“Dirty tricks” was a term used to describe the behavior of operatives within the Nixon administration to smear the reputations of opponents and undermine the appeal of certain politicians. Fifty years ago, these dirty tricks included a false allegation that Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson, D-Wash., had fathered an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old girl, and the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., when Nixon aides and operatives attempted to find materials the Nixon team could use against his perceived “enemies.”
Dirty tricks are not to be confused with negative campaigning, which at least has some component of truth, but a filing by special counsel John Durham that alleges the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton paid a technology company to “infiltrate” or “spy” (the word Donald Trump uses) on his presidential campaign and later while he was president, goes beyond dirty tricks into the illegal.
In a court filing, Durham alleges the purpose behind Russian “collusion” allegations was to establish a “narrative” between then-Republican presidential candidate Trump and Russia. Trump denied it at the time and many times since, including during an interview with Lesley Stahl on “60 Minutes.” Stahl said there was “no evidence” for Trump’s claim. Trump said there was and that her job was to investigate and find it. Now that there is at least a credible allegation, will Stahl deliver a correction? Not likely, and neither is it likely other major media, which flogged the Russian collusion story, will acknowledge error. These include The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR, as well as numerous liberal websites. They seem to have their own narrative, and it is based on a visceral hatred of Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, The New York Times published a story about the Durham report on its website but seemed to dismiss it as “old news,” a familiar tactic often used when it reported on the various Clinton scandals.
The Times and Washington Post won Pulitzer Prizes for basically repeating Democrat talking points.