If you're having trouble keeping track of which GOP-driven conspiracy theory is now trending on Russia's twitter bot-work, don't worry—you're the sane one. The unmasking, uranium one, lost texts, unreleased memos, and secret societies—it's a positively dizzying array of cray cray coming from Republican lawmakers who were not only elected to serve the American people (not the president) but took an oath of office to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
And just as soon as these shots in dark are floated, they fall under the light of day. But no matter how hard they fall, they continue to lurk in the minds of Trump bitter-enders. Let's face it, 30 percent of Americans will likely be on their death beds, muttering "But Hillary's emails ..."
In the meantime, the FBI found the missing texts.
GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin admitted that he had no earthly idea what he was talking about with his FBI "secret society" allegation.
And of all things, Fox News's Shepard Smith broke it to viewers that Rep. Nunes's memo was nothing more than "a weapon of partisan mass distraction" and added, "context matters."
Remember, this began with Devin Nunes, the same Devin Nunes who last year made White House surveillance claims, staged a rush to the White House to reportedly share surveillance information with the administration, but actually took information from the administration and staged a report of it. At its core, it was P.R. And it was bogus.
Devin Nunes wrote the memo currently in question. He will not share it with investigators. The Trump Justice Department wants to see it. He won't let them. The same Trump department says it should not be made public as it would damage the nation. It's classified. It could reveal sources and methods. [...] A memo can be a weapon of partisan mass distraction, especially in a pivotal moment in American history when it behooves the man in charge for supporters to believe the institutions can't be trusted, investigators are corrupt, and the news media are liars. Context matters.
Goddess only knows how Fox viewers are faring after that revelation.
While all of these accusations are as dodgy and baseless as they are fleeting, the problem is really the accumulation of doubt over time. It really doesn't matter that they can be debunked—Trump's henchman just move on to the next ridiculous distraction that they can scheme up.
And that may be exactly the point. None of them actually have to stick if all of them just leave enough taint on Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation to sully it in the minds of some conservatives and maybe even some swing voters.
As one commentator on MSNBC pointed out Thursday, quit thinking Watergate and start thinking the O.J. trial, where the goal was to plant just enough doubt in the minds of jurors that they would acquit.