This week, the Guardian published a maybe-bombshell. On Thursday, the British website reported it had obtained internal Kremlin documents showing that Vladimir Putin personally authorized a clandestine operation to boost a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 election in order to cause “social turmoil in the United States and weaken America’s position internationally and domestically.” According to these papers, Putin rendered his decision during a closed session of Russia’s national security council in January of that election year.

One report, the newspaper said, was classified as secret and described Trump as the “most promising candidate” from the Kremlin’s point of view. A psychological assessment of Trump noted he was an “impulsive, mentally unstable, and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex.” And according to the Guardian, the Russian papers referred to the Kremlin possessing kompromat—compromising material—on Trump that originated with “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory.” A Trump win, the Russian documents supposedly said, “will definitely lead to the destabilisation of the US’s sociopolitical system.”

But…and yes, there’s a significant but. The Guardian couldn’t say for certain if its booty is legitimate. The article noted, “The Guardian has shown the documents to independent experts who say they appear to be genuine. Incidental details come across as accurate. The overall tone and thrust is said to be consistent with Kremlin security thinking.” The Guardian did not indicate how it had come into possession of this explosive material. That was to protect the source (or sources). To further safeguard the source(s), the newspaper did not post a full reproduction of the documents, mindful of what happened with the Intercept’s handling of the Reality Winner case. I’m sure that the Guardian reporters checked with US and British government sources and would not have published this article had any red flags been raised. Still, the article, as presented, left an opening for skepticism. On Twitter, experts in Russian disinformation and cyberwarfare raised questions about the documents. Some skeptics pointed to supposed linguistic errors in the brief excerpts the Guardian published—though one credible Russian expert challenged that interpretation. John Sipher, a former senior CIA officer who served in Moscow, took a cautious stance: “Without the resources of a professional intelligence organization, nobody can say for certain” if these documents are real.

Could this be, as Trump would say, a “hoax”? Naturally, a Trump spokesperson, who demonstrated a pitch-perfect imitation of the former president, immediately slammed the Guardian report: “It’s fake news, just like RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA was fake news. It’s just the Radical Left crazies doing whatever they can to demean everybody on the right." But if it’s a hoax, who exactly was doing the hoaxing? Trump might suspect the wily denizens of the Deep State. Perhaps some con artist forged these documents to sell them to an intelligence outfit or news outlet? Maybe a foreign spy service cooked them up. Or was this a devilishly clever, three-dimensional chess Russian disinformation project: create a forgery that describes an actual development—the Russian attack on the US election to boost Trump—in order to undermine that account? (If the documents are phony, then the event they describe must not be true, right?) The newspaper reported, “The papers, seen by the Guardian, seem to represent a serious and highly unusual leak from within the Kremlin.” Doubters focused on this seem-to-represent formulation.

The material could well be legit. It is in full accord with the already-known narrative. Yet short of Putin saying, “Da, eto nashi dokumenty”—“Yeah, those are our documents!”—it’s tough to see how the authenticity of this material can be totally confirmed. Maybe the Guardian or other journalists can find reliable sources in the British or American governments to substantiate the papers and report those findings—not that this would satisfy Trump and his minions.

It would be news if there were real evidence that Moscow possessed suitable-for-blackmail information on Trump. So too would it be consequential if there were confirmation that Putin assessed Trump to be a nutter and that’s why he attempted to weaponize Trump to exacerbate political divisions within the United States and weaken the world’s most important democracy. But here’s the thing: We already know that Putin ordered the hit on the 2016 election to help elect Trump and trigger disorder.

In early 2017, the US intelligence community released a report concluding that Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election” and that Moscow’s goal was to “undermine” American democracy and help Trump become president. And so much about how Russia went about it has been confirmed. The House and Senate intelligence committees—while being led by Republicans—produced reports detailing the Russian operation. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report declared that Russia intervened in the election in a “sweeping and systematic” fashion and expected to “benefit” from a Trump presidency. Mueller described the various aspects of the Russian attack—the hacking and release of Democratic emails and documents, the covert social media campaign—in great specificity.

We also know that Trump and his crew aided and abetted Putin’s operation. During the campaign, Trump publicly encouraged Russian hackers to go after Hillary Clinton. He and his top lieutenants also denied the Moscow attack took place—even though his senior campaign advisers (Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner) had met with a Russian operative after being told she would supply them dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of a secret Kremlin plot to assist Trump. Put simply: The Trump campaign was informed Moscow was scheming covertly to boost Trump, and it accepted that help, signaling to the Kremlin that it welcomed the Russian plot, while insisting to the American public that Moscow was doing nothing.

This was utter duplicity. One might also describe it as treasonous.

The Trumpers were dishing out disinformation to cover up Putin’s attack. And the public has learned—thanks to a GOP-endorsed Senate intelligence committee report released last year—that during the 2016 campaign, Manafort was secretly meeting with a Russian intelligence officer who “may have been connected to the [Russian military intelligence] hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election.” Manafort passed internal polling information to this suspected Russian intelligence officer. (Some might consider that collusion.)

And we know, because we saw it with our own eyes, that one result of the Kremlin’s clandestine operation—the endless drip-drip-drip release of those Democratic emails and documents pilfered by Moscow’s hackers—did hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the last four weeks before the election. This sustained leak generated a monthlong stretch of bad press, and the Clinton campaign was unable to gain a sure footing, even as Trump was clobbered by the grab-them-by-the-pussy video. In such a close election—a switch of 71,000 votes across three key states would have flipped the results—this Russian-orchestrated obstacle definitely was one of several decisive factors that determined the ultimate outcome.

It’s not a secret. Putin attacked the United States and succeeded. He achieved his goal: Trump was elected, and his presidency caused the political chaos that Putin anticipated—look at January 6—and it resulted in 400,000 or so preventable American deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Putin can claim partial credit for both the destabilizing violence of the insurrection and the deaths and economic losses that came from Trump’s inept, narcissistic response to the coronavirus crisis.) The Guardian story, if true, adds footnotes to the rather elaborate and substantiated account that already exists.

More interesting is how the reaction to the Guardian article provides yet another sign that the United States has not fully come to terms with the Putin attack. Trump keeps saying it was a hoax. Foxland and GOPworld echo his useful-idiot propaganda, refusing to acknowledge that Dear Leader benefitted from Putin’s sabotage and committed a profound act of treachery to assist that assault on the United States. And Democrats largely want to move on. But with the country still reeling from the Trump presidency, it has been forever changed by Putin’s act of warfare. Maybe it is just too difficult for America to appreciate the vulnerability of its democracy and to process the disturbing fact that it lost this battle.

Dumbass Comment of the Week

Donald Trump certainly had the most dangerous comment of the week. Speaking to Trump cult propagandist Maria Bartiromo about January 6, Trump said, "There was such love at that rally...the love in the air, I've never seen anything like it.” He was, of course, describing a crowd full of white supremacists, Christian nationalists, neo-Nazis, QAnoners, and other miscreants who then attempted to overturn an election by an insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol.

If you haven’t watched the New York Times’ “Day of Rage” video, you ought to. Where is the love in this?

Trump’s remark was absurd. But it wasn’t idiotic rambling. This was purposeful. He was expressing his appreciation for the domestic terrorists who assaulted Capitol Hill on his behalf and at his urging. And he was demonstrating his own pathology. He looks at that terrifying video and what he sees is love—that is, blind and violent devotion to him. If this so-called love leads to brutal physical attacks on scores of law enforcement officers, the ransacking of Congress, and threats to assassinate his own vice president—who cares?! All that counts is that the horde worships him. For Trump, that is true love—love for him over adherence to the rule of law, decency, or democracy. I know we’re supposed to be careful with certain historical comparisons. But it was hard to hear this statement and not think of a leader who eight decades ago equated the violence of his followers with love.

As for utter stupidity, let’s turn to Rob Schmitt, a host for Newsmax, the conservative and very Trumpy website. Interviewing a doctor, Schmitt remarked:

One thing I've always thought, and maybe you can guide me on this because, obviously, I'm not a doctor. But I've always thought about vaccines, and I always think about just nature, and the way everything works. And I feel like a vaccination in a weird way is just generally kind of going against nature. Like, I mean, if there is some disease out there—maybe there's just an ebb and flow to life where something's supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people, and that's just kind of the way evolution goes. Vaccines kind of stand in the way of that. Do you follow what I'm saying? Does that make sense to somebody in medicine?

He is right: He is obviously not a doctor. Following this logic, we should allow polio, measles, and other diseases to kill tens of millions of people. And maybe we ought to stop all surgeries and medical treatment, too? You get cancer, well that’s just nature telling you that your ride is here. Heart medication? Insulin? Don’t mess with the natural order. Glasses, contact lens, hearing aids—anti-nature, too, right? And let’s halt all research into Alzheimer’s disease. God or Gaia wants you to lose the memories of your loved ones. We can play this game all day. The point is not that a dimwit is hosting a far-right program. There’s little doubt that if Trump, Fox Newsers, and the rest of the conservative crew had embraced science and the advice of public health experts throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we wouldn’t have a Tucker wannabe questioning the value of vaccination. Schmitt is not the cause of the right-wing imbecility that has damaged this nation and continues to place millions of Americans at risk. He is a symptom.

Got a nomination for Dumbass Comment of the Week? Email me at thisland@motherjones.com.

What to Read, Watch, and Listen To

Bosch. It’s weird to relish a television series while not enjoying the lead character. LAPD detective Harry Bosch is a tough cop driven by a never-say-die sense of righteousness, who breaks rules and battles with bureaucrats. He’s crusty, a loner, a veteran of the first Gulf War, and old-school. So old-school that he likes classic jazz. Really likes it. That is, he’s trope-ish, predictable, and, consequently, not that interesting. But the producers of the Amazon Prime series, which is based on novels by Michael Connelly, found an ingenious way to deal with the cliché at the center of the project: They surrounded Bosch (played by Titus Welliver) with far more engaging and unusual characters. This includes his boss Lt. Grace Billets (Amy Aquino), a lesbian coping with harassment from male colleagues above and below her in the chain of command; his partner, Jerry Edgar (Jamie Hector), who is obsessed with a Haitian crime boss who executed his uncle in Haiti; and LAPD police chief Irvin Irving (Lance Reddick), whose ambition clashes with his genuine desire for justice. The unending intersection of city politics and interdepartmental intrigue yield engrossing plotlines. (For some odd reason, few cases that land on Bosch’s desk are without political ramifications.) There are plenty of horrific crimes niftily solved—without, of course, always a just outcome. The series has zipped through seven seasons, with the most recent supposedly its last—though a daddy-daughter moment at the end of the final episode opened the door wide for more to come. Bosch is an entertaining hard-boiled procedural that flicks at the headlines, societal conflicts, and injustices of modern Los Angeles. It works so well because Bosch has plenty of backup.

Got any recommendations of what I should be reading, watching, or listening to? Send them to thisland@motherjones.com.

Read Previous Issues of This Land

July 15, 2021: Does President Joe Biden really stand with the Cuban people?; the time I really pissed off the Cuban regime; J. Edgar Hoover vs. MLK; one of the best movie reviews of all time; and more.

July 13, 2021: A coming referendum on Donald Trump; a suggestion for Hunter Biden; a new book on how the super-rich screw us all; and more.

July 10, 2021: Why the Republicans are right to be terrified of the new House committee investigating the 1/6 attack; Dumbass Comment of the Week; Joni Mitchell’s Blue 50; and more.

July 7, 2021: How The Summer of Soul counters the GOP’s season of hate; a debate on the recent UFO report; Garry Trudeau, American Dostoyevsky; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 3, 2021: Donald Rumsfeld, Christopher Hitchens, the Iraq War, and me; the perils of taking a home DNA test; Dumbass Comment of the Week; a Springsteen story; and more.

July 1, 2021: Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and perjury; Adam Serwer’s new book; Cézanne’s crime scene; and more.

June 29, 2021: How the new UFO report is bad news for UFO believers; my own UFO tale; HBO Max’s Hacks; an anti-racist anthem; and more.

June 26, 2021: Is Josh Hawley dumb or evil? (The answer is not both); Dumbassery that encourages mass “executions” in the United States; renowned guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson’s new tour and new book (and his claim regarding the best strings arrangement ever on a popular song); MoxieCam™ (before and after photos!), and more.

June 24, 2021: How an alleged 1/6 conspirator who called for executing Trump’s foes hooked up with a prominent Republican Party official; new Los Lobos; and more.

June 22, 2021: Why the GOP is pushing “political apartheid”; Ted Cruz wins Dumbass Comment of the Week; recommendations for an Apple TV+ series and a book on the curious origins of the universe; the first Clash tour of the United States (and being trapped in a van driven by a punk on acid); MoxieCam™; and more.