The thing is, when you are paid $100,000 a week by a foreign adversary whose goal is to undermine democracy itself, "no one told me what to write, I just wrote what I believed" may not be the strong defense you think it is.

No it's definitely not. Especially when they're spreading the bullshit straight out of Russia. No excuses they're guilty as fuck. Should lock them up and throw the key 🤬

Now apply that defense to Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch et al receiving their "gifts", because that will be their overarching argument. "We'd have decided that way anyway so no QPQ".

“I dumbassly promoted dumbass lies so dumbass dumbasses could justify their dumbass beliefs.” would be a better defense.

at least the parties involved are doing absolutely no self-reflection whatsoever

My point exactly.

I was chosen to be bribed BECAUSE I was already a very stupid traitor idiot! That should hold up in court pretty well

Yeah. It’s right up there with “Clarence Thomas can’t be bribed because he’s really that conservative” ignoring the fact that the bribes kept him from quitting the court because it wasn’t lucrative enough. Yeah. It’s right up there with “Clarence Thomas can’t be bribed because he’s really that conservative” ignoring the fact that the bribes kept him from quitting the court because it wasn’t lucrative enough.

To be fair, this is the entire media business model. Hire horrible people and you don’t have to specifically pay them to be horrible. Plausible deniability.

"undermine Democracy itself" what Democracy??