That’s what I asked Scott Horton on the Tom Woods Show in our episode on the Durham Report, which definitively exposed the “Russiagate” nonsense as the hoax any non-comatose person knew it was.

But here’s the problem.

American historians are reliable stenographers of the regime. They tell the story the way the Establishment wants it told. Can you imagine an American history textbook admitting that in their zeal to get Trump, entire agencies compromised themselves and major political figures fabricated bizarre stories of Russian collusion?

Historians — some of whom probably once believed the old leftist slogan “question authority” — dearly love the FBI, the CIA, all these agencies. A handful tell bad stories about them from the past, but those stories from the past evidently inspire zero skepticism about them among historians today.

“Question authority” was never meant to be taken seriously. It meant: undermine authority until we take over, and then use that authority to entrench ourselves via lies and dirty tricks.

Matt Taibbi has been on the left his whole life, and has no particular reason to want to exonerate Donald Trump. Except for one thing: he dislikes lies and liars.

Here’s Taibbi’s response to the report:

“I read Special Counsel John Durham’s ‘Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns’ yesterday in a state I can only describe as psychic exhaustion. As Sue Schmidt’s ‘Eight Key Takeaways’ summary shows, the stuff in this report should kill the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory ten times over, but we know better than that. This story never dies. Every time you shoot at it, it splits into six new deep state fantasies.

“I’ve given up. Nearly seven years ago this idiotic tale dropped in my relatively uncomplicated life like a grenade, upending professional relationships, friendships, even family life. Those of us in media who were skeptics or even just uninterested were cast out as from a religious sect — colleagues unironically called us ‘denialists’ — denounced in the best case as pathological wreckers and refuseniks, in the worst as literal agents of the FSB.”

I myself hear the words “Russian disinformation” or “Russian asset” or “Russian talking points” and instantly think: I am speaking to a very low-IQ, highly suggestible person, who repeats whatever phrases are fed to him.

Time after time these fantasies of Russian conspiracies have proven false, and yet the story won’t go away.

Here’s hoping this time they’re slayed for good — heck, even Anderson Cooper admitted the report was “devastating” to the FBI.

Here’s my episode of the Tom Woods Show on the subject:

https://tomwoods.com/ep-2334-the-durham-report-and-the-russiagate-liars/

And now for some weekend fun:

(1) We’ve covered how to protect yourself against Big Tech and government bad guys in terms of your online privacy, but now our friend Glenn Meder is back to teach us how to avoid petty thieves who want to steal your identity while you’re shopping and doing ordinary online things. He gave this presentation to my School of Life and everyone loved it. You can watch it for free just for a couple of days: https://www.tomwoods.com/keepyourinfosafe

(2) As you know, I’m launching a new book this year. My repeat podcast guest Matt McWilliams taught us all something this year with how he launched his book. With no mass media behind him, Matt had great success because he devised a brilliant launch strategy and executed it perfectly.

I’m pretty sure I told him on my show that if I were ever to write another book I would launch it exactly as he had.

Well, guess what. I am writing a book, and I absolutely am going to launch it the McWilliams way, as you will soon see with your own eyes.

I’ve learned that I have a lot of authors among my readers, so: I recommend you watch the replay of Matt’s workshop from yesterday, in which he runs through the system that generated such a good result without access to television, etc. I guarantee lightbulbs will come on for you. But do it ASAP before it disappears: https://www.tomwoods.com/booklaunching

Tom Woods