Although to be fair, this could in fact mean that he was spying on the campaign, if the Russians and the campaign were basically the same thing, if say for example, … oh I don’t know,… maybe, the campaign was colluding with the Russians?
I still don’t understand the mechanism by which these briefings took place, particularly the the first one. The original intention was to brief a Republican-only group of lawmakers about an ongoing investigation. How common is this? For a party that is complaining about a partisan witch hunt to request a partisan briefing boggles my mind. And the Justice Department agreed to this? Had things gone as planned the Republicans could have leaked whatever they wanted to with no one to contradict what was discuss or said. Was this arrangement not as outrageous as it seems? Is this something that goes on all the time? And then White House lawyers show up to do whatever it is they did?
I’ve not been following this particular incident all that closely and this could be wrong, but my vague understanding is that the Democrats were opposed to having this briefing altogether, and this grew out of Republican members’ desire to hold the DOJ feet to the fire.
More specifically, it grew out of the Republican members’ desire to discredit the investigation and therefore its conclusions, despite having no evidence whatsoever to support that. The Democrats’ desire was to call them on their bullshit.
That make it easier for ya?
It was originally planned for two Republicans only to attend, so that when it was over they could spin it into proof positive that the FBI, Hillary, Obama, and Jane Fonda are the true guilty ones. Then Democrats raised a fuss, got invited, and even Devil Nunes isn’t making waves about how this proves the total awesomeness of the Donald.
They believe their own bullshit. They were totally convinced that this was the the smoking gub that would destroy the Persecution. But, a nothing-burger with non-fries? Ooopsy-daisy!
Looks like this actually did turn out to be a nothingburger. No cheese, no pickles, no nothing.
DOH! I’m slow and elucidator beat me to the nothingburger joke.
This Vox article does a pretty good job answering the OP’s question:
In short, the FBI used sources, including a guy who talked to some Trump campaign people, to try and gather information about Russian efforts to influence the campaign.
And the Trump team’s response seems to be to adopt the Marion Barry defense:
“Bitch set me up”
The Deep State and liberal media demanded these revelations of crucial intelligence methods, and put our national security at risk, all in the hope that there was some damning evidence of collusion! Hannity tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t listen to reason, they were so sure that this was gonna be the Big Reveal.
Well, jokes on you, Ms Fonda! It was no big deal, so ha! I can only hope that “President” Obama has the decency to apologize for all this, but I doubt it! The Leader spent yesterday celebrating a real American hero getting his Nobel…ah, Congressional Medal of Honor…so, maybe the Dems cooked this up to distract from patriotism!
Just apt natural and everything will be fine.
While playing cello in a marching band.
This is how authoritarians behave, and it’s one of their first and most important power grabs: destroy truth.
The right wing is essentially using its own infosphere to Balkanize the electorate, and it goes further by creating the idea that truth cannot be known, and that there are different versions of truth for different people. This is why, the longer the nation lives with a Republican majority, the more racist this country will become. For the right wing to succeed, they have to destroy faith in the idea of a pluralistic, democratic, egalitarian, color-blind, gender-blind society.