How the NY Times buried their lead on the Obama administrations investigation of the Trump campaign
Andrew McCarthy:
They did not just use some burglars to spy they did it under color of law. That makes it harder for those responsible for the spying to claim ignorance. The Democrats had to get Nixon for a coverup. Here Obama and his minions in the intelligence community and the FBI were all involved in what evolved into a coup attempt against the winner of the election.
What also makes this different from Watergate is in that scandal the media was actively involved in trying to uncover what happened. In this one, they were actively involved in the coup attempt and they are still trying to spin what happened.
Also, check out Mollie Hemingway's piece on the Times story:
...This is not the first time the Obama administration used counterintelligence powers to snoop on Americans. It did the same thing to thwart domestic opposition to its bad Iran deal. This suggests they did not blunder into this violation but deliberately did it to spy on an opposition Presidential campaign.
The young’uns may not believe it, but back before it was known as “classic rock,” you couldn’t just play your crossfire hurricane on Spotify. You had to spin it. Fittingly, that is exactly what the New York Times has done in Wednesday’s blockbuster report on the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.
The quick take on the 4,100-word opus is that the Gray Lady “buried the lede.” Fair enough: You have to dig pretty deep to find that the FBI ran “at least one government informant” against the Trump campaign — and to note that the Times learned this because “current and former officials” leaked to reporters the same classified information about which, just days ago, the Justice Department shrieked “Extortion!” when Congress asked about it.
But that’s not even the most important of the buried ledes. What the Times story makes explicit, with studious understatement, is that the Obama administration used its counterintelligence powers to investigate the opposition party’s presidential campaign.
That is, there was no criminal predicate to justify an investigation of any Trump-campaign official. So, the FBI did not open a criminal investigation. Instead, the bureau opened a counterintelligence investigation and hoped that evidence of crimes committed by Trump officials would emerge. But it is an abuse of power to use counterintelligence powers, including spying and electronic surveillance, to conduct what is actually a criminal investigation.
The Times barely mentions the word counterintelligence in its saga. That’s not an accident. The paper is crafting the media-Democrat narrative. Here is how things are to be spun: The FBI was very public about the Clinton-emails investigation, even making disclosures about it on the eve of the election. Yet it kept the Trump-Russia investigation tightly under wraps, despite intelligence showing that the Kremlin was sabotaging the election for Trump’s benefit. This effectively destroyed Clinton’s candidacy and handed the presidency to Trump.
It’s a gas, gas, gas!
It’s also bunk. Just because the two FBI cases are both referred to as “investigations” does not make them the same kind of thing.
The Clinton case was a criminal investigation that was predicated on a mountain of incriminating evidence. Mrs. Clinton does have one legitimate beef against the FBI: Then-director James Comey went public with some (but by no means all) of the proof against her. It is not proper for law-enforcement officials to publicize evidence from a criminal investigation unless formal charges are brought.
In the scheme of things, though, this was a minor infraction. The scandal here is that Mrs. Clinton was not charged. She likes to blame Comey for her defeat; but she had a chance to win only because the Obama Justice Department and the FBI tanked the case against her — in exactly the manner President Obama encouraged them to do in public commentary.
...
They did not just use some burglars to spy they did it under color of law. That makes it harder for those responsible for the spying to claim ignorance. The Democrats had to get Nixon for a coverup. Here Obama and his minions in the intelligence community and the FBI were all involved in what evolved into a coup attempt against the winner of the election.
What also makes this different from Watergate is in that scandal the media was actively involved in trying to uncover what happened. In this one, they were actively involved in the coup attempt and they are still trying to spin what happened.
Also, check out Mollie Hemingway's piece on the Times story:
10 Key Takeaways From The New York Times’ Error-Ridden Defense Of FBI Spying On Trump Campaign
It's reasonable to assume that much of the new information in the New York Times report relates to leakers' fears about information that will be coming out in the inspector general report.
Comments
Post a Comment