By Patrick Martin

The victory of Bernie Sanders in the Nevada caucuses has escalated the anti-Sanders hysteria of the Democratic Party establishment and Democratic-aligned media outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC. This has taken the form of fabricated allegations of Russian intervention into the 2020 elections to support Sanders’ candidacy.

This fable is elaborated on the front page of Sunday’s New York Times in a lengthy article by David Sanger, the newspaper’s most reliable stenographer for whatever story the military-intelligence apparatus wants floated in the newspaper. Under the headline, “Seeking Chaos, Moscow Places Its Bets in US,” Sanger smears Sanders as the beneficiary of supposed Russian support in the 2020 elections.

Sanger has a long record of fraudulent “analyses.” Stories that appear under his byline are generally based on unnamed intelligence sources whose allegations are presented as unimpeachable. The hallmark of a typical Sanger analysis is that it lacks any identifiable factual basis. He is less a reporter than a frustrated writer of third-rate spy stories with poorly constructed plots.

In this latest thriller, Sanger does not produce a single fact in support of the contention that Russian President Vladimir Putin backs Sanders or has done anything to assist his campaign.

Besides numerous unnamed “outside experts” and “intelligence analysts,” Sanger quotes three current and former intelligence officials by name, including Angela Stent, national intelligence officer for Russia, now a professor at Georgetown University and author of Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest, who actually says nothing about Sanders.