The Progressive Conspiracy Theorist

Seth Abramson an assistant professor of English at the University of New Hampshire, has amassed 125,000 Twitter followers, with Russian conspiracy tweets yet claims, “I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist.” He started gaining Twitter traction in March after piecing together a theory that Trump struck a deal with Russia to promote pro-Russian foreign policy in exchange for 0.5% ownership of Rosneft, a Russian Oil company.

Unfortunately for Abramson, some of the basic pieces of his theory don’t fit, literally.

His theory is that a secret meeting took place in the Mayflower Hotel between Trump and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during Presidential candidate Trump’s first foreign policy speech there.

By the way, it should be noted that the think tank which hosted the event, the Center for National Interest had given Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine the Center’s annual Distinguished Service Award on May 23, 2016. As well, the think tank has published articles critical of Trump with one entitled “Trump must be stopped”

Originally Trump was supposed to give his foreign policy speech at the National Press Club but a conflicting schedule and the desire to move to a larger more secure venue caused it to be pushed back a day and moved to the Mayflower Hotel. Abramson claims that this was done because the National Press Club lacked private meeting rooms.

Actually, the ballroom in the National Press Club is 4,500 square feet and the ballroom in the Mayflower is 7,656 square feet, which can be extended an 2,703 square feet via an adjoining ballroom bringing the total to 10,359 square feet, over double the length of the National Press Club’s main room.

Moreover, at the Mayflower, a private reception was held before the event in the Senate room which is 1152 square feet. Against the claims of Abramson, the National Press Club contains 4 similar private rooms that could be used to host receptions.