SHOULD WE CALL IT NEWS? – AT 10:18 A.M. ET:  Day by day, the bombshells come, sending the media into an uncontrolled frenzy.   The administration is collapsing!  Trump is giving away secrets!  Oh me god, it's the end for the Land of Lincoln!

Look, I don't know the full facts, and, as we've said here before, Trump can be his worst enemy.  But I'm more than a little suspicious of the drip, drip, drip, of leaks, parts of memos, parts of transcripts.  The leaks seem well timed to come at regular intervals, and their common appearance in the Washington Post and The New York Times, two wildly anti-Trump papers, is more than suspicious.

I'd like to see some facts.  I'd also like to see some of our "journalists" point out that because something appears in a memo does not make it accurate.  Self-serving memos, diaries, books, are all over the place. 

This morning Vladimir Putin offered to "help" put some of our concerns to rest.  From CNN: 

Moscow (CNN) Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to provide a transcript of a controversial Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, raising the stakes in an affair that has sent the White House into a tailspin.

Speaking at a press conference in Sochi, Russia, Putin dismissed allegations that Trump had shared top-secret security intelligence with Russian diplomats as "political schizophrenia."

"If the US administration finds it necessary, we are ready to provide the record of the conversation between Trump and Lavrov to the Senate and Congress," Putin said.

The intervention by Putin could turn up the pressure on the White House to provide its own transcript of the meeting. The Senate intelligence committee has already demanded a briefing on what was said at the meeting from members of the Trump administration who were present.

The episode is the latest woe for Trump, whose administration is engulfed in a series of scandals linked to Russia.

COMMENT:  The latest "bombshell," of course, is a report in The New York Times that former FBI Director James Comey wrote a memo after a meeting with President Trump, alleging that Trump asked him to go easy on then National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. 

Was the memo accurate?  Was a tape made of the meeting?  What else was in the memo?

The screamers are already yelling "obstruction of justice."  No, probably not.  As FBI director, Comey would have had an absolute obligation to report any obstruction of justice to the Justice Department.  The fact that he did not do so indicates that he didn't think the president's comments met the test.

But there are so many leaks and so few facts.  This is dangerous for the country, but good business for
CNN.

May 17,  2017