Media Claims of Russia-Trump Collusion 'Look Like Something Out of Soap Opera'

Last week, CNN reported on Trump official Rick Dearborn's relaying of a brief email about an unknown individual seeking to arrange a meeting between campaign staff and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 presidential race. 

Although Dearborn was reported to have marked skepticism over the request, ex-US intelligence experts told CNN that the request may have been an attempt by Russian intelligence to gather information as part of their covert operations in the United States. Still, even they admitted that the letter was unusual in that it proposed that the campaign meet with Putin personally, rather than more shadowy 'Kremlin operatives'.

The blown up controversy around the deputy chief of staff is just a latest in a series of allegations of Russia's ties with President Trump, extensively discussed in the US media for over a year now. Donald Trump's opponents have used the (never substantiated) claims to attempt to disrupt his campaign and, after his election, to try to sabotage the president and White House policy directly.

Speaking to Radio Sputnik, political scientist Vladimir Kireev suggested that the non-stop flow of stories of Trump-Russia collusion is a sign that Trump's opponents have run out of ideas.

"This all looks not even like something out of a detective story, but a Latin American soap opera…episode 178," the commentator quipped. "All the ideas have been exhausted, and there's nothing left to say."

"But the liberal part of the American public, which makes up the core of political life in the US, and already highly excitable, thinks that any pretext is good enough," the observer added.

Kireev stressed it was obvious "that if the story wasn't about Russia, but about some other country – any country: Pakistan, Egypt, Brazil, then the rumors about an attempt to organize a meeting wouldn't have caused anyone any irritation. The irritation is caused namely by Russia, and no one can understand why. To me it looks like they have become the victims of their own propaganda, in the spirit of Red Alert or Call of Duty 4, where the incidious Russians seek to cause harm to the United States."

Such an outlook is fraught with problems, the observer warned.

"It seems plausible that Washington is looking for a way to unleash a 'big war', but have not been able to find an easily defeatable enemy. Islamist extremism has been adopted by the liberal establishment as either an ally, or some 'aborigine' which should be tolerated for being 'the way they are'.  Trying to nip at China and Korea isn't working out, either."

The analyst noted that in his view, the US elite seems to have "exhausted its potential in many respects: in spite of a large number of attempts to unleash an internal or external conflict, they are able to reckon only with countries on the periphery, but not with any 'core' countries. This causes the birth of an internal conflict. Donald Trump proposed normalizing relations with Russia, and this caused a shock inside the establishment. Where it will lead is a big question," Kireev concluded.