From Cohen to Venezuela: Hollowness of “Russiagate”

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AARON MATÉ, aaronmate at gmail.com, @aaronjmate
Since Trump became president, Maté has written a series of pieces for The Nation counter to the prevailing conventional wisdom on Russiagate, including: “Mueller Accuses Roger Stone of Lying and Bullying — but Not Collusion,” “The Manafort Revelation Is Not a Smoking Gun,” “New Studies Show Pundits Are Wrong About Russian Social-Media Involvement in U.S. Politics,” “Don’t Let Russophobia Warp the Facts on Russiagate,” “Russiagate Is More Fiction Than Fact” and “Stop With the Conspiracy Theories — Trump Is Bad Enough.”

He recently tweeted: “Do Russiagate peddlers get how bad this has gone? Cohen: – ‘I do not’ have collusion evidence – ‘Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress’ (cc @BuzzFeedBen) – Stone told Trump public info re: WL & false info re: Assange & we haven’t even heard his Prague denial yet.”

“Also crying out for explication is the claim that there were ‘negotiations over the Moscow project.’ There were no ‘negotiations’ in a meaningful sense because there was never any Russian approval or financing. The ‘negotiations’ were mainly Cohen & Sater bickering w/ each other.”

Maté was recently in Venezuela. He’s also recently tweeted: “The coda of collusion-free Mueller probe coinciding w/ top Democrats’ backing of Trump meddling in Venezuela underscores dangers some of us saw long ago: fixation on a Trump-Russia conspiracy theory is not real Resistance, & neither is supporting among worst of Trump’s policies.”

“‘Losing ties with Venezuela would be a huge blow to Russia. Putin will do his utmost to prevent regime change.’ Since regime change is Trump’s explicit goal, Russiagate peddlers will do their utmost to prevent this inconvenient fact from being acknowledged.”