Talk:Russia investigation origins counter-narrative

The Lead

I take issue with the wording in the first line... "sometimes identified as a conspiracy theory". Do all the citations agree that it is only considered a conspiracy theory "SOMETIMES"? I suppose if you asked SOME Trump supporters, at certain TIMES of the day, they might not consider it a conspiracy theory, but that's not a metric. This "alternate narrative" is more like "alternate facts" IE WP:SYNTH. DN (talk) 17:22, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the Trump side wants to find someone to blame, so instead of just blaming the "Obama administration", they're trying to specifically blame Rice for doing something that's perfectly normal and non-political. They got caught and try to shift the blame. They do this while trying to ignore all the evidence of illicit contacts by them with Russians and how they actively cooperated with and aided the Russian interference: "And so the furor on the right will probably continue to mushroom, and all but eliminate the already severely eroded interest in those circles of what was going on with the Russians in the first place." -- Valjean (talk) 16:42, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

"Conspiracy theory*

the John Durham investigation has proven this isnt a conspiracy theory. this article is out of date and misleading. Jaygo113 (talk) 16:29, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Do you have reliable sources saying other wise? If not, please try to avoid using this talk page as a personal forum, as it is not the place to share opinions about subject rather than RS. DN (talk) 23:14, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hillary-clinton-campaign-paid-firm-to-spy-on-trump-9hrbjjkr2 is a reliable source Nerguy (talk) 00:37, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

"a US special prosecutor has suggested" soibangla (talk) 00:45, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

That is a correct description of John Durham. Nerguy (talk) 00:49, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

...and what he did. soibangla (talk) 00:57, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

"Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources", as per WP:NPOV.Nerguy (talk) 13:41, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

I love the tone of the article, it perfectly fits wikipedia! If you ever need to show anyone how there is a problem with wiki editors, just reference this article. The article is clearly not neutral and doing everything possible to frame an official investigation as a conspiracy theory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:D1:1718:3318:9154:5A2E:4987:E19E (talk) 19:19, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Again, and for the last time, please abstain from using this talk page section as a WP:FORUM for engaging in WP:SYNTHESIS and WP:ORIGINAL research. I suggest hatting this section at this point, nothing productive here to see. DN (talk) 22:59, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Why should anyone abstain from using the talk pages about a ever evolving story? Your insular anti change position indicates you may be a paid hack spending your time covering for other paid hacks who hang out on wikipedia. Loopbackdude (talk) 19:24, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

You really, really, REALLY need to familiarize yourself with the rules, especially WP:TALK (which will tell you that this is not a chatroom but just for discussions about how to improve the article) and WP:NPA (which will tell you you should not make personal attacks on other users. If you don't, your future on Wikipedia is bound to be short. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:19, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

The headline of the Times article puts Durham's suggestion that the Clinton campaign ‘paid firm to spy on Trump’ in scare quotes, a more than unfortunate headline because—as this discussion proves—people don't pay attention to quotation marks or choice of verbs such as the use of the verb "suggested" in the first paragraph. I can't read the rest of the article because of the paywall but the beginning indicates that the Times article does not support Durham's "suggestion". The Washington Post fact checker wrote that Durham used the opportunity of filing a request with the court to examine what he called were potential conflicts of interest regarding Sussmann’s counsel, Latham & Watkins to make new allegations unrelated to the request. The fact checker noted that Durham does not specifically claim that the alleged monitoring of DNS traffic at the White House took place while Trump was president. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 17:43, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Here's the rest of the story: The original story line that Clinton’s team had overseen some sort of electronic spying on Trump including while he was president was badly undercut, and Fox News prime time ran with it anyway. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 18:46, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

"Court Filing Started a Furor in Right-Wing Outlets, but Their Narrative Is Off Track". The New York Times. February 14, 2022. soibangla (talk) 23:20, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

[1] "Trump and numerous other Republicans went on to cite Durham's filing as proof that Hillary Clinton's campaign directed an illegal conspiracy to spy on Trump both during and possibly after his 2016 election victory, though nowhere in Durham's filing did prosecutors say that the effort was directed by or involved the Clinton campaign, that any of the alleged gathering of data took place after Trump had taken office, or that any of the alleged conduct -- even if it took place -- was illegal." DN (talk) 23:23, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

[2] "So far, there is no evidence that the Clinton campaign directly managed the Steele reporting or leaks about it to the media." "Thus far, Durham has not charged anyone with spying on Trump." DN (talk) 23:47, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Request semi protection 2-17-22

IP is sad... [3] [4] [5] DN (talk) 07:47, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

 Done -- Valjean (talk) 03:33, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory?

Wikipedia is a crowd-sourced encyclopedia, right? Encyclopedia should cite professional sources, not popular sources for backing up any stated fact in an article. Whatever your thoughts and opinions are about news media political bias, it cannot be denied that journalism is not a strong enough source to stand alone, especially in support of bold, damning claims.

Unless a news article is a primary source of information, it cannot be cited as a factual basis for any claim.

That being said, it’s easy to fix the damage you editors are trying to do. The very fact that Wikipedia requires source citations is the beauty of it. You can make wild claims and back them up with weak sources, and you can bully other editors an overrule their edits, but you can never ever deny the ultimate weakness of your own claims.

Using the word conspiracy theory is anti-educational. Shame on you all. Carpedm333 (talk) 07:01, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Blah blah blah blah blah blah. This is unspecific and therefore useless.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah. This is unspecific and therefore useless.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah. This is unspecific and therefore useless.

Using the word conspiracy theory is anti-educational. Blah. "Conspiracy theory" is sourced to reliable sources. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:30, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes, shame on us for trying to stick to reliable sources while people complain at us that the sources don't reflect their personal views. How dare we? DN (talk) 07:53, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

A (biased) news outlet's opinion that something is a "conspiracy theory" does not make it so. One of your sources states: "Some former Justice Department officials say Barr, the top law enforcement official in the United States, is legitimizing baseless conspiracy theories and improperly harnessing government resources to help Trump win re-election in 2020." This does not back up your claim that criticism of the investigation is a conspiracy theory.

This entire article, particularly the opening, is a blatant breach of neutrality standards. Your sources are biased or misquoted as there are dozens of legitimate opinions criticizing the credibility of the Russia hoax. Please do not pass off your interpretation of media echo chambers as factual. This article will be flagged for review and possible deletion. Domiy (talk) 01:16, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Read the "Claims made" section. Do you have RS that undermine that content?

When you say "Russia hoax", what do you mean? Are you denying that Russia interfered in the 2016 election? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:54, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

"is a conspiracy theory" vs. "identified as a conspiracy theory"

In the first sentence of the lead I changed "is a conspiracy theory" back to the older version "identified as a conspiracy theory". The reason is the details of the sources cited for this phrase, of which there are five (Reuters, WaPo, Vanity Fair, NBC News, Vox). Among these five, Reuters and WaPo do not state in editorial voice that this is a conspiracy theory, but attribute it to people discussed in the articles. Vanity Fair and Vox are described at WP:RSP as potentially partisan or biased, and so if on their own ought to be attributed. So "is a conspiracy theory" does not appear to accurately reflect all five of the cited sources.

This leaves the NBC News source. NBC News does indeed describe this as a conspiracy theory in editorial voice, so I still think "is a conspiracy theory" would be appropriate in this sentence—however, in that case the other four sources should be trimmed here and replaced with different sources which do refer to the subject of this article as a conspiracy theory in editorial voice. Fiwec81618 (talk) 07:17, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Nice catch. Agreed that "identified as" is more accurate according to RS. DN (talk) 09:09, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

I appreciate the "restraint" and analysis you put into the lede. I'm curious, however (perhaps as more of a general question than about this in particular), if we settle for one editorial (voiced) mention, how could this ever get "overturned" (e.g. removed)? We can't reasonably expect an RS to write something like "The Russia counter-narrative (which isn't a conspiracy theory)...". I haven't paid much attention to WP's editorial guidance in quite some time, but "back in my day" consensus among RS was important.

IOW, if an RS said "Mark Zuckerberg, who is definitely a robot, ...", does the fact that there is no other RS saying something like "Zuckerberg, a human and definitely not a robot, ..." mean we can include it? jheiv ^{talk contribs} 15:13, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

That's a good point. I'm not aware of explicit policies or guidance on this, but I have seen a related question come up recently at Talk:Uyghur_genocide#RfC:_First_Sentence, where there is currently a fairly large RfC (which I have commented in), regarding whether or not to describe the topic of the article a "genocide" in Wikivoice in the first sentence of the lead. My impression is that although the commenters disagree on the amount of consensus in RS on this topic, there is broad agreement that a lead should reflect an RS "consensus" of some sort. By this standard I think a single source on a fairly well-known topic would therefore be inadequate to support describing something in Wikivoice. In your example I would not support including that "Zuckerberg is a robot" unless we have multiple RS saying so. But I think I see your point that other RS which don't think he's a robot probably just won't mention "robot" altogether, making it hard to evaluate all RS together for "consensus". Fiwec81618 (talk) 05:05, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

But I think I see your point that other RS which don't think he's a robot probably just won't mention "robot" altogether, making it hard to evaluate all RS together for "consensus" -- right, that's exactly what I was trying to say (but realize I didn't). I worry that without almost considering the absence of something in RS's as implicit opposition to some categorization (or whatever), articles will inevitably, naturally, become more polarized and unencyclopedic. Since, instead of it being a "A vs. B" issue, which consensus can (at least somewhat) be easily determined, it's an "A vs. <silence>" issue -- which "motivated" editors may present (or hasty editors interpret) as a consensus for A. The RfC you linked seems quite similar -- thanks -- I'll check it out to try to brush up on current policy. jheiv ^{talk contribs} 01:04, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

rename this page

this title is nonsensical. A counter narrative? Counter to who's narrative? it turns out, the Clinton Campaign's narrative. "This should be called, Special Council Investigation into DNC-Russia Conspiracy Theory/DNC Attempts to frame Donald Trump." Jaygo113 (talk) 00:36, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Jaygo113, Merriam Webster defines a "counternarrative" as "an alternative or contradictory narrative". Alternative and contradictory to what was being reported. You're free to follow WP:RM steps to request a page move. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:14, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

yeah, but counter to WHO's narrative? Jaygo113 (talk) 19:09, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

"WHO's narrative"? The narrative found in RS, ergo "the facts". Trump's "counter-narrative" to the facts is a lie, a conspiracy theory, a denial of the facts, and his "alternative facts" (what Chuck Todd called "provable falsehoods"). This article proves that Trump's utterances are falsehoods. Views contrary to that are those found in unreliable sources, the sources we do not use here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:15, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Is this "counter narrative" term only used in one RS (intelligencer)? Is it anywhere else? Nweil (talk) 17:51, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Actually that's not even an RS, it's an opinion column Nweil (talk) 17:58, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Such columns are RS. They just need to be attributed unless the opinions are clearly factual. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:39, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Edits revised.

on the subsection of the "Theory", I made edits and cited acceptable sources and it was still reverted to disproven assertations that the claims were only theoretical. whats the deal here? Jaygo113 (talk) 16:06, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

What do you mean by:

1. "Disproven assertations"?
2. "only theoretical"?

Some of your edits were deleted because they were false and/or off-topic/irrelevant.

1. The dossier had nothing to do with triggering the investigation, so writing more about it here is irrelevant and therefore your addition of that stuff was removed. Such matters are documented in depth at Steele dossier. Nothing from reliable sources is hidden or whitewashed. It just doesn't belong here.
2. Your addition of "proven fact" is a false claim The dossier did not trigger the start of the investigation. Horowitz was clearly talking about the FISA warrants, not the investigation: "We determined that the Crossfire Hurricane team’s receipt of Steele’s election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a central and essential role in the FBI’s and Department’s decision to seek the FISA order." He is speaking of the seeking of FISA warrants, not about the start of the FBI's investigation, named Crossfire Hurricane. It started investigating Russian interference and Trump's involvement at the end of July 2016. They didn't get anything from Steele before September, long after their Russia investigation had started. It was triggered by Papadopoulos, not the dossier.

Trump is lying, and that's why this Trump "counter-narrative" is a false conspiracy theory designed to cover his ass. It's his "alternative facts" and his followers believe it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:47, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Agree with Val, there's no consensus for these changes ATM. Please self-revert [6] [7]...All of this is already covered by current citations. It helps to check things like that, and bring it up on the talk page before making these kinds changes. Sometimes the archives have the previous discussions listed if it is a fairly busy article with lots of traffic. DN (talk) 01:56, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I have reverted Jaygo113's reinsertion and pushing of the false claims and also added clarity to the lead using content from the body of the article. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 08:07, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Change page name to "Durham Special Counsel Investigation"

A large portion of this page is already dedicated to the Durham investigation. And the items which happened before the inception of that investigation can easily go in a "background" section. Nweil (talk) 18:09, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

No, that content should be (re)moved. As discussed before (an unfinished discussion), it doesn't belong here and partially duplicates content elsewhere.

So let's just revive that discussion here, IOW not an RfC. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:21, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Where is the discussion you are referring to? Nweil (talk) 18:25, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

"Steele dossier" section

I tried to rewrite the Steele dossier section that was added and it was reverted without explanation, so I simply removed it as it's duplicative of material that's already in the article anyway. The article already states in the first False claims about origins section, The claim that the Steele dossier had a role in triggering the overall Russian interference investigation.. etc, so it's not germane to the article topic to add this stuff about Steele and the Durham Danchenko thing in the way that's being presented. Andre🚐 02:29, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

New Durham reporting

See also: Durham special counsel investigation

[8] Andre🚐 02:12, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Revise or Delete

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
the Durham Report has invalidated all the information in this article, which relies on unverified speculation from 5+ years ago Jaygo113 (talk) 20:44, 16 May 2023 (UTC) Please demonstrate what you think the Durham Report has "invalidated" specifically and with sourcing. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:58, 16 May 2023 (UTC) @Muboshgu The Russia investigation origins counter-narrative, or Russia counter-narrative, is a conspiracy theory narrative embraced by Donald Trump, Republican Party leaders, and right-wing conservatives attacking the legitimacy and conclusions of the investigations. The narrative includes conspiracy theories such as Spygate, accusations of a secretive, all-powerful elite "deep state" network, and other false and debunked claims. Trump in particular has attacked not only the origins but the conclusions of the investigation, and ordered a review of the Mueller report, which was conducted by attorney general William Barr – alleging there was a "deep state plot" to undermine him. He has claimed the investigations were an "illegal hoax", (they have been dubbed the Russia Collusion Hoax), and that the "real collusion" was between Hillary Clinton, Democrats, and Russia – and later, Ukraine." Jaygo113 (talk) 21:48, 16 May 2023 (UTC) Spygate? the U.S. Attorney General, head of the Department of Justice in the United States, asserted that it was true. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/us/politics/barr-trump-campaign-spying.html Jaygo113 (talk) 21:48, 16 May 2023 (UTC) That's what Barr suspected and, man, it would've been explosive if Durham found evidence of it. Alas. soibangla (talk) 21:54, 16 May 2023 (UTC) Bill Barr asserted this, yes. That doesn't make it so. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC) That's a big nope. Andre🚐 21:52, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Caution

See also: Durham special counsel investigation

We need to exercise caution when applying the new Durham conclusions to this article. It's still new, shows lots of partisan bias (like any statements from Trump and Barr), and contradicts many findings by Mueller and Horowitz. We need to be patient and then use secondary reliable sources that have analyzed and digested Durham's conclusions as our sources, not depending on the primary source. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Strange focus on the counter-narrative

Maybe I'm in the wrong page, but it seems wierd to focus the majority of the article on the counter narrative and how it's aparenty a conspiracy theory and less on the actual claims and how the narrative of collusion turned out to be false

Also, would the initial claims of collusion not also count as a "conspiracy theory"? Thou I'm not sure if we should use that language Pedro Prada Carciofi (talk) 17:24, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Pedro Prada Carciofi, don't get confused by MAGA. "Collusion" / "cooperation" is not synonymous with "conspiracy" / "coordination", and Mueller spent time to carefully explain why he only sought to prove "conspiracy" / "coordination", and, even though he found lots of evidence of various forms of cooperation and collusion (using various other words) in the process, and even some evidence of coordination/conspiracy, he could not prove the latter "beyond the shadow of a doubt". He had a mandate to not prove anything that could be used to convict a sitting president. He also had poor evidence as Trump and Company withheld evidence, destroyed evidence, refused to cooperate, constantly lied, etc. Mueller had to deal with what he could get and ultimately just gave up and issued a very flawed and weak report. The Horowitz and Senate Intelligence Committee reports are much better, with much stronger conclusions and evidence. Study them.

So, in the future, don't claim there was no collusion. That's a myth. Here are eleven myths, and yours is the first one: These 11 Mueller Report Myths Just Won’t Die. Here’s Why They’re Wrong So remember this: The Trump campaign indulged in lots of collusion and cooperation with the Russians. They invited, welcomed, cooperated, aided and abetted, lied about, facilitated, encouraged, did not prevent interference, and tried to prevent U.S. intelligence from doing its job because Trump "expected to benefit" from Russian interference. That sounds like collusion. Mueller documented all of that. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:44, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I was confused because the article itself seems to claim they couldn't prove collusion. Thanks for bringing into my attention that dosen't necessarly mean there was no collusion, but should we assume innocence in situations like this?

Relevant pieces of the article:

"there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates"

"the investigation 'did not establish that the [Trump] Campaign conspired and coordinated with the Russian government in its election-interference activities,'"

But it seems I was indeed in the wrong page, as there are other pages that cover the actual cooperation (and what the russians even did) in more detail Pedro Prada Carciofi (talk) 12:23, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

This article is very precise and uses the correct words "conspiracy" / "coordination". People tend to get sloppy. They are adopting Trump's false counterattacks and counternarratives when they claim there was no collusion or cooperation. No, it is only "conspiracy" / "coordination" that are unproven (and definitely not disproven).

Mueller went to great lengths to explain that "conspiracy" and "collusion" were not the same thing, and that he was only focusing on "conspiracy", an odd decision. But, OTOH, his hands were tied. He was forced to carry on his investigation in a manner that could not result in the conviction of a sitting president, so he avoided doing that. He still found lots of evidence related to cooperation and collusion, but, by focusing on conspiracy, he was able to follow his mandate to not bring charges against a sitting president. He left that up to the politicians in Congress, and they dropped the ball by playing politics.

The original allegation (bolded) from the Steele dossier is found in this sentence: "The dossier's 17 reports allege that Trump campaign members and Russian operatives had conspired to cooperate in Russia's election interference to benefit Trump." "Conspired to cooperate". Conspiracy has not been proven, but cooperation has been proven. My analogy for this situation works like this: Imagine that two bank robbers are arrested while in the act of robbing a bank. They are tried in court, and their defense is "You have not proven that we conspired to rob the bank." Then the judge acquits them and sets them free, totally ignoring the fact that they did rob the bank. That's the situation we are in today. In this situation, "no conspiracy" is not a legitimate defense for the actual "cooperation" with the Russians in their attacks on American democracy and our electoral system, yet MAGA (and many careless others) ignore the "robbery" because "conspiracy" was not proven. That makes no sense. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:48, 7 February 2024 (UTC)