Yeah, little bit of a pun there--the leaks turn out to be in the narrative, and the leaks from "FBI sources" turn out to have been not so reliable.
I'm talking about the smear campaign against Rudy Giuliani. The WaPo and NYT were pushing the suggestion that Rudy was an unregistered agent for Ukraine, based on leaks from claimed "official" sources. This narrative was riding heavily on the claim that Rudy had received a "defensive briefing" from the FBI (or, more dramatically, had been "warned" by the FBI) that he was being targeted by the evil Russians. As if virtually any person of influence in any major government isn't targeted by other governments for influence purposes. Is that really supposed to stop our officials from talking with persons connected to foreign governments?
But the big story now is that both the WaPo and the NYT are having to consume a major helping of crow:
The retraction and correction by the Post:
“Correction: An earlier version of this story, published Thursday, incorrectly reported that One America News was warned by the FBI that it was the target of a Russian influence operation. That version also said the FBI had provided a similar warning to Rudolph W. Giuliani, which he has since disputed. This version has been corrected to remove assertions that OAN and Giuliani received the warnings.”
New York Times correction and retraction:
“Correction: May 1, 2021
An earlier version of this article misstated whether Rudolph W. Giuliani received a formal warning from the F.B.I. about Russian disinformation. Mr. Giuliani did not receive such a so-called defensive briefing.”
We'll have to see how this affects the search warrants that were executed against Giuliani, involving the seizure of electronic communication devices.
Of more interest to me is Giuliani's claim that his iCloud account had been accessed in some way by the FBI shortly after the 2020 election, i.e., on Bluto Barr's watch. Whether the access to Giuliani's iCloud account involved IDs for his contacts or content of his communications as well is unclear.
In one way or another, this all has the appearance of a Deep State attempt to intimidate Giuliani with regard to his investigation of the Biden Crime Family. We shall see how this plays out. One certainly wonders what caused this very sudden volte face and climb down from the narrative.
As I said here a day ago, and am happy to repeat, I don't believe a thing they say.
ReplyDeleteDitto.
DeleteIndeed, a delight!
ReplyDeleteI wonder how long it's been, since both rags had to simultaneously to consume such a major helping of crow?
OT, but also major, Greenwald does it again
at https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-left-continues-to-destroy-itself :
"The Left Continues to Destroy Itself and Others With Evidence-Free Destruction of Reputations.
Equating accusations with proven fact is reckless and repressive. It is also standard behavior in liberal politics, whereby they ruin lives without a second thought....
When Joe Biden was the presumptive nominee against Donald Trump, they quickly vilified his accuser Tara Reade as a mentally unwell liar — just as they did in the 1990s, to the group of women who accused Bill Clinton of various levels of sexual impropriety, including rape.
When something like the presidency is at stake, female accusers of key Democratic male leaders are to be mocked and destroyed, not believed.
That is because there is no discernible principle at play. It is only about power. Why was the highly educated Christine Blasey Ford to be believed, with no evidence in her accusations against Brett Kavanaugh, and why is [Scott] Stringer’s accuser, political consultant Jean Kim, to be believed, but Reade was not, even though she had *more* evidence of contemporaneous complaints, to support her allegations?
But the far more important point is, that any culture that is willing to destroy reputations and lives, based on totally unproven accusations, is one that is *inherently* corrupt and unjust.
The ability to destroy someone’s life, with nothing more than an uncorroborated claim, voiced more than eighteen years after the alleged incident, is a power with which nobody should be trusted."
Narrative fails and retractions... Always fun times with those two papers.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised someone like Giluiani would even use an iphone. Seems rather careless in this day and age.
Thanks aNanyMouse!
ReplyDeleteGreat link on Greenwald - wow... I thought this was only to Republicans.
I was reading a recent “story” on Gaetz at the Daily Mail, and it was amazing how there was no hard facts. Everything was per sources, and alleged....
My guess is Giuliani will fight hard, and the two papers just figured out they need to reduce their legal exposure.
Socal
DeleteI suspect,however, that very very few Republicans have the courage of Giuliani or Gaetz or Marjorie Taylor Greene to stand up to the ferocious powers of the deep state. Far too few, at any rate, to rein in these beasts.
I suspect it's not much of an exaggeration to say that, these days, Rudy lives to fight.
ReplyDelete