Trump takes on NY Times Russia story

Washington Examiner:

President Trump's reelection campaign Wednesday filed suit against the New York Times, accusing the paper of libel for an article it published related to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The suit, filed in the New York State Supreme Court, marks a new escalation in Trump's various fights with the media. The purpose of the litigation, the campaign said in a statement, was to "hold the news organization accountable for intentionally publishing false statements against President Trump's campaign."

The lawsuit claims the newspaper "knowingly published false and defamatory statements" in a story about the Trump campaign published March 27, 2019, alleging "an overarching deal" with "Vladimir Putin's oligarchy" against rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election — an arrangement that would deliver “a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administration’s burdensome economic sanctions.”

The paper published the claims in a bid to knowingly "misinform and mislead" readers and influence the upcoming general election, the suit said.
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This is different from a more recent story in the NY Times suggesting that the Russians want President Trump to win in 2020.   The Democrats do appear to be running the Russian hoax again.  James Robbins reports:

Based on the tone of Tuesday’s Democratic debate, you would think the Kremlin has already determined the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Former Vice President Joe Biden said Russians are “engaged now, as I speak, in interfering in our election.” Billionaire Tom Steyer said there is “an attack by a hostile foreign power on our democracy right now.” Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg charged that Russia was backing Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to ensure a Trump victory in November.

Clearly, the Russia scaremongering is in full swing. Last week’s intelligence community testimony that the Kremlin is backing President Donald Trump made headline news. Another report emerged alleging Moscow is backing Sanders. Biden claimed that Bernie-backing Russian bots have been attacking him on Facebook. And Hillary Clinton told a foreign audience that “Russians are back in our cyber systems,” and that “anyone who tries to deny it” is living in a “sad dreamworld.”
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There is no reason to suspect Russia will improve its record in shaping American elections. The Mueller report detailed the efforts of Kremlin-linked activists to interfere in the 2016 election, but it did not conclude that these crude propaganda efforts influenced the outcome whatsoever. We should balance our legitimate concern that the Russians are trying to sway the electorate with the knowledge that they are not very good at it.
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They do appear to be good at getting Democrats to exhibit paranoia about the possibility.  Roger Kimball notes:

The first installment strained credulity but at least had the virtue of novelty. Imagine, a real-life Manchurian candidate, right before our eyes!

Of course, it was totally unbelievable, not least because it wasn’t true. But just as people wept bitter tears over Charles Dickens’s decision to kill off Little Nell, so people got hysterical over the idea that somehow Trump had “colluded” with Russia to steal the election from its rightful owner, Hillary Clinton.

In the sequel, we are asked to follow S.T. Coleridge and undertake a gigantic “willing suspension of disbelief.” For The New York Times, it was the work of a moment. In a breathless story published Feb. 20, our former paper of record reported on a “classified briefing” by members of “the intelligence community” to the House Intelligence Committee. The burden of the briefing, according to “five [unnamed] people familiar with the matter,” was that Russia is once again up to its old meddling tricks and is “interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected.”

You see what I mean about ROFLMAO. As McCarthy noted, we are “asked to believe that Putin is manipulating the chesspieces to steal a second term for President Trump—somehow preferring an incumbent who beefs up the U.S. armed forces, pressures NATO allies to beef up theirs, imposes painful sanctions on Moscow, provides lethal aid to Ukraine, ramps up U.S. energy production, and seeks to thwart the Kremlin’s coveted natural-gas partnership with Germany.”

Deep waters, what? McCarthy is right. “It’s a lunatic plot.” But the mainstream media went with it big time, much to the amusement of Tucker Carlson, who provided a hilarious compilation of Russia 3.0 hysteria. I pause for a commercial break while you enjoy the clip....

This looks more like an Adam Schiff moment where he fell for a Russian comedian on radio's scam about having nude pictures of the President.   Meanwhile, the WaPo says the Russians really want Bernie Sanders this time.  Perhaps the President may want to add parties to the suit involved in the February 20. 2020 story.

I suspect that the Russians may just be trolling the Democrats and the media again.