Bulwark columnist Will Sommer told MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Wednesday that not only has President Donald Trump failed to redirect the media cycle away from the Epstein files controversy with his manufactured accusation former President Barack Obama committed "treason" in the Russia investigation, he hasn't even managed to convince a significant number of his own supporters of this.
The thrust of the claim, promoted by Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, is that intelligence community documents indicate Obama pushed claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election that had been refuted by reports he had been given at the time.
In reality, the documents in question don't actually contradict anything Obama said, and even though a special counsel appointed by the Trump administration found extensive evidence of Russian interference that was corroborated by Trump's current Secretary of State.
"You've written about the sort of almost sort of comical throwing out of distractions," said Hayes. "You said he's talked about stripping Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship. He's posted a video of a woman grabbing a menacing snake. He's threatened to withhold funding for D.C.'s football stadium until the Commanders changed their name back. Then there's the pièce de résistance: how would his followers like to see Barack Obama in prison for treason? Do you think the Obama treason thing is working?"
"I really don't think it is," said Sommer.
"I mean, I think this is such a complex story. They haven't found, like, a smoking gun. I mean, they're asking people to look at documents from 10 years ago. It's a lot of kind of reheated Sean Hannity late-night stuff from 2017, 2018. So I think it's kind of flopping. I'm not seeing a lot of enthusiasm for it, sort of, among the grassroots Trump people.
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