Fake News, Sedition and Public Apathy by Publius Tacitus

Where is the outrage? The evidence is quite clear. It is no longer a matter of informed speculation that during the final year of Barack Obama's Presidency, key leaders of the intelligence and law enforcement bureaucracies conspired and collaborated to destroy Donald Trump. The latest evidence to emerge comes via an email dump of messages sent and received by a senior FBI Agent Peter Strzok. Strzok was not a low level worker bee covering counter intelligence matters. Nope. He occupied a senior position in the world of counter intelligence. This means he was a frequent visitor to CIA Headquarters and regularly dealt with CIA Director John Brennan.

So what? Well, that would be meaningless were it not for the fact that Strzok is a Forrest Gump like character--always present at critical events affecting his candidate, Hillary Clinton, and the object of his bile, Donald Trump. Fox provides a nice little overview:

House Intelligence Committee investigators have long regarded Strzok as a key figure in the chain of events that began when the bureau, in 2016, received the infamous anti-Trump "dossier" and launched a counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling in the election that ultimately came to encompass FISA surveillance of a Trump campaign associate.

Strzok briefed the committee on Dec. 5, 2016, sources said. But within months of that session House Intelligence Committee investigators were contacted by an informant suggesting that there was “documentary evidence” that Strzok was purportedly obstructing the House probe into the dossier.

Strzok also oversaw the bureau’s interviews with ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn – who pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators in the Russia probe.

He also was present during the FBI’s July 2016 interview with Hillary Clinton at the close of the email investigation, shortly before then-FBI director James Comey called her actions "extremely careless" without recommending criminal charges.

 Strzok, unlike Gump, was not a passive observer. He was an active participant with the authority and the power to set the course of investigations into both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In the case of Strzok we now know that Lady Justice in Strzok world is not blind. That's why we get the bizarre decision to grant Clinton aides, Abedin and Mills, immunity in testimony without pre-condition. That's why Hillary gets the kid glove treatment from Strzok and his team despite clear evidence that she had mishandled Top Secret material, including Special Access Program (aka SAP) intelligence. And that is why Strzok played a key role in pushing the sordid, politically suspect Trump dossier as sound intel to justify domestic spying on Donald Trump and his team. All done in the name of saving America.

Strzok was not a lone actor in this sedition. We also have Bruce Ohr, a Deputy Attorney General in the Department of Justice and a man directly tied to the Trump dossier. According to several media reports: 

The House Intelligence Committee  . . ., “has learned that Bruce Ohr, an associate attorney general, not only spoke with dossier writer Christopher Steele but also met after the election with Glenn Simpson, whose Fusion GPS hired Mr. Steele with Democratic Party money.”. . .

According to Fox News, citing Congressional sources, “Simpson and Ohr met sometime around Thanksgiving last year, when President-elect Trump was in the process of selecting his cabinet, and discussed over coffee the anti-Trump dossier, the Russia investigation and what Simpson considered the distressing development of Trump’s victory.”

And then we learned that Ohr's wife, Nellie, worked for Simpson at Fusion GPS and also worked previously for the CIA on Russian matters:

Contacted by Fox News, investigators for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) confirmed that Nellie H. Ohr, wife of the demoted official, Bruce G. Ohr, worked for the opposition research firm last year. The precise nature of Mrs. Ohr’s duties – including whether she worked on the dossier – remains unclear but a review of her published works available online reveals Mrs. Ohr has written extensively on Russia-related subjects. HPSCI staff confirmed to Fox News that she was paid by Fusion GPS through the summer and fall of 2016.

With this kind of grist one would think that the journalist mills would be grinding in overdrive to get the story and uncover what sure looks like a massive case of malfeasance by intelligence and law enforcement officials. Think again. Cue the big yawn.

Credit Glenn Greenwald at the Intercept for an epic rant bemoaning the failure of journalism on this and other matters related to Trump. He writes:

FRIDAY WAS ONE of the most embarrassing days for the U.S. media in quite a long time. The humiliation orgy was kicked off by CNN, with MSNBC and CBS close behind, with countless pundits, commentators and operatives joining the party throughout the day. By the end of the day, it was clear that several of the nation’s largest and most influential news outlets had spread an explosive but completely false news story to millions of people, while refusing to provide any explanation of how it happened. . . .

To begin with, it’s hard to overstate how fast, far and wide this false story traveled. Democratic Party pundits, operatives and journalists with huge social media platforms predictably jumped on the story immediately, announcing that it proved collusion between Trump and Russia (through WikiLeaks). One tweet from Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu, claiming that this proved evidence of criminal collusion, was re-tweeted thousands and thousands of times in just a few hours (Lieu quietly deleted the tweet after I noted its falsity, and long after it went very viral, without ever telling his followers that the CNN story, and therefore his accusation, had been debunked). . . .

Surely anyone who has any minimal concerns about journalistic accuracy – which would presumably include all the people who have spent the last year lamenting Fake News, propaganda, Twitter bots and the like – would demand an accounting as to how a major U.S. media outlet ended up filling so many people’s brains with totally false news. That alone should prompt demands from CNN for an explanation about what happened here. No Russian Facebook ad or Twitter bot could possibly have anywhere near the impact as this CNN story had when it comes to deceiving people with blatantly inaccurate information.

I encourage you to read the entire piece. Greenwald also provides a handy summary of the various lies the media has pushed on the Russia/Trump story:

Let’s just remind ourselves of how many times major media outlets have made humiliating, breathtaking errors on the Trump/Russia story, always in the same direction, toward the same political goals. Here is just a sample of incredibly inflammatory claims that traveled all over the internet before having to be corrected, walk-backed, or retracted – often long after the initial false claims spread, and where the corrections receive only a tiny fraction of the attention with which the initial false stories are lavished:

• Russia hacked into the U.S. electric grid to deprive Americans of heat during winter (Wash Post)
• An anonymous group (PropOrNot) documented how major U.S. political sites are Kremlin agents (Wash Post)
• WikiLeaks has a long, documented relationship with Putin (Guardian)
• A secret server between Trump and a Russian bank has been discovered (Slate)
• RT hacked C-SPAN and caused disruption in its broadcast (Fortune)
• Crowdstrike finds Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app (Crowdstrike)
• Russians attempted to hack elections systems in 21 states (multiple news outlets, echoing Homeland Security)
• Links have been found between Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci and a Russian investment fund under investigation (CNN)

Trump may be a boor and, at times, an insufferable asshole. But that conduct by him neither excuses nor justifies the FBI, the Department of Justice, the CIA and the NSA from deciding to engage in a deliberate campaign of disinformation. Yes, there was collusion to affect the result of last year's Presidential campaign. But that was done by American citizens who supported Hillary Clinton and collaborated with British intelligence operatives. This was not a diabolical plot hatched by Vladimir Putin. Nope. This was American government officials taking it upon themselves to intervene in the U.S. election in a so far failed attempt to undo the decision voters made on 8 November 2016. Seems to me that pitch forks and torches would be appropriate at this point.

Comments

[jsn]

While I share PT's sense of outrage at the abuse of institutions, the mitigating factors in public perception are as follows:
1. The MSM is still functions as a Borg propaganda organ
2. DOJ, with Trump's man Sessions hasn't screwed up the courage to tackle this officially
3. The Trump "base" is confused by the spectacle of the underside of the buss now visible in the GOP "Tax Plan"

The betrayal of the base on display with point 3. can only be envied by the likes of Obama: his betrayal consisted of fulfilling all the wishes of the constituency his "base" voted against, while Trump's consists of bluntly stomping the hopes of his own core voters. I put quotes on "base" because Wall Street was always Obama's real base, while The Plutocracy certainly seems to be Trumps.

[turcopolier]

JSN

I believe in supply side economics so I think your point three simply reflects successful propaganda efforts by Chuck, Nancy and friends. As to point 2, Trump should send Sessions back to SC and bring on a Carolinian, Trey Gowdy. His Appalachian district should be secure and the confirmation hearing for him to be AG would be a wonderful spectacle. With regard to the term, "Deep State." I have insisted that there is no secret parallel government of government employees and soldiers on the supposed Turkish model. I continue to think that true. But, the disclosures of conspiratorial Clinton inspired misdeeds in the former IC leadership, DoJ and the FBI cause me to accept the idea that there is a conspiracy of elitists that could be called a "Deep State." pl

[jsn]

Thank you for the reply, I respectfully disagree on the economics but, on the chance I'm right about it, that is of increasingly marginal importance.

[TV]

Maybe it's time to break up the FBI.
Splitting off intelligence functions from criminal investigations.
Too much power in one organization that, as is being seen, can go rogue.

[LondonBob]

Socialism failed, the free market won. There is no debate to be had. Lots of well paying jobs being created will ensure a Trump re-election. Not passing the RAISE Act is the betrayal, by the politicians in DC.

[Fred]

Mark,

So in 2012 Obama was engaging in sophistry by urging congress to pass the "The Bring Jobs Home Act" pushed by Parcell and Stabenow? I don't recall the democrats coming out to say this tax cut was a Lafferesque give away to the 1% .

https://pascrell.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-pascrell-and-senator-stabenow-introduce-bill-to-cut-taxes

[Fred]

PT,

I see that Jeff Bezos' Washington Post has another Trump hit piece up today too. Thier timing is impeccable. According to the group think the Russians are realling doing a number on us. If Trump doesn't get "convinced" soon by these people he might just have enough political capital to fire a whole lot of senior non-appointed bureaucrats who have been circumventing the Constitutional transfer of power between administrations.

[turcopolier]

TV

I would absolutely agree with that. It was never a good idea to combine federal police and intelligence functions. The FBI should IMO be a criminal police organization and there should be a different group to handle counter-espionage. pl

[turcopolier]

PA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state_in_Turkey Really amusing the way you and the other agricultural types here keep trying to set the agenda and to tell me what to write about. pl

[turcopolier]

jsn

You are by far not the worst but in general the anti-capitalist left who write here really want a system in which there is a Ministry of Planning and designated targets for production and distribution for all industry along with regulated profits. Ah! There was a name for that concept. pl

[Joe100]

PT -

I think we need to wait a bit to see how this information settles in over time. Some people I know are so outraged by Trump getting elected, that they simply accept the "Russia elected Trump" meme and any "news that fits. On the other hand, i interacted with someone yesterday who fowarded me some recent "anti-Putin" media they thought was "solid". I responded that I was not so sure about key Putin/Russia/election assumptions in the article and forwarded a couple of excerpts from SST comments over the past couple of days that clearly laid out this new stream of contrary information. To my surprise, this person responded quite positively, admitting that perhaps the reality as they had been hearing/reading/accepting was not as valid they thought - and further noted that the recently highlighted FBI behavior (some of this had clearly caught their attention) was seriously troubling. So I think there may be a "tipping point", assuming enough additional credible evidence of wrong-doing emerges, where many that believe the MSM pitch today will recognize that they have been mislead and will become much more vocal and open about addressing this problem.

Any serious and competent investigation of the FBI's treatment of Clinton, the anti-Trump leaks of highly classified information, etc. could potentially accelerate this process.

What i have trouble understanding is why Sessions does not appear to have initiated any movement in this direction, unless the DOJ Inspector General's investigation of Strozok's text messages is part of something bigger?

And are there questions about the objectivity of the FBI agents who would be tasked to investigate these areas??

[outthere]

oops
Chester Bowles was ambassador to India for Truman, and again for JFK, LBJ, and for awhile Nixon.
He was undersecretary of state for JFK, and was removed because he opposed the Bay of Pigs invasion. That is when JFK appointed him to India.
He was also Governor of Connecticut.

[Frank]

Supply side economics doesn't work unless anti trust legislation with teeth is enforced, and the Borg has that covered as well.

[VietnamVet]

PT

The real problem is that the intelligence community, Democrats, media and their corporate sponsors really believe that Donald Trump is President due to an “active measures” operation that cost Vladimir Putin $500,000. This is a catastrophic delusion. If the Russians had any influence at all, it was because they dispensed the truth. The American Middle Class is being destroyed by outsourcing of jobs, corruption, exploitation and debt. If government by and for the people is not restored soon, a ring of Forts will have to be rebuilt around the Versailles on the Potomac to keep the rebels out.

[Babak Makkinejad]

You have omitted drugs.
Foreigners will tell you that America has so many opportunities for everyone and express surprise at how Americans fail to take advantage of those opportunitirs.
In other words, America is wasted on Americans (are u paying attention Fred?)

[SAC Brat]

I couldn't resist the challenge: War Production Board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Production_Board

And this: Office of Price Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Price_Administration

Don't get me started on that pinko Eisenhower: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech

Where did these selfless people come from? Nation before profit? (heavy sarcasm)

[Fred]

Babak,

That's why they vote for Democrats.

[Patrick Armstrong]

Three sites I follow to keep up with the latest, FYI
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/
http://dystopiausa.com/
http://www.zerohedge.com/

[J]

PT,

The U.S. Public Apathy is a result of the constant barrage by the MSM aka fake news outfits, where the citizenry wind up changing their channel in apathetic disgust. Many of the citizenry would love to see these corrupt politicians and bureaucrats put at the end of a hanging rope for their crimes against the nation, literally hung by their necks until dead. They know they can't do it though as they see their Department of Justice as nothing more than a Department of Corruption, their FBI a political policia not a real Bureau of Investigation, they view the U.S. IC as nothing more than a bunch of drug runners and killers guarding their poppy crops in Afghanistan and elsewhere, not protecting the nation. And the changing of the D.C. guard is viewed little more than the changing of the bobble heads on one of those dancing dolls one puts on their vehicle dash.

Apathy can't even begin to describe their public disgust.

[DianaLC]

I agree completely with your suggestion regarding Gowdy.

[DianaLC]

The more I follow national politics, the more I realize that there is no real sense of loyalty to honor and justice. People begin to think they know what "should be" and then actively do what it takes to make it so.

I clearly remember a junior high school student council election in which the real winner was the school's popular "bad boy," but the adults who were in charge of the voting boxes just couldn't bring themselves to let it happen. They gave the Student Council presidency to a very nice kid, but a kid who didn't really get the votes.

At least that is what the rumor was in the teachers' lounge.

So, is the lesson that the really important positions are not the ones we believe to be important but the ones that seem to be just the worker ants? Strzok certainly felt he had been somehow divinely put into the position he was in to be the person who decided what the outcome should be.

And most of the population are totally unaware of what transpired.

[steve]

All the Democrats I know think Trump is President because Hillary was a lousy candidate, and people were tired of having a Clinton or Bush in the WH. A small minority actually believe the Russians got Trump elected. However, just as the Benghazi investigations lasted for 4 years for political purposes, the Russian investigations serve the same purpose.

Steve

[Babak Makkinejad]

Foreigners did not ship 2.85 million jobs out of US between 1999 to 2010.
GE, IBM, CISCO, HP and many others did not go to the city of Heredia because Costaricanoes in US some how trickef them to do so. Republican and Democratic WASPS did that.

[fanto]

P.Tacitus,
the list of fake news quoted from Greenwald is very incomplete - what about the 2014 "breaking news" in british press about Putin allegedly suffering from spinal cord cancer or pancreatic cancer

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2813400/Putin-does-NOT-cancer-insist-Russia-Kremlin-forced-deny-reports-America-president-pancreatic-form-disease.html

[Fred]

Babak,

You mean all those other countries do not have skilled workforces or any other economic competitive advantage. Glad to know the Congressional Black Caucus was opposed to NAFTA, retroactively anyway.Remind me again why minority immigrants gain affirmative action benefits instantaneously when obtaining citizenship?