In the last six weeks the liberal pundits and biased reporters of the Old Media have pulled a groin muscle trying to discredit President Trump in advance.

First they played up the recount stories to make it look like the vote totals in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania were fudged somehow.

Then they tried to play up the fact that Hillary won the popular vote and impugned the Electoral College like it had been devised by the founding fathers of the USSR.

The way the liberal Old Media saw it, their golden girl Hillary was cheated out of her rightful place in history by an antiquated, undemocratic process that needed to be blown up so the wise people of California, New York and Illinois could elect every American president from now on.

Next the Old Media tried to make it seem that Trump — the guy they mocked during the election for having no ground game, no staff and no hope of winning — was taking longer than he should to name his cabinet.

They said he was going to pick a bunch of unqualified bums based on their loyalty to him. Then they worried he was picking too many generals and was acting like he wanted to be a dictator.

On and on, the Old Mainstream Media pursued angles and made criticisms of Trump as if presidential history started last month.

Previous presidents-elect were slower to name their staffs. Others chose several generals. But the Old Media didn’t go out of their way to point out those inconvenient historical facts.

They were after Trump.

The liberal media’s latest example of historical amnesia involves the claim that Trump’s buddy Vladimir Putin used his hackers to hurt Hillary and affect the election’s outcome.

For the first time in history, the way the Old Media tell it, a foreign power was asked to manipulate an American election.

Of course, it was only Trump and the evil Republicans who would allegedly try such a dastardly and unprecedented crime against democracy.

Except it wasn’t — and once again the Old Media were caught being wrong and biased.

As I tried to remind everyone last week in a column for Newsmax, in 1980, and again in 1984, it was Democrats who reached out to the Soviets several times for help in affecting an American election.

In 1980, Saint Ted Kennedy, who was trying to defeat incumbent President Jimmy Carter in the Democratic primary, sent former Senator John Tunney to meet with the KGB in an attempt to sabotage American foreign policy.

According to documents later unearthed in the Soviet archives, Kennedy offered to condemn Carter’s policy toward the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in exchange for KGB help.

Later that fall Saint Jimmy Carter himself tried to play the Soviet card against my father in the general election.

Trailing Ronald Reagan in the polls, he sent his pal, industrialist Armand Hammer, to meet with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin.

Hammer asked the Soviets to help Carter win Jewish votes in key states by allowing Jewish “refuseniks” in the USSR to emigrate to Israel.

The Russkies rejected Hammer’s request. But in 1984 Carter himself went to Ambassador Dobrynin to ask for help in getting my father un-elected, as did Speaker of the House, Saint Tip O’Neill.

Both Carter and O’Neill — Democrats, I believe — told Dobrynin that it was in the planet’s best interests to get my father out of office before he blew up the world with his dangerous massive defense buildup.

Nice.

The Soviets didn’t play ball with the Democrats in 1980 or 1984. And we only know about these slimy efforts to affect American elections because the Soviet Empire collapsed and we’ve got a look at the KGB’s archives.

President Obama has ordered a full investigation into any Russian skullduggery during the 2016 election and wants it finished before he leaves office.

When his report comes out the liberal pundits and biased reporters of the Old Media will use it to make President-elect Trump look as bad as possible.

Which is why I hope Santa Claus put nothing in their Christmas stockings this year but a lump of West Virginia coal.

Merry Christmas.

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and author. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com.