Let’s begin with the lies—or, rather, with one lie, the same lie that was repeated time and time again. The Big Lie, the große Lüge. The Russia lie.
Throughout the campaign, during the transition period, and after inauguration, Donald Trump and his surrogates vehemently denied meeting with Russians of any stripe, for any purpose. Every time they were asked about a connection between the campaign and the Kremlin, they shot it down. And they were indignant about it. The response was always something along the lines of, “Russia? Us? How dare you accuse us of such a thing!”
Here are some examples:
24 July 2016, Paul Manafort, Trump campaign chair:
“…pure obfuscation…..That’s absurd. And, you know, there’s no basis to it.”
24 July 2016, Donald Trump, Jr:
“I can’t think of bigger lies. But that exactly goes to show you what the DNC [Democratic National Committee] and what the Clinton camp will do. They will lie and do anything to win…..These lies and the perpetuating of that kind of nonsense to gain some political capital is just outrageous.”
27 July 2016, Donald Trump:
“I can tell you, I think if I came up with that, they’d say, ‘Oh, it’s a conspiracy theory, it’s ridiculous.’ I mean I have nothing to do with Russia. I don’t have any jobs in Russia. I’m all over the world, but we’re not involved in Russia.”
25 September 2016, Kellyanne Conway, campaign manager:
“If [Carter Page is] doing that [meeting with Russians], he’s certainly not doing it with the permission or knowledge of the campaign, the activities that you described. He is certainly not authorized to do that.”
24 October 2016, Trump:
“I have nothing to do with Russia, folks, I’ll give you a written statement.”
11 November 2016, Hope Hicks, campaign communications director:
“It never happened. There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.”
18 December 2017, Conway:
“Those conversations never happened. I hear people saying it like it’s a fact on television. That is just not only inaccurate and false, but it’s dangerous.”
11 January 2017, Trump (tweet):
“Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!”
15 January 2017, Mike Pence, Vice President-elect:
“Well of course not. I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.”
7 February 2017, Trump (tweet):
“I don’t know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy…”
16 February 2017, Trump:
“I have nothing to do with Russia. To the best of my knowledge no person that I deal with does.”
19 February 2017, Reince Priebus, White House chief of staff:
“I can assure you and I have been approved to say this: that the top levels of the intelligence community have assured me that that is not only inaccurate, but it’s grossly overstated and it was wrong. And there’s nothing to it.”
20 February 2017, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, deputy White House press secretary:
Trump/Russia is “a non-story because to the best of our knowledge, no contacts took place, so it’s hard to make a comment on something that never happened.”
24 February 2017, Sean Spicer, White House press secretary:
“Well, again, there are no connections to find out about. That’s the problem. I think, a), he [Trump] has answered it forcefully. You can’t disprove something that doesn’t exist. He’s talked about the fact how many times he’s talked to Putin. He has no interests in Russia….There’s only so many times he can deny something that doesn’t exist.”
26 February 2017, Trump (tweet):
“Russia talk is FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks!”
11 May 2017, Trump:
“I have had dealings over the years where I sold a house to a very wealthy Russian many years ago. I had the Miss Universe pageant—which I owned for quite a while—I had it in Moscow a long time ago. But other than that, I have nothing to do with Russia.”
18 May 2017, Trump:
“…the entire thing has been a witch hunt. There is no collusion—certainly myself and my campaign—but I can always speak for myself and the Russians—zero.”
These were all lies—the same big lie, repeated over and over. This repetition of the “Big Lie,” it should be noted, is a propaganda technique developed by the Nazis. Hitler wrote about it in Mein Kampf, one of very few books Trump is believed to have read. Either way, Trump has employed the Big Lie technique for years—lying regularly about his wealth (he lied his way onto the Forbes wealthiest Americans list), his fitness (he coerced his physician to lie about how healthy he was), his sexual prowess (a tabloid headline allegedly from ex-wife Marla Maples, saying Trump was the best sex she’d ever had), and so forth.
But this was different. This wasn’t about the size of his bank account, his good cholesterol levels, or his penis. This was about national security, about cozying up to an enemy. And yet still, Trump and his minions went on TV, took to Twitter, stood behind the podium in the White House Press Room, and lied egregiously to the American people, over and over and over and over.
In July of 2017, when the press got wind of the Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump, Jr. and a Russian attorney that took place the previous June, the Big Lie became impossible for any thinking person to believe. Yet even with this bombshell, the denials continued. Junior put out a statement on 8 July 2017—one his father the president helped him craft, with help from his communications director Hope Hicks and others: At the Trump Tower meeting, Junior explained, “[w]e primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.”
Three days after Trump’s namesake son issued that statement, the New York Times was set to publish the emails proving that Junior had in fact met with Russians, and damned well knew what was going to be on the agenda. How could he not have known? The subject line of the emails was this: “Re: Russia – Clinton – private and confidential.”
That’s not a joke. That’s not me being cute. That was the actual email subject line. And it appeared in the inbox of Junior, and also of Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort. (Trump, a Luddite, famously does not use email). Astute readers will observe that the word “adoption” is nowhere to be found in the subject line. Nor was it in the email exchange itself, which Junior published himself on Twitter, to “get ahead of the story” and scoop the Times.
Again, this happened in July of 2017—more than a year after that Trump Tower meeting. Until then, for months and months, it was a string of denials, the Big Lie repeated ad infinitum. It took a major newspaper threatening to publish emails proving Russian contact to finally get the Trumps to cop to the truth.
Maybe this could be forgiven if the Trump Tower meeting were unique—if that rendezvous had been the only time Donald & Co. powwowed with the Russians. But this was not the case. Contrary to their vehement denials—their reiterations of the Big Lie—there were many meetings between associates of Donald Trump and agents of Vladimir Putin. Not two or three. Not a few. Many.
Greg Olear (@gregolear) is the founding editor of The Weeklings and the author of the novels Totally Killer and Fathermucker, an LA Times best seller. He has been on the Trump/Russia beat since January of 2017.
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