On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Chuck Todd hosted a panel featuring The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberly Strassel, The New York Times‘s Thomas Friedman, the American Enterprise Institute’s Daniella Pletka, and Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher to discuss Russia, Jeff Sessions, and President Trump’s comments regarding Obama.
During the panel, Pletka and Strassel kept pushing back against the media and the Democrats’ weak case about Russian influence in the election as well as Russian influence within the Trump camp. Here’s part of the transcript of the conversation:
DANIELLE PLETKA:
It’s not just the Russians who want to interfere in our election. Lots of countries want to interfere in our elections. Lots of countries have historically tried. Remember the Chinese and Al Gore? Right. That’s not the point. The point is, was there somebody inside the Trump campaign who was working with them, and did the president know about that? And were they successful? And I think on those latter two questions, we have no idea.
KIMBERLEY STRASSEL:
No evidence. There’s no evidence. I mean this is– I just heard Chuck Schumer suggest exactly what you, that we know that this is the case. Look, there’s nothing there. Especially this recent discussion about Jeff Sessions, which is the kind of height of the ludicrousness of this, okay?
If Jeff Sessions really was a mole working for the Russian government, he probably would have found a better place to have met within than his public Senate office surrounded by his aides. So the meetings are not necessarily what matter. They don’t prove anything. The question is–
CHUCK TODD:
But the one thing, Kim, I will say–
KIMBERLEY STRASSEL:
–is there any substance?
CHUCK TODD:
–this on these meetings is–
KIMBERLEY STRASSEL:
Is there any substance?
While Todd and Belcher kept trying to push the seemingly baseless narrative, Thomas Friedman chimed into the conversation, admitting that there is no evidence of such collusion between the Russians and the Trump camp. Nevertheless, that did not stop Friedman from calling for a special prosecutor or an independent commission from looking into the matter despite the lack of credible proof. He also brought up Trump’s tax returns, which happens to be Senator Chris Murphy’s favorite chew toy.
THOMAS FRIEDMAN:
I agree, there is no evidence, which is why we need a special prosecutor or an independent commission to get to the bottom of it.
CORNELL BELCHER:
Well–
THOMAS FRIEDMAN:
And we need to see Trump’s tax returns.
Watch that exchange below:
Even though Attorney General Sessions made the correct call in recusing himself from any investigation into the Trump campaign, that does not negate the fact that a special prosecutor or an independent commission will only be necessary when a fact-finder finds credible evidence of collusion. However, Friedman moronically believes that the Department of Justice or another independent body should waste precious time, money, and effort on an investigation based off circumstantial proof in the hope of promulgating a shoddy leftist agenda.
“I agree, there is no evidence, which is why we need a special prosecutor or an independent commission to get to the bottom of it.”
Thomas Friedman
Then again, what else should we expect from a man who believed China’s one-party autocratic and dictatorial government was “led by a reasonably enlightened group of people” that “impose[s] the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century”?