Imagine the Trump presidency if ‘Russiagate’ had been exposed as a fabrication

What is now gradually emerging is – yes – a real conspiracy, but one that has nothing to do with Trump or Russia, and everything to do with Trump’s political enemies, writes Mary Dejevsky

The former president was accused of having ties with Russian officials (AP)

A full year after Donald Trump lost his quest for re-election, one of the dominant assumptions about his failed presidency is having to be reassessed. Let me put that rather more strongly: it is being turned on its head and exposed for the self-reinforcing collection of lies and misinformation that it always was. You could call it a conspiracy.

I am talking about the claims that together comprised what came to be known as “Russiagate”: where the central accusation, as you may recall, was that Trump had colluded with Russia (or Russia with him) – first to win the presidency, then to use the power of the White House in the interests of a hostile foreign state.

Put so baldly, that might sound absurd, and so it was, but this is the story that a large number of Americans and much international opinion willingly – even enthusiastically – embraced. And why wouldn’t they? The election of Trump was widely considered aberrant by civilised western opinion.