President Trump’s tweets suggesting the investigation into the 2001 death of 28-year-old Lori Klausutis should be re-opened has stirred up a hornet’s nest of criticism. Klausutis was determined to have died from a blunt force trauma to the head after becoming dizzy and passing out from a previously undetected heart issue and hitting her head on the edge of a desk.
The case would never have become an issue had she not died in the office of then-Florida conservative Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough – for whom she worked as an intern. And even then, it may have been lost in the annals of history if Scarborough was not now the controversial host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
At the time, there were whispers that the very-married Scarborough was having an affair with Klausutis – and that he may have played a role in her death. The theory that Scarborough may have killed her was raised in 2005 by radical left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore. His public accusations against Scarborough resulted in a threatened lawsuit.
No more was heard of the controversy until President Trump suggested re-opening what he called a “cold case.” This brought a deluge of protest against Trump for a bogus – or at least unsubstantiated – conspiracy theory. To give evidence to a pattern, Trump critics regurgitated his past birther comments against President Obama.
I have no idea if there is ANY evidence to connect Scarborough to the Klausutis tragic death. And I am not a fan of raising scurrilous conspiracy theories if there is no reasonable evidence to support them. If Trump does not have more to offer than dark-corner gossip, he should not have raised the issue.
But this commentary is not centered on the clashing of swords between Trump and Scarborough. It is about the audacious hypocrisy on the matters of conspiracy theories. While they self-righteously condemn those on the fringe who engage in improbable conspiracy theories, the very heart and core of the Democratic Party – and the east coast news media — engages in them in a major way to this day.
The granddaddy of all conspiracy theories is being played out in real-time today. It is the claim that Trump, his family and/or his staffers engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia to win the 2016 election. Individuals in the out-going Obama administration, top officials in the law enforcement and intelligence communities and the major New York/Washington media started selling the Trump/Russian theory right after the 2016 election.
Arguably, it was the “insurance policy” to which FBI agent Peter Strzok referred in his text-message assurance to his FBI coworker and paramour, Lisa Page. Even though Trump had been duly elected President of the United States, Strzok was strongly suggesting that “they” had a plan to stop the Trump presidency in its tracks.
FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe conspired with the Clinton campaign to use a knowingly phony dossier to obtain wiretaps on incoming Trump officials. To attain those warrants from the FISA court, they had to violate any number of practices, protocols and rules governing the FBI. It is noteworthy that the dossier was produced and paid for by and for the Clinton Campaign – with the conspiratorial help of foreign agents, British and Russian. And Comey & Co. knew that form the get-go.
Comey created notes of a conversation with Trump that raised as many questions as they may try to have resolved. With the conspiracy already in play, it is not unreasonable to question whether the notes reflected what was said or were an attempt to create the appearance of evidence.
To force the naming of a Special Counsel to investigate both Russian interference AND the ginned-up conspiracy between Trump and the Russians, Comey violated more FBI rules – and possibly the law – by leaking information to reporters.
This launched a two-year $35 million investigation. During those two years, Democrats and their media allies consistently reported as if the criminal conspiracy between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was a matter of fact. House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff even underscored the accusations by falsely stating that he had seen hard evidence of the criminal conspiracy among all the secret documents his committee obtained. It was a flat-out whopper of a lie.
Imagine their shock when Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence … none …that any American, including Trump and his folks, had conspired with the Russians to influence the election.
Even in the face of that rebuke, Democrats and the media have continued to press their utterly debunked political theory. Schiff has repeatedly said that Trump conspired with Russians even since their Special Counsel could not find a scintilla of evidence. According to Schiff, the evidence is there, but Mueller did not have an opportunity to find it.
Think of what you may of Trump, it is difficult – if not impossible — to find any time in American history when so many top government officials — and so much of the so-called news media — embraced and promoted a more bogus conspiracy theory.
Trump’s propensity to embrace pop-stand conspiracies from the dark edge of the political spectrum is small stuff when compared to the fact that those embracing the debunked Russian conspiracy theory are the same folks who created it. They are the ones who made false claims and then produced false evidence to try to support their callously political narratives.
When it comes to people pushing false conspiracies, Democrats and their media pals are the bigtime major league players.
So, there ‘tis.