DAVID MARCUS: The Russia hoax is simple. Democrats lied and half the country believed them.

The United States of America has now spent almost a decade embroiled in “Russiagate,” and its citizens have been bombarded from both sides with theories, names, and anonymous quotes. But it all really comes down to one thing: Democrats lied, and half the country believed them.

In the 24 pages of never-before-seen declassified files released Thursday, we saw in cold, calculated black and white exactly how the Clinton campaign crafted the lie that Donald Trump was colluding with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

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The Clinton campaign knew all too well that their lackeys in the media would eat up this half-baked nonsense with a spoon, and probably win awards for it, which is exactly what happened.

What the media wasn’t told at the time was that field officers in the CIA objected to the lies and were run over because, according to their then-Director John Brennan “it rings true.”

Read the whole thing.

Related: Former Rolling Stone Editor Couldn’t Hold His Tongue on This Aspect of the Russian Collusion Hoax Anymore. Matt Taibbi writes:

I’ve tiptoed for years around what I believed to be true about this case, worrying some mitigating fact might emerge. Now, there’s no doubt. Hillary Clinton got in a jam, and the FBI, CIA, and the Obama White House got her out of it by setting Trump up. That’s it. It was a cover-up, plain and simple…

At the outset of 2016, Hillary Clinton was in a world of self-inflicted hurt. Having put her entire life as Secretary of State onto a private server, opening up the possibility for an unprecedented penetration of American cybersecurity, she was facing a grave and damaging federal investigation. The story that she “chose not to keep” (read: delete) over 30,000 emails had been broken the previous year, and the details were appalling, with private computer specialist Paul Combetta belatedly wiping them out in what he called an “oh, shit” moment, three weeks after the issuance of a Congressional subpoena.

Matt Margolis adds, “Rather than face the fallout, Clinton’s team orchestrated a diversion—and the national security establishment was all too happy to play along. What started as a desperate political ploy became a full-blown federal inquisition, complete with media cheerleaders and intelligence assets. And the result was years of turmoil, millions wasted, and a presidency undermined by a hoax. Now it’s time to follow the evidence and start holding people accountable for the seditious conspiracy that’s torn this country apart.”