The patheticos of the anti-Trump ruling class whip themselves up into a lather each week over some imagined act of presidential perfidy. This week’s centered on Trump’s alleged dissemination of classified information to the Russians. No sooner had that disgracefully distorted story appeared than the cranks of the ruling class resumed their paranoid prattle about “collusion” and the paucity of “adults in the White House.” Of course, they quickly ignored that one of the ruling class-approved “adults” around Trump, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, debunked the media’s bogus storyline.

“What the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he’s engaged,” McMaster said on Tuesday.

He added that “The president wasn’t even aware where this information came from. He wasn’t briefed on the source or method of the information either” and that “It was nothing that you would not know from open source reporting in terms of a source of concern. And it had all to do with operations that are already ongoing had been made public for months.”

Earlier in the day, journalists had been rending their garments over Trump’s tweet, in which he said: “As president, I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.”

A media in cahoots with criminal leakers created this nontroversy out of thin air. But like a hit-and-run driver who strolls to the wreck he caused and innocently asks — “What happened?” — the media now moves unapologetically to the next phase of its propaganda: savaging Trump for his inept “crisis management” in response to a crisis it concocted.

What a despicable bunch. The Washington Post, which is nothing more than the Left’s Pravda, ran a headline on Tuesday worthy of Soviet smear artists: “Trump’s bizarre Russia tweetstorm digs his hole deeper.” His hole? No, the hole the Post dug for him by taking leaks and sensationalizing them.

The press, in hyping this nontroversy, pretends like it is deeply worried about America’s intelligence sharing with “allies.” Never mind that the ally in question is one that journalists revile — Israel. And does Israel even care about Trump’s supposed indiscretion? It doesn’t sound like it. On Tuesday, its ambassador sent out a tweet saying: “Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump.”

Everything journalists accuse Trump of is on display in their own reckless behavior. He didn’t reveal confidential information; they did. He didn’t harm relations with an ally; they tried to. He is not colluding with criminals; they are. He doesn’t owe the American people an apology; they do.

What we’re witnessing is nothing more than a smug and amoral ruling class ganging up on a Republican president. Even as they viciously encircle him, they have the gall to cast him as the “bully.” They sow divisions, then call him “divisive.” They declare him a threat to world peace, then poison relations between the U.S. and other countries.

Having to hear their windy lectures on the dangers of treachery puts one in mind of Samuel Johnson’s observation that the last refuge of scoundrels is patriotism. As Obama wrecked the country in the name of “fundamentally transforming” it — which was little more than a high-brow version of treachery — the ruling class said nothing and even joined him in his quest. They said nothing as the Clintons leaked classified info and put government access up for foreign sale. It is a little late for members of the ruling class to be wrapping themselves in the flag and reverentially quoting criminal codes on classified information.

Trump is a vulgarian, they huff. But if so, he is playing Gatsby to their Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and come 2020, the American people will once again look at their ugly behavior and conclude, as Nick Carraway mused on Gatsby, that Trump is worth more than the “whole damn bunch put together.”