Mollie Hemingway’s “The Significance of the Recently Released Russia Hoax Documents” in the September, 2025 issue of Imprimis is noteworthy in that it summarizes lies perpetrated against Donald Trump that released now-declassified documents reveal.
The root cause of the lies it seems was this: Russia (i.e., Putin) favored Trump and interfered with the US elections to try to get Trump elected. She points out that of the two claims (Trump was an agent of Russia and Russian interfered with the 2016 election to help Trump) just don’t hold up. The first claim (Trump is an agent) was debunked after years of investigation. The second (Russia wanted Trump elected) was “far more plausible claim.”
But that shouldn’t be true.
“Plausible” means seeming reasonable or probable, so Hemingway’s thesis is that Russia wanted to get Trump elected is reasonable or probable. How is that possible? What was it about this unknown candidate so attractive to Russia? And after Trump’s victory came the release in 2017 of the infamous Clinton “Steele dossier”—the made-up stories and gossip alleging that Russia had dirt on Trump, and that Trump would be colluding with Russia against the United States.
How is this plausible? Reasonable? Hemingway notes: “Brennan [John] had long publicly claimed that he had secret knowledge—separate and apart from the Steele dossier—to support his view that Russia interfered to help Trump.” That secret remains to this day a secret.
And therein lies what is at the heart of not just those events, but all the subsequent events around Donald J. Trump: the reliability of the narrators.
Narrator Reliability
My English degrees taught me this: that the reliability of a narrator is probably the most important part of a story. Pick a story, any story. Is the narrator first person (INSIDE) or third person (OUTSIDE). “Just call me Ishmael” is the famous opening line of Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick. Ishmael is INSIDE the story. Now imagine the same story starting out: “They called him Ishmael.” Now the narrator is OUTSIDE the story.
Third person narrators always have to be believed, or the story doesn’t make any sense. Just think about the story of Job, a third-person narrated story.
But a first-person narrator can be lying to us. The first person narrator is INSIDE, and like us, subject to being human. Any first-person narrated story you can think of is shaped by the INSIDE narrator; look closely, and you will see how flawed those narrators can be (seeing things through their eyes).
The problem with life is that we are all first-person narrators in this story – our story. Once you lie, you lose your reliability and really can never get it back.
It is difficult, however, to prove a lie, isn’t it? I mean, you have to be in the room and hear or see something, some piece of content, to let your senses verify what you are hearing. And even then, your senses might be wrong (i.e., you are color blind).
Which is why as Hemingway writes: “On December 9, 2016, The Washington Post published a story sourced to unnamed senior Obama officials claiming that the CIA had ‘concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump.’ That was a lie.” She concludes that and proves it by the released documents which form the heart of her essay.
But forget for a moment and go back in time with me. The narrator was Washington Post. Or was it? In theory, the Post is the third person narrator reporting to us, and the “source” of that story is an unnamed official. That puts the whole premise in doubt, doesn’t it? Who was that official? What was the official’s reliability? (by the way, that’s why the news media’s trustworthiness has plummeted: they lost their status as third person narrators always to be believed).
Which is why when Hemingway points out, “Brennan [John] lied publicly when he testified to Congress on May 23, 2017, that the dossier “was not in any way used as a basis for the [ICA] that was done.” Brennan loses his reliability as a narrator, doesn’t he?
Sir Walter Scott’s Marmion published in 1808 is famous for this line: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” Hemingway’s piece demonstrates the web, layer after layer.
What’s surprising is how easily people believed the layers.
We Believe What We Want to Believe
The central problem of narration is finding the truth, which we already discussed is hard to determine. Ask any physicist about the position of an electron.
In complex human interactions, people will always believe what they want to believe, regardless of the evidence. What is amazing to me after all these years, however, is the ease with which people believe really stupid premises.
For example, communism. A study of history proves this is not a form of government that works well over time. You can start by reading William Bradford’s OF PLYMOUTH PLANTATION, where they tried it and it failed miserably. If everyone shared equally as they tried to do in those days, there was no incentive for some to work harder than others. The idea collapsed rapidly.
The recent NBA betting scandal is another example. People with so much money feeling the need to cheat for more money…yet people still believe that sports are “fair.”
Some people still believe the Holocaust never happened, or that we never landed on the moon.
Making observations about history or your own life helps you shape judgments you make. So when Hemingway points out, “The same false information was leaked to The New York Times: ‘American intelligence agencies,’ it reported, ‘have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly . . . to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials,” people believed it. Or not.
But why would you? How could you if the narrator is unreliable?
From the beginning of Trump’s ascent, what struck me most of all is how everyone just simply didn’t like him, many bordering on hate. Hate – or love – clouds judgment on what you should believe, taking you away from reality. And while it is impossible to be totally objective (or is it), remaining observant and careful in your conclusions should help guide you through life.
Unfortunately, like in navigation, one degree off, and you’ll end up in a totally different place. Albert Camus said wisely: “One moment of weakness, and everything is lost, theory and practice.”
Which is why words are important – not just words, but the words coming from the first-person narrators. Because no matter how much we wish it, there is no such thing as a third-person narrator, is there?
This doesn’t mean you have to lead your life in a bubble. But what it does mean is to try to ground yourself in the reality of narration, who is saying what, and maybe more importantly, why it’s being said.
If you know nothing about a person and I told you that person destroyed their hard drive with over 30,000 emails on it, what would be your conclusion? If I told you about another person you know nothing about but that person sent skids of cash to a country, what would you conclude about the person? If I told you still another person sent bombers to destroy nuclear facilities that could make a nuclear bomb, what would you conclude about that person?
You see, no matter what you conclude, it would be wrong because you don’t know me. You don’t know why I’m telling you these things, do you?
Which is why I always go to the source. I know people who can’t listen to Donald Trump – never listened to his speeches, his rallies, his anything. They have concluded he cheats. He lies. He’s a bad man.
However, if you don’t listen or watch the actions of someone, how can you judge anything? If you listen to what others say about a person without you yourself making your own observations, you are relying on narrators who may or may not be reliable.
Just like Hemingway’s essay: you will believe it, or not. And ultimately, it probably doesn’t matter one way or another, does it? Believe what you want, when you want. But ask yourself this question every now and then: what if I’m wrong in what I believe? Or, am I infallible in my beliefs?
What if are such as interesting two words, aren’t they? Thanks for reading! Let me hear from you!