April 5, 2019 --

Jeff Zucker, head of CNN, defended his coverage of the alleged collusion issue because of a need "'to report the facts as we know them...." He was quoted in The New York Times, March 26, as saying that the president's "'Justice Department investigated his campaign for collusion with a hostile nation,'' indicating that this was "'enormous,'" because it was "'unprecedented,'" not "'because the media says so.'"

Mr. Zucker's explanation is not persuasive; it also does not make it clear why Russia is deemed '"a hostile nation.'" For further perspective on the baseless nature of this charge, LPR recommends, "War With Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate, " by Stephen F. Cohen. Prof. Cohen is usually heard Tuesdays, at 10 p.m. (eastern time) chatting with John Batchelor concerning the subjects of his important book, on the John Batchelor Show (WABC in New York City).

Of course the anti-Trump resistance uses Russia as another battering ram against the president, going back to the 2016 campaign when leftists accused candidate Trump of being a "Siberian candidate," of being a "Putin asset."

In their third debate Hillary Clinton suggested that Donald Trump as Putin's "puppet." We have since learned that the Clinton campaign paid for the "Steele Dossier," filled with lies about candidate Trump's ties to Russia.

LPR does not believe Russia had any impact on the electoral process in 2016 and accepts Wikileaks denial that Russia was the source of the information gained from hacking Democratic National Committee computers, that in part, made public the DNC's bias for Clinton.