The New York Times reports that the entire corruption case against the Biden family in the U.S. House of Representatives was dealt “a stinging setback” after special counsel David Weiss obtained this indictment against a key “whistleblower” for lying about the Bidens. The indictment alleges that Russians used this informant, who also worked for the FBI, feeding him disinformation about the Bidens supposedly accepting large payments as bribes. It is important to remember, however, that this indictment is merely an allegation. We should view it within the context of many previous allegations that, like this indictment, align with the joint government/media operation to get Trump.

Weiss has also been accused of using his office to slow-walk the investigation into the Bidens in order to protect them. Remember that the Justice Department has a terrible record for “justice” when it comes to anything political, particularly as it relates to Russia.

Bookmark this article for reference in the future. This is not to say that the Justice Department might trump up a case merely to protect President Biden. It is merely to remind readers that there’s a long track record to consider. Whenever we hear our government or its servants in the media make a politically charged claim about Russia, we should refresh our memories of the many stories that turned out to be hoaxes surrounding that country. Here is a brief list to keep handy:

1. The Russian Co-Signers Hoax: In August of 2018, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell claimed Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin cosigned loans to Donald Trump from Deutsche Bank. MSNBC quickly retracted the claim when Trump threatened to sue. Read here for a deeper dive into that story and a good laugh.
2. The Trump Tower Russians Hoax: In July of 2017, The New York Times reported that Donald Trump, Jr. met with a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, at Trump Tower in 2016 in the hope that she had opposition research against Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Although a meeting did take place, the “Russian” in question shared a client with Fusion GPS—the firm Clinton hired to frame Trump for colluding with Russia. Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson had dinner with her on the night before and after the Trump Tower meeting and the opposition research used to bait Donald Trump, Jr. came directly from Fusion GPS.
3. The Hunter Biden Russian Disinformation Hoax: In October of 2020, shortly after The New York Post reported on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop , 51 intelligence officials signed a letter characterizing the story as Russian disinformation. The claim was easily disproved by people who authenticated emails found on the laptop. Nevertheless, at the urging of the U.S. government, social media companies censored the story to protect the Bidens.
4. The Russian Bounty for U.S. Soldiers Hoax: In June of 2020, NBC cited anonymous government sources who claimed that the Russians paid bounties to the Taliban for every U.S. soldier it killed. Later, after the election, NBC admitted the story could not be verified.
5. The “Russia Destroyed the Nord Stream Pipeline” Hoax: Shortly after the September 2022 destruction of the natural gas pipeline, anonymous Western officials blamed Russia for the explosion. The allegations quickly fell apart as the investigation proceeded and now no credible source now makes that claim.
6. The “Carter Page Is a Russian Spy” Hoax: In order to justify spying on the Trump campaign, the FBI lied to a FISA court to obtain warrants spanning one year ending in 2017 to spy on Trump campaign figure, Carter Page. FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith later pleaded guilty to fabricating evidence to bolster that lie. Page was not a spy for Russia and the FBI knew it at the time it applied for the warrant.
7. The “Trump Is a Russian Asset” Hoax: This hoax may have started when Hillary Clinton paid Fusion GPS to smear Donald Trump, late in the spring of 2016. But the intelligence community quickly sponsored the allegation with anonymous leaks by “retired” intelligence officials. The Guardian gave new life to the hoax here in January 2021. In spite of years of investigation, the combined forces of the FBI, the CIA, Congress, and Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation have never provided any convincing evidence of this charge.
8. The Russia/Alfa Bank Hoax: Days before the 2016 election, Slate reported that a “group of computer scientists” alleged that the Trump organization had a secret backchannel to a bank in Russia called, “Alfa Bank.” Slate wrote, “Trump and Alfa had configured something like a digital hotline connecting the two entities, shutting out the rest of the world, and designed to obscure its own existence.” Later, a special counsel charged Clinton attorney Michael Sussmann with fabricating the story and sponsoring it to the FBI. A DC-based jury acquitted Sussmann of these charges in May of 2022. 
9. The Russian Troll Farm Hoax: In 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller dismissed charges that two Russian companies (Concord Management and Consulting LLC and Concord) ran troll farms that interfered with the election. No one expected that either company would defend itself from the indictment. But the Russian companies surprised the Justice Department by hiring an attorney who demanded proof of the wrongdoing. The Justice Department could not meet its evidentiary burden and dismissed the charges. The government had alleged that the Russians used the companies as cutouts to influence the 2016 election through a massive troll farm operation. But the government was forced to admit in open court that it had no evidence that the Russian government had anything to do with the alleged troll farms.
10. The “Devin Nunes Is a Putin Puppet” Hoax: In 2017, former Representative Devin Nunes led one of the most consequential congressional investigations of all time. Among the revelations his investigation uncovered is the discovery that Hillary Clinton paid for the Trump dossier that accused Trump of being a Russian puppet. So naturally, Nunes himself was accused of being a puppet of Russia.
11. The “James Comer Is a Putin Puppet” Hoax: More recently, there has been a coordinated counterstrike against House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer. Among the allegations: Comer is doing Putin’s bidding by investigating the Bidens. Related to this hoax is the hoax that the FBI’s arrest of a single witness topples the entire Comer case against Biden. On the contrary, Comer has produced undisputed bank records showing foreign payments to the Bidens including payments from Russia.
12. The Russian “Pee Tape” Hoax: Among the Clinton-financed smears against Donald Trump, none is more memorable than the allegation that Trump instructed two Russian prostitutes to urinate on a hotel bed during his visit to Russia. The FBI used taxpayer money to attempt to obtain this alleged video tape. Although the FBI did not have possession of any such tape, it appears that then-director James Comey used his knowledge of the operation to produce it in an attempt to blackmail the then-incoming President Trump. The Justice Department inspector general chased the hoax to the source who, apparently, informed Christopher Steele’s infamous and discredited “dossier.” On page 187 of the inspector general’s report, we learn that even Steele’s source disavowed the story as “rumor and speculation.”
13. The Michael Cohen Paid Russian Hackers Hoax: Steele alleged through his dossier that President Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, traveled to Prague in 2016 to pay the Russian hackers responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to obtain the emails later leaked by Wikileaks. Cohen quickly produced passport records to show the meeting never took place. Czech intelligence later corroborated the denial.
14. The Russian/DNC Hack Hoax: While it is possible that the Russians really were behind the hack of the DNC, there are legitimate reasons to question the claim that we know the Russians were behind it. It is not an established fact. For one thing, computer security experts have noted that the exfiltrated information downloaded too fast to be an over-the-internet hack. Further, the FBI relied on Hillary Clinton’s own vendor to attribute the hack to the Russians and it did next to nothing itself to corroborate that claim. Read here for a more detailed discussion of the holes in that narrative.

Readers, undoubtedly, will be able to expand on this list in the comments.

Why the ongoing effort to tie things back to Russia? Former State Department official, Mike Benz, offered this explanation in his recent groundbreaking interview with Tucker Carlson:

And what little resistance there was washed over by the rise and saturation of Russiagate, which basically allowed them to not have to deal with the moral ambiguities of censoring your own people. Because if Trump was a Russian asset, you no longer really had a traditional free speech issue. It was a national security issue.

The interview should be required watching for every American. Benz, who writes extensively on the censorship-industrial complex, makes a persuasive case. Agencies like the Department of State, the Pentagon, and the CIA are supposed to be outward facing. By tying Trump to the external Russian threat, they could access the powerful intelligence and censorship tools that work so effectively abroad.