The Press Who Cried Russia—Now Too Scared to Prove Themselves Right

Where the hell are CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and every other self-important media outlet that swears up and down it’s in the business of protecting democracy? Where are the emergency panels of so-called experts? Where are the somber-voiced news anchors, furrowing their brows and warning us that our republic is in danger? Where are the “BOMBSHELL” graphics?

Nowhere. That’s where.

A former intelligence chief has come forward with what should be the biggest political story of the century—an accusation that Donald Trump was recruited as a Russian asset in 1987, complete with a KGB codename. And yet, the same networks and newspapers that milked the Trump-Russia scandal for years are sitting on their hands, pretending they don’t see it. The same media that once covered every half-baked theory about Russian influence like it was the goddamn Watergate break-in has suddenly decided that this is the moment to practice journalistic restraint.

It’s almost impressive, the shamelessness of it all. These are the people who turned the Russia story into an entire industry. They built whole careers off breathless speculation about secret meetings and kompromat. They printed entire books about the Steele dossier, devoted hours of primetime coverage to unraveling every detail, and spent years screaming about Russian interference. But now? Now that a former intelligence official is saying, plainly and clearly, that Trump has been a Russian asset for nearly 40 years? Nothing. Not a goddamn word.

The problem isn’t that they don’t believe Mussayev. The problem is that they are cowards. The modern press doesn’t chase the truth—it waits for permission. These networks and newspapers don’t touch a story until it’s been pre-chewed by a Senate committee, an intelligence agency, or a carefully vetted “anonymous source.” They don’t investigate unless some gray-faced bureaucrat gives them the green light. They don’t print unless it’s safe to print.

That’s why they ran with Yuri Shvets’ claim that Trump was cultivated by Soviet intelligence. That story had a book deal. That story had investigative reporters and a publishing house and a comfortable place within the existing narrative. But Mussayev? His mistake was dropping it on Facebook.

Never mind that he’s a former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service. Never mind that his claims match almost exactly what Shvets and others have already said. No, he didn’t give them a neat little press packet, so they’re acting like it never happened.

It’s not that they don’t have the resources to investigate this story. It’s not that they don’t know where to start. They have everything they need—connections, archives, government contacts, a direct path to finding out if this is real. But they don’t want to. They don’t want to know.

Because if they dig into this, and if it turns out to be true, then they’ll have to admit that they missed it. They’ll have to admit that the FBI missed it, that the CIA missed it, that everybody missed it. They’ll have to admit that the institutions they spent years worshiping were either incompetent or complicit. And they are not ready for that reckoning.

So they’ll do what they always do. They’ll pretend it isn’t happening. They’ll ignore it until it becomes impossible to ignore, and then they’ll swoop in at the last second, acting like they were on top of it the whole time.

Too late.

They had their chance to break the biggest story of the decade, and they chose to be cowards instead.

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