The supposed Russia/NRA/GOP connection was based prosecutors now admitting that they misunderstood a joke? Seriously?

For weeks, prosecutors made sure to fuel stories of an attractive Russian spy ensnaring older men with sexual favor.  Now, the Justice Department admitted in a court filing that they had been “mistaken” in interpreting what joking emails as serious offers. 

Federal prosecutors have admitted that they wrongly accused Maria Butina, a Russian citizen now in custody on charges of illegally acting as a foreign agent, of offering to trade sex for a job as part of a covert effort by Russian government officials to infiltrate Republican circles in the United States. 

In a court filing late Friday, prosecutors in the United States attorney’s office in Washington acknowledged that they had been “mistaken” in interpreting what were apparently joking text messages between Ms. Butina and a friend who had helped her renew her car insurance. 

Ms. Butina was charged this summer with conspiracy and illegally acting as an agent of the Russian government in what prosecutors have claimed was a secret campaign to try to influence high-level Republican politicians, including Donald J. Trump, both as a candidate and after his election. Denied bail, she is now in custody in the detention center in Alexandria, Va. . . .

“I’m glad they walked it back, but in a lot of ways, the damage is already done,” Robert N. Driscoll, Ms. Butina’s lawyer, said in an interview. In court filings, he has argued that his client engaged in innocent political activity but has now been falsely portrayed as a villain in a sensationalized spy drama. “A simple Google search using the phrase ‘Maria Butina and sex’ yields over 300,000 hits,” he said. . . .

Please note that in this story there is no mention of the NRA. Take some of the New York Times previous headlines:

Wife of Former NRA President Tapped Accused Russian Agent 

Maria Butina Loved Guns, Trump and Russia. It was cover 

Timeline of Suspected Plot to Infiltrate NRA, GOP

Why does anyone give much credibility to Mueller's latest indictments for Twelve Russian military intelligence officers in Hacking probe?

Politico's headline questions the timing of Mueller's indictment of Russian military intelligence officers just one business day before Trump is to meet with Putin (‘It's a big FU from Mueller’). But put aside the timing of the recent indictments, does anyone remember the Mueller probe's previous indictments of Russians regarding their interference in our election? How they had indicted Russians in the belief that they wouldn't contest the charges and when the Russians fought back, Mueller suddenly had to ask for delays in the proceedings? From the WSJ in May:

In February, in its first indictment based on alleged conduct directly related to Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign, Mr. Mueller’s office charged three Russian companies and 13 Russian citizens with engaging in a widespread effort to interfere in the presidential election. . . . 

Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors accused them of funding efforts at another organization, the Internet Research Agency LLC, to create fictitious online personas and set up hundreds of social-media accounts—on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram—that pushed divisive messages and helped organize rallies in advance of the November 2016 election. . . . 

Mr. Mueller’s office asked the court to delay Concord Management’s arraignment, in which the company would enter a plea, saying it had tried unsuccessfully to serve the indictment on the defendants. 

Mr. Mueller’s attorneys said they wanted to ensure the proper process was followed. Mr. Dubelier said in a filing it was the special counsel’s “own fault” that the summons hadn’t been served and described the special counsel’s motion as “pettifoggery.” 

Earlier this month, the judge overseeing the case, Dabney Friedrich, denied the special counsel’s request to delay the arraignment, and the company pleaded not guilty at a hearing on May 9. . . .

It isn't even obvious to me that there is credible evidence of hacking the DNC and others as the DNC wouldn't even let the FBI look at the supposedly hacked servers.

From CNN: "FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been mitigated.... [had] rely upon a third party for information."

The DNC claims: "the FBI never requested access to the DNC's computer servers." The FBI says that they have had to rely on third-party sources to determine if the DNC servers have been hacked, presumably that is a significantly less reliable method. Does anyone believe the DNC claim the FBI never asked to look at the servers is credible?

Senator Chuck Schumer repeatedly claimed that President Trump was under investigation even though he knew that was false

Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) points out that Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) repeatedly made false statements that he knew were false about President Trump being under investigation.

If you think that the Russians interfered with the US election, you might reread the Washington Post piece that started this discussion

UPDATE:  Do you want more evidence that the claim that Russia interfered with the US election was political.  From Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.:

"Somebody has the time to leak it to the Washington Post and the New York Times, but they don’t have the time to come to Congress," said King, a member of the committee. "It’s their job to come. They don’t have any choice. They have to come in, especially when they have created this." 

King added that lawmakers have not received any assessment from the CIA that Russia interfered to help Trump win the presidency over Hillary Clinton, allegations that were first reported by the Washington Post Friday.

ORIGINAL POST: It isn't obvious that the people who are claiming that the Russians interfered with the US election actually read the Washington Post article that this claim is based on:

intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin “directing” the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said. Those actors, according to the official, were “one step” removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees. Moscow has in the past used middlemen to participate in sensitive intelligence operations so it has plausible deniability.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has said in a television interview that the “Russian government is not the source.” . . .

More on Julian Assange's continued statements that the emails were not obtained from the Russians.  

"As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a major difference between the two,” he wrote. “And it should be said again and again, that if Hillary Clinton had not connived with the DNC to fix the primary schedule to disadvantage Bernie, if she had not received advance notice of live debate questions to use against Bernie, if she had not accepted massive donations to the Clinton foundation and family members in return for foreign policy influence, if she had not failed to distance herself from some very weird and troubling people, then none of this would have happened.” . . .

Has Wikileaks ever been found to provide false information? No.  So the questions is why these statements aren't given more weight in the press.  Most of the media accounts just completely ignore Julian Assange's clear statements.

A transcript from Sunday's Meet the Press is also quite useful.

CHUCK TODD: Let me move to the reports that both The Washington Post, New York Times, NBC News has confirmed it, that the assessment from the C.I.A. is not only that Russia interfere -- make an attempt to interfere on the 2016 election to be disruptive, but they actually were trying to be disruptive in order to help Donald Trump. And the transition put out a statement that essentially humiliated the C.I.A. in saying that Donald Trump didn't believe the assessment from the C.I.A. because these are the same people that said that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Does Donald Trump have confidence in America's intelligence?  

REINCE PRIEBUS: Of course he has confidence in America's intelligence. But we don't have confidence in The New York Times releasing a report of unnamed sources of some kind of study that itself, and The Washington Post said was inconclusive to claim that, because the C.I.A. had hacked e-mails of the D.N.C. and the R.N.C. and only used D.N.C. e-mails, that meant that Russia was trying to influence the election. Because the other piece of this, Chuck, is that the R.N.C. was absolutely not hacked, number one. We had the F.B.I. in the R.N.C.. We've been working with the F.B.I.--  

CHUCK TODD: Why--  

REINCE PRIEBUS: We had intelligence experts here.  

CHUCK TODD: Let me ask you.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: No, no, no, hang on, Chuck. No.  

CHUCK TODD: No. REINCE PRIEBUS: The-- the R.N.C. was --  

CHUCK TODD: Explain why you had the F.B.I there --  

REINCE PRIEBUS: --not hacked.  

CHUCK TODD: Well then, why was the--  

REINCE PRIEBUS: Because--  

CHUCK TODD: -- F.B.I. involved?  

REINCE PRIEBUS: It's really simple. Well, it's really simple. Because when the D.N.C. was hacked, we called the F.B.I. and they came in to help us. And they came in to review what we were doing and went through our systems, went through every single thing that we did.  

CHUCK TODD: Right.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: We went through this for a month.  

CHUCK TODD: I understand that.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: And we were not hacked. So wait a second. If we were not hacked, and that is absolutely not true, then where does that story lie?  

CHUCK TODD: So nobody with the--  

REINCE PRIEBUS: The story is--  

HUCK TODD: Let me ask you this, Reince.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: No.  

CHUCK TODD: Not a single person connected to the R.N.C. was hacked? No Republican vendor who had interactions with the R.N.C. network was hacked? You guys have had a specific denial that the R.N.C.'s network wasn't hacked. That doesn't mean Republicans associated with the R.N.C. weren't hacked. That doesn't rule that out. Do you categorically--  

REINCE PRIEBUS: Okay, first of all--  

CHUCK TODD: --rule all that out?  

REINCE PRIEBUS: Number one-- I don't know why you're so hot about this. I mean the fact of the matter is you should actually--  

CHUCK TODD: It's not about me.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: --be happy that the R.N.C. wasn't hacked.  

CHUCK TODD: Well, no. I'm--  

REINCE PRIEBUS: The R.N.C. was not hacked, Chuck.  

CHUCK TODD: Okay.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: Number one, the R.N.C. was not hacked. I don't know of any employee, on any of their own Gmail accounts, that was hacked. So what I'm trying to tell you is the R.N.C. was not hacked, number one. And by the way, that was the specific allegation that was made in the actual New York Times article.  

CHUCK TODD: Right.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: The article didn't say, "Affiliates of the R.N.C.."  

CHUCK TODD: Okay.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: The article didn't say, "Employee." No, wait a second, Chuck. The article said, "The R.N.C. was hacked." So don't be defensive with me that--