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Now that Trump is back from his wildly successful foreign trip, Democrats and the media are back to trying to derail the President’s agenda by taking every waking opportunity to hammer the Russia red herring. Sunday morning’s “Meet The Press” was no different, with a panel that included host Chuck Todd, political analyst Amy Walter, liberal MSNBC host Joy Reid, Trump-hater Charlie Sykes and, surrounded on all sides by a panel clearly stacked against her, indomitable Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel.

But armed with facts, logic, and a healthy dose of common sense, it was Strassel who overwhelmingly won the debate, and the day. And when Chuck Todd first turned and timidly asked her to weigh in on the Trump / Kushner / Russia issue (“Kim?”), it’s almost like he knew what was about to happen.

‘Boom!’ Harris Faulkner kills backchannels to Russia story with one super SMART question

After a couple of panelists had weighed in with the usual “smoke / fire” talking points, when it was her turn to speak, Strassel began with a derisive laugh and said, “I think we are having a discussion that is absolutely divorced from reality this week. It is astonishing. Let me set the scene for you.”

And what a scene it was, because it involved then candidate Obama (not President Obama or even President-elect Obama) establishing a backchannel with … wait for it…

“It’s 2008, we are having an election and candidate Obama, he’s not even president-elect, sends William Miller over to Iran to establish a backchannel, and let the Iranians know should he win the election they will have friendlier terms. Okay? So this is a private citizen going to foreign soil, obviously in order to evade U.S. intelligence monitoring and establishing a backchannel with a sworn enemy of the United States who was actively disrupting our efforts in the military in the Middle East.”

That’s right, Obama sent someone over to a member of the Axis of Evil itself, IRAN, to establish a back channel and pave the way towards friendlier terms. And she’s not even saying it was a bad thing, just that negotiations are what presidents do and let’s get a little perspective here.

“So, is that bad judgment? Is that a bad thing that happened?” Strassel asked. “Backchannels are completely normal, they happen all the time. Reagan did them, Obama did them, everyone did. So, I am not quite sure why, supposedly having at least the President is now elected setting up a backchannel with the Russians, it is somehow out-of-bounds.”

Joy Reid jumped in at this point to point out the supposed “18 separate contacts that we know of between the Trump Campaign and Russia” in October, ignoring Strassel’s point about Iran being a sworn enemy of the United States actively disrupting our efforts in the Middle East.

So basically, the difference is that Russia is alleged to have harmed Democratic efforts, and that cannot be forgiven under any circumstances, and it makes Russia our “primary adversary in the world.”

Funny how Leninist Lefties have suddenly become cold warriors.

Reid then went on to point out that President Trump sent his son-in-law to establish the backchannel.

Golfing great Tiger Woods arrested in Florida

“Then, if it is a channel about opening up negotiations in terms of something realistic– in terms of something about foreign policy,” Reid continued. “Why are they also back-channeling with a bank? A Kremlin-connected Russian bank and why is the Reuters report saying that part of the discussion was a possibility of opening up opportunities for financing for Trump-related…”

“But we don’t know the answers to any of those questions because what we’re getting here are half leaks and anonymously by sources,” Strassel responded.

And she’s right, we don’t know.

“You have to follow the money, you have to follow the meetings, the lies,” Sykes said.

To which Strassel stuck to her guns: “And we don’t have any of that information.”

When Sykes pointed out the suspicion surrounding the alleged fact that Kushner and Trump supposedly “trusted the Russians more than the intelligence community,” Strassel responded with the fact that “the intelligence services and also the Defense Department were being run by the Obama administration.”

So really, why would anyone loyal to President Trump trust them? Hasn’t all this been borne out by the constant stream of leaking?

Incredulity from Reid, of course. “Are you telling me that the now elected Trump administration did not trust John Brennan that somehow these straight arrow guys in our intelligence services were going to now work to actively undermine, are they now seeing them as some sort of dissidents?”

Um, yeah.

More reporters on Meet the Press. Less pundits. Strassel showed why.

— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) May 29, 2017

Finally, the kill shot:

“One of the most interesting pieces of news that actually came out this week, was the FISA court revelation that they said that the Obama administration had been actively engaged in abusing fourth amendment protections by unmasking people’s identities on a routine basis, which they did not acknowledge to the court. And which they said, brought up major, major concerns. So maybe you wouldn’t trust that team in fact,” Strassel said.

Watch the video below courtesy of RealClearPolitics (our apologies – the previous video changed to a truncated version that left the Strassel segment out):

Part I:

Part II:

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Scott Morefield

Scott Morefield is a news and opinion columnist for BizPac Review. In addition to his work on BPR, Scott's commentary can also be found on Townhall, TheBlaze, The Hill, WND, Breitbart, National Review, The Federalist, and many other sites, including A Morefield Life, where he and his wife, Kim, share their marriage and parenting journey.

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