Peter van Buren discusses the media reaction to President Trump’s recent meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. He compares the entire story of Russian collusion to the birther conspiracy movement, in that swaths of Americans have been swept up in a campaign against the president with very little real evidence presented to support the claims. Van Buren argues that the divisiveness about Trump being a Russian agent is harmful for the country, and at this point Robert Mueller and the intelligence community need to “put up or shut up”—either present the clear evidence that Trump worked with the Russians, or admit that there is no such evidence. He goes on to discuss the DNC email leak, Hillary Clinton’s private email server, and the recent indictment of 12 Russian operatives.

Discussed on the show:

• GRU indictments
• “The King of Chaos” (Truthdig)
• Reality Winner
• “Vault 7: CIA Hacking Tools Revealed” (Wikileaks)
• Chelsea Manning
• Petards
• “EXCLUSIVE: Ex-British ambassador who is now a WikiLeaks operative claims Russia did NOT provide Clinton emails – they were handed over to him at a D.C. park by an intermediary for ‘disgusted’ Democratic whistleblowers” (Daily Mail)

Peter Van Buren worked for 24 years at the Department of State including a year in Iraq. He is the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and the novel Hooper’s War. He is now a contributing editor at The American Conservative magazine. Follow him on Twitter @WeMeantWell.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Zen Cash; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc.; NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; LibertyStickers.com; and ExpandDesigns.com/Scott.

Check out Scott’s Patreon page.

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