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EMBARRASSMENT AT THE NEW YORK TIMES: The New York Times editorial board is supposed to take positions on issues. That’s what editorial boards do. But on May 1, the Times veered off the rails. In an editorial headlined “Investigate Tara Reade’s Allegations,” the paper took up the issue of the former Senate staffer who says then-Sen. Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993. The editors called for an investigation of Reade’s charges. The only problem is, they called for the investigation to be conducted by the Democratic National Committee.
The editors noted they had called for a “vigorous inquiry” into accusations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. But the Times wanted the FBI to investigate Kavanaugh. Now, the Times proposes the DNC investigate Biden. The probe should be “conducted by an unbiased, apolitical panel, put together by the DNC,” the Times said. Just to make the obvious point: The FBI is an investigative agency. The DNC is a political party — the party that is about to make Biden its presidential nominee. It cannot create an “unbiased, apolitical panel.”
To make matters worse, the Times went on to argue that journalists should stay out of the story while the Democratic Party investigates. “The stakes are too high to let the matter fester — or leave it to be investigated by and adjudicated in the media. Mr. Biden is seeking the nation’s highest office,” the editors wrote.
Thought experiment: Think back to the various controversies surrounding the Trump campaign in 2016 — Russia, tax returns, Access Hollywood, more. And now imagine the New York Times suggesting that the press back off covering those issues while the Republican National Committee investigated Trump. Impossible to imagine? Yes, impossible to imagine. The verdict on the whole affair came from another voice in journalism, Axios reporter Jonathan Swan:
