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Monday, November 4, 2019

Can't Recommend Highly Enough

Read Margot Cleveland at The Federalist this morning:

These close connections between the Washington Post’s David Ignatius and people connected to U.S. and U.K. intelligence raise grave concerns about the deep state using media to push propaganda.

The sub-title tells the overall story. More specifically, it's all about the John Brennan's plot to frame Michael Flynn by falsely accusing him of having an affair with a supposed Russian "honeypot," Svetlana Lokhova, in Cambridge. Stefan Halper and Christopher Andrew--so-called "academics" but really professional informants and intel operatives--figure in bigly, as you'll know from Lee Smith's book and previous reporting.

Cleveland provides one of the key paragraph's from Sidney Powell's most recent filing (she's due with another later today) in nicely formatted form:

Stefan Halper is a known long-time operative for the CIA/FBI. He was paid exorbitant sums by the FBI/CIA/DOD through the Department of Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment in 2016. His tasks seem to have included slandering Mr. Flynn with accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian descent) Flynn met at an official dinner at Cambridge University when he was head of DIA in 2014. Flynn has requested the records of Col. James Baker because he was Halper’s ‘handler’ in the Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon, and ONA Director Baker regularly lunched with Washington Post Reporter David Ignatius. Baker is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn’s calls to Ignatius. The defense has requested the phone records of James Clapper to confirm his contacts with Washington Post reporter Ignatius—especially on January 10, 2017, when Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of ‘take the kill shot on Flynn.’ It cannot escape mention that the press has long had transcripts of the Kislyak calls that the government has denied to the defense.

There's a lot of detail. Cleveland does a great job portraying all the perps as the complete shits that they are.

Gosh, no wonder Barr wants to do a 'hatchet job' on these disgusting excuses for human beings. I suspect if Barr has his way Halper will get what he deserves--good and hard.

So, David Ignatius at WaPo has been completely exposed as a Deep State operative. Next question: Who are the other journos who will be exposed? We need to know all of that.

ADDENDUM: Nothing could be more clear at this point than this: The Russia Hoax never could have happened without massive, near total, complicity on the part of the MSM with the Deep State of federal Intel-related agencies. NYT, WaPo, CNN, DoS, CIA, FBI, DoJ, NSC--that's a beginning of your Russia Hoax alphabet soup. And of course we can now add in SSCI and assorted other Congressional actors as well as the top levels of the military--especially including McMaster.

Hatchet job? Barr needs a chain saw.

28 comments:

  1. "Next question: Who are the other journos who will be exposed? We need to know all of that."

    In his book, Lee Smith identifies by name numerous Wapo and NYT 'journalists' who were repeatedly fed leaks. Really, they are co-conspirators. All we need to do is follow the bread crumbs.

    Smith also has some choice observations about the financial desperation of these 'newspapers' which has led them to abandon any pretense of journalism.

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    1. The big question, of course, is: to what extent did they believe they were getting leaks of legit info v. participating in a disinformation campaign?

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    2. Oh, that's easy. They all believed they were getting legit info--all the time--and would never permit themselves to participate in a disinformation campaign. They were doing the Lord's work--they report to a higher authority. Soon, they will walk on water, or turn water into wine. Go ahead, just ask them...

      I'd say the record is pretty clear--since at least Woodward & Bernstein: they all work as stenographers. What they believe only affects their bias--what they actually know can be summed up as "next to nothing."

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  2. I believe that when the full story of the Russia Hoax (and all it's ancillary manifestations) is revealed, then it will become very clear that the problems we face are systemic in nature and not merely a case of few bad apples in government that went rogue. I frequently use the analogy of a cancer rather than a bullet wound. The latter requires a very focused remedy and the healing is usually pretty quick, whereas the former often requires a chemotherapy that attacks the disease broadly and attempts to root out even the smallest of tumors, otherwise the cancer resurfaces and metastasizes. This is Barr's biggest challenge. He is facing off against a huge and amorphous Deep State cancer, and there is no legal equivalent of chemotherapy, so he will have to invent one.

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    1. I agree that this is systemic. I'm not sure that Barr can do more than hack at it with his chain saw, because--as systemic--the solution probably needs to be on the constitutional level. That's why the struggle for the courts is so important. Of course the chain saw approach is important in preparing the ground--hopefully--for more systemic solutions.

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    2. One such form of chemotherapy, perhaps beyond Barr's purview, could be breaking up media empires.
      Decades ago, John Ralston Saul wrote about how what he called The Faithful Witness (i.e. the whistle-blower) was being sabotaged by high-tech media's vulnerability, to pressure from what we now call the D.S., which, after all, knew where TV networks had their wires etc., thru/ on which signals would be sent across the land.
      Whereas, a Gutenberg printer could fit into a large closet, and expelled nothing outside to give away its position. So, Luther's pals could quickly print stacks of the 95 Theses, and pass such stacks out, before the Pope knew what was hitting him.

      Once radio, TV, etc. came about, producers couldn't hide their operation in a closet, so Der Fuehrer had no trouble grabbing the mike for himself, and marginalizing his foes.
      Ever since, it has behooved MSM brass, to suck-up to the D.S. of every major country.
      We must take away D.S. implicit power to intimidate the MSM, either by crushing the D.S., or by getting the MSM to downsize enough to be able to hide from the D.S.

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    3. One of the things that irks me about Republicans is their love of mergers. Why should Comcast be allowed to own NBC, Disney to own ABC, AT&T to own CNN? The list goes on and on.

      In my opinion, we need more than two robust competitors in a particular market. In fact, I think that even having three, four or five dominant players isn't enough.

      I opposed T-Mobile buying Sprint and Google buying YouTube and I could list more examples. There's too much coziness between Big Business and Big Government.

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  3. The media, almost all, are just Democrat propagandists. They carry Democrat water.

    Only a brief period in the 20th Century were US media considered impartial, "above the fray" type of profession, but even then some obvious, but mostly hidden biases leached through.

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  4. On Barr's challenge in using a chain saw, see J.H. Kunstler today, at https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/how-far-will-they-go/ , ending with:

    "The question is, whether Messers Barr & Durham have the cojones, to cater the banquet of consequences that this huge cast of characters should be made to feast from. Another question is, whether these desperate characters, and the agencies they represent, will go all the way now, and attempt to enlist the military brass in an outright OVERTHROW of the executive. There are already intimations of this.
    It would be answered, by the kind of civil VIOLENCE that has broken out in other parts of world, where other Deep States have worn out their welcome — and their legitimacy."

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    1. Yes, we've got to the point that sensible people need to consider these as possible events.

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    2. I agree that there is corruption in the military brass but I think the rank and file servicemen are still largely conservative.

      When the indictments are levelled, Vindmann, Hayden and McRaven should be dealt with. Vindmann is active duty and defied the President. The other two receive military pensions and are still subject to the UCMJ and have limitations on political speech.

      Generals and admirals should not be allowed to service for 30 years, either. We need civilian control of the military, not elitists and careerists running the armed forces.

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  5. Since you mention Lee Smith, I'll take advantage and comment that I very much enjoyed Chapter 15 of The Plot Against the President ;^> You made a great contribution to what really is a great book.

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    1. Thanks, Brad. I should explain a bit ...

      When Lee sent me the proofs of the book to read I was a bit surprised at that chapter. We had certainly had those discussions, but I didn't imagine he'd include that since it was, from my standpoint, off the top of my head commentary on big issue stuff. However, over a period of months we had numerous other discussions, most of it focusing on the usual stuff I originally started writing about here--legal aspects of investigations.

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    2. Whatever he left on the cutting floor, what he kept in Ch 15, for me at least, fit really well into the book's grand scheme and added some really good value to it.

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    3. He didn't leave it on the cutting floor.

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  6. Can't begin to express how much I hope that some meaningful selection of who leaked what to whom will be exposed while it still matters. I understand the odds are against it, but the voters really need to see how all this was done.

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    1. "the voters really need to see how all this was done."

      I do think that Barr really gets that.

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    2. I'm sure you're right, just don't know where he & Trump will determine the returns in trying to force the outing of sources become negative. Seems a 2nd-term victory in 2020 would give them a lot more leverage to squeeze as needed. (or not?? - I really don't know!)

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  7. Organized religion used to serve as chemotherapy of a sort, but sadly our religious institutions are in decline and moral authority is becoming sectarian rather than grounded in a universal belief in God. I think Barr senses this as well and is using his bully pulpit to point us in that direction. Neither he nor the courts can restore faith as our foundation. Ultimately this remedy must come from the ground up.

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  8. Margret Cleveland's very last line concluded with this--> "raise grave concerns that the warfare of the soft coup aimed at President Trump includes using the media to push propaganda."

    I'd say that was the whole point of hiring, through a cut-out, FusionGPS for oppo research laundered through supposedly "credible" intermediaries to CIA/FBI/DoJ. FusionGPS would then use the media to report the same rumor and innuendo, creating the appearance of multiple, independent conformations, where no independence exists as from a single originating source.

    FusionGPS's reputation is as a smear merchant getting stories planted in media, often based on leaking gov't sources. This time they used their contacts in both directions--to work the media, and work their gov't sources and relationships by providing material that could be leaked directly to media. Then media and gov't used each other to confirm the "story," neither the wiser as being "used" by FusionGPS, and principally the Democrats. And plausible deniability as the excuse to keep everyone's conscience clear...

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    1. Right. Not much point in hiring smear merchants if they can't get their smears published while the campaign denies it.

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  9. As you know, I am a strong supporter of the Free Press and the First Amendment. I consider the actions of select reporters, commenters, columnists, and other talking heads associated with CNN, MSNBC, the NYT and the WaPo to be beyond the scope of First Amendment protections.

    Make no mistake, they are also conspirators.

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  10. If at least part of what you're saying is that the need to protect sources is outweighed by the need of justice getting served in criminal investigations if knowing those sources is vital to a case, I totally agree.

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    1. Brad,

      I guess what I'm saying is that CNN and their ilk were not doing journalism. They are hiding under the cloak of the First Amendment.

      I can't hide behind the First Amendment if I urge a crowd to kill John Doe and the crowd does kill Doe.

      In the same way, the media were taking orders from the Deep State, pushing out stories to give a weak predication for getting Flynn, Page, Papa D, etc.

      That is not journalism.

      And I agree with your last point.

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  11. An earlier Smith gem about the MSM appeared in The Tablet in June, see
    https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/285830/Spies-are-the-new-Journalists .
    If he doesn't get a Pulitzer for this stuff, it'll be because that outfit is run by human scum like Eugene Robinson.

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  12. Years ago there was a graphic on a private intel/SOF distribution list resembling the WaPo banner, except that it read "The CIA's Washinton post". The "CIA" part was made to appear of letters cut out and pasted from different sources, a la ransom note. Under that, in smaller letters: "David Ignatius, Chief of Station". The tongue-in-cheek banner was affixed to the top of every WaPo article disseminated.

    So, to some, it's not news.

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