Trish Regan melodramatically presented a conspiracy theory that may foreshadow a Trump defense to come: that Vladimir Putin set up Donald Trump to look like he was colluding with the Russian president, possibly in cahoots with Hillary Clinton. Seriously.
Yesterday, in a discussion with attorney Alex Little about the Russia investigation, Regan predictably pivoted to Clinton. Regan whined that the probe “says nothing about Hillary Clinton” who, Regan complained, should also be investigated.
“I mean, do not forget that it was Hillary Clinton’s camp that sent a spy over to Russia, to foreign soil, to dig up dirt, which they paid for and the Russians provided," Regan said accusingly. "So it just seems, in all fairness, if you’re looking at the Trump campaign, you’d want to be looking at the other side, too, if you really want to know what Russia was up to. Why don’t they?”
Little pointed out that the evidence shows “Russian intelligence services tried to infiltrate the Democratic campaign to release emails to help the Trump campaign.” He added, “FBI agents have corroborated, they brought it to a grand jury, there’s been an indictment, so I don’t think you can criticize that piece of the investigation.”
But Regan stubbornly clung to her theory. “I just wonder why they’re not looking into the Hillary side of things,” she said. Then, she specifically suggested that Donald Trump Jr. was duped into meeting with the Russians in 2016 in order to frame the campaign later.
“They weren’t paying for anything in that meeting, that meeting happened out in the open for everyone to see. There were security cameras, there were security guards,” Regan said, conveniently omitting the facts that Trump Jr. eagerly took the bait and then lied about the meeting.
Regan continued, “If I’m Vladimir Putin, I’d kind of like the idea of planting some bread crumbs along the way that the media and the left will then go out to find, yet the dossier is not being looked at?”
“That’s a great speech,” Little said, “but I trust the investigative process more than I do our ability as outsiders to try to connect these dots.”
But, clearly, Regan was more about political messaging than connecting any dots, other than the ones she could manufacture to help Trump wriggle out of looking so guilty.
For example, when Little pointed out that Trump apparently knew about his campaign’s meeting with the Russians and lied about it, Regan shot back, “President Trump hasn’t lied about it under oath, by the way.” As if that's supposed to make him look innocent - even though Trump has not been questioned about the meeting under oath.
Little replied, “The president of the United States shouldn’t be lying to the American public, shouldn’t be lying to anybody.”
So Regan quickly moved back to her conspiracy theory:
REGAN: Here’s the problem, Alex, and this is what I’m worried about for our country right now. Vladimir Putin’s a pretty smart guy. He operated in the KGB. He knows how to plant things right now and he knows how to use the openness of our society, the trust in our democracy, against us. And we have fallen for it. The media has fallen for it. The left has fallen for it and if we want fairness here, investigate it all. I want to know everything that happened.
We’ll have to wait and see whether this is an official, new Trump TV talking point or just a one off.
