Was the Entire Collusion Conspiracy Based on Russian Disinformation?

In their story this weekend admitting that the Mueller report put the final coffin nail in any credibility the Steele dossier may have once enjoyed, The New York Times noted that there were many possible reasons for why the former British spy got nearly everything wrong.

One, of course, is that he was a lazy researcher working for a buck, and he didn’t bother vetting his sources all that carefully. This is supported by the fact that he incorporated user-generated nonsense garbage on the internet into his bombshell report to Fusion GPS.

Another possibility is that Steele was driven by an intense dislike of Donald Trump, and he was willing to pepper his dossier with pure fiction in an attempt to get some buzz going around his work, a move that would naturally benefit his private investigation firm. This is supported by many of the statements Steele made to the FBI, which painted him as an anti-Trump partisan willing to do whatever it took to derail his presidential campaign.

And then there’s this:

Another possibility — one that Mr. Steele has not ruled out — could be Russian disinformation. That would mean that in addition to carrying out an effective attack on the Clinton campaign, Russian spymasters hedged their bets and placed a few land mines under Mr. Trump’s presidency as well.

Oleg D. Kalugin, a former K.G.B. general who now lives outside Washington, saw that as plausible. “Russia has huge experience in spreading false information,” he said. Last year, in a deposition in a lawsuit filed against Buzzfeed, Mr. Steele emphasized that his reports consisted of unverified intelligence. Asked whether he took into account that some claims might be Russian fabrications, he replied, “Yes.”

Now isn’t that something.

Our question: Why hasn’t that possibility – which the spy behind the dossier pointedly refuses to rule out – been explored in any further detail? Why wasn’t Mueller tracking down Steele, his sources, and the FBI/CIA’s own sources in Russia to get to the bottom of this? Because if this is true, then it doesn’t just mean that “Russian spymasters hedged their bets.” No, it means that the Clinton campaign actively spread Russian disinformation in an attempt to smear their opponent. Isn’t – isn’t that just what the Democrats have been accusing Trump of doing? Isn’t that a form of collusion?

Oh, of course not, because it was done against a Republican. It’s only an “act of war” when it hurts a Democratic candidate. How silly of us to forget.