🎯 Michael Shellenberger | Ever since Donald Trump emerged as a presidential contender nine years ago, America’s most esteemed scholars and journalists have argued that he was violating democratic norms. Trump, they said, was ignoring the stabilizing, unwritten rules and values of American politics. This was evident in his vulgar language, vilification of immigrants, criticisms of the press, lack of cooperation with the intelligence community, and refusal to accept the 2020 election results.

But the Democrats’ relentless effort to imprison Trump has undermined the rule of law, faith in the criminal justice system, and democratic norms more than anything Trump has ever done.

According to multiple credible sources, President Barack Obama’s Director of the CIA, in the summer of 2016, illegally mobilized foreign spy agencies to target 26 Trump advisors to claim, falsely, that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin controlled Trump.

Then, in January 2017, after Trump had been elected but before he took office, the U.S. Intelligence Community falsely claimedthat Putin had favored the election of Trump when, in reality, the intelligence showed that Putin favored Hillary Clinton.

After taking office, current and former US government intelligence operatives and Democrats falsely claimed that Russian disinformation on social media had resulted in Trump’s election and worked with the Department of Homeland Security to censor social media platforms.