Eric Zuesse: How Utterly Untrustworthy America’s Mainstream ‘News’ Med…
Written by Eric Zuesse.
The U.S. war against Russia is based not only on lies by the U.S. government and its ‘news’ media about how the war in Ukraine started, but also on lies by the U.S. Government and its ‘news’ media about actually non-existent Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election between Trump and Hillary. Two examples of typical deceptions against the public, by the U.S. Government and its ‘news’ media, will be presented and analyzed here regarding the latter, or ‘Russiagate’, matter (which was actually Obamagate — the then-existing U.S. President’s determination to smear Hillary’s opponent so as to get Hillary into the White House).
Even the very good eleven-minute-long May 16th summary, at “OBAMA, HILLARY CAUGHT In Russia-gate Scheme By Durham Report | Breaking Points”, of the 300-page Durham Report, doesn’t convey the extent of the deceit by the U.S. Government, and by its press, that is getting the world closer and closer each day to WW III over Ukraine. But, after you have read this article, maybe the point will become clear, that Barack Obama (and not ONLY Joe Biden, and perhaps even Donald Trump — for his negligence) must be prosecuted for this, and that then media executives also should be. Because this is really an enormous crime against the world (and cover-up of it); so, it must be done. It needs to be done.
Here’s the opening of a 2,500-word retrospective major ‘news’-report from the Washington Post, on 24 May 2017 [along with my own additions between brackets], concerning the ongoing convoluted cover-up of the cover–up of Obamagate (which cover-up continues to this day):
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“How a dubious Russian document influenced the FBI’s handling of the Clinton probe”
Washington Post, 24 May 2017 [2,500-word report opens]:
An [alleged] secret document that officials say played a key role in then-FBI Director James B. Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation has long been viewed within the FBI as unreliable and possibly a fake, according to people familiar with its contents.
In the midst of the 2016 presidential primary season, the FBI received what was described as a Russian intelligence document claiming a tacit understanding between the Clinton campaign and the Justice Department over the inquiry into whether she intentionally revealed classified information through her use of a private email server.
The [alleged] Russian document cited a supposed email describing how then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch had privately assured someone in the Clinton campaign that the email investigation would not push too deeply into the matter. If true, the revelation of such an understanding would have undermined the integrity of the FBI’s investigation.
Current and former officials have said that Comey relied on the [alleged] document in making his July decision to announce on his own, without Justice Department involvement, that the investigation was over. That public announcement — in which he criticized Clinton and made extensive comments about the evidence — set in motion a chain of other FBI moves that Democrats now say helped Trump win the presidential election.
But according to the FBI’s own assessment, the [alleged] document was bad intelligence — and according to people familiar with its contents, possibly even a fake sent [BY WHOM?] to confuse the bureau [allegedly WHY, for what purpose? — they don’t even TOUCH that question]. The Americans mentioned in the [alleged] Russian document insist they do not know each other, do not speak to each other and never had any conversations remotely like the ones described in the [alleged] document. Investigators have long doubted its veracity [but why does this ‘news’paper NOT question the EXISTENCE of that ‘document’?], and by August the FBI had concluded it was unreliable.
FBI Director James B. Comey makes a statement at FBI headquarters on July 5. (Cliff Owen/AP)
The [alleged] document, obtained by the FBI, was a piece of purported analysis by Russian intelligence, the people said. It referred to an email supposedly written by the then-chair of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), and sent to Leonard Benardo, an official with the Open Society Foundations, an organization founded by billionaire George Soros and dedicated to promoting democracy [REALLY? How purely stenographic can such ‘journalism’ get, possibly covering-up for the Democratic Party’s biggest donor?].
The [alleged] Russian document did not contain a copy of the email, but it described some of the contents of the purported message. …
[This alleged ‘news’-report closes:]
Comey said that he had spoken with the heads of the congressional intelligence committees about the [alleged] document privately but that it was too sensitive to discuss it in public.
“The subject is classified, and in an appropriate forum I’d be happy to brief you on it,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “But I can’t do it in an open hearing.”
No such briefing occurred before he was fired.
[WHY DID THIS ‘NEWS’PAPER TRUST THAT THE ALLEGED DOCUMENT HAD EXISTED AND HAD ORIGINATED FROM RUSSIA? If that allegation is FALSE, it is extremely incriminating against not ONLY the newspaper, but also against the U.S. Government.]
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Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2023, By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Columnist
[This incompetently written opinion-article, before getting to its nub, refers to] the method of the Steele dossier fabulists Igor Danchenko and his boss Christopher Steele.
But missing from the list is the most consequential fabricator of all, whoever dreamed up the presumably fake email exchange between then-Democratic Party chief Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and activist Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundation. This imaginary exchange may have made Donald Trump president.
The fictitious email referred to a presumably equally fictitious conversation between the Clinton campaign’s Amanda Renteria and Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch about making sure the Clinton server investigation didn’t “go too far.” The words found their way into a Russian intelligence document, which found its way to the FBI, becoming the justification for FBI chief James Comey’s chaotic actions in the 2016 election.
The rest may be history but it’s ignored history except in this column and in a top-secret Justice Department inspector general’s report — which the inspector general himself in testimony before Congress unsuccessfully urged be made public.
Well, if the New York Times on Friday is right, one question has been answered. What the FBI didn’t do, the special counsel John Durham apparently did, using his investigative powers to examine Mr. Benardo’s communications and confirm that the alleged email was indeed spurious. …
The paper’s [NYT’s] failure to mention a key fact. The fake Benardo-Wasserman Schultz exchange surfaced not in the Trump-Russia investigation, but in the Clinton email investigation.
To the extent it became involved in the Trump case, it was only because Mr. Comey’s FBI colleagues blamed his actions in the Clinton case for putting Mr. Trump in the White House. This is plainly seen in the contemporaneous texts of people like the FBI’s Peter Strzok and Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI lawyer who would later plead guilty to falsifying collusion evidence in what looks suspiciously like an FBI effort to change the subject from its own role in the 2016 election. Mr. Comey’s original mad intervention led to his second mad intervention, reopening the Clinton case before Election Day when the Anthony Weiner “sexting” laptop emerged.
[The WSJ likewise PRESUMES that the allegedly Russian alleged document actually EXISTED. But DID IT? WHY WAS ANYTHING BEING PUBLISHED ABOUT THIS MATTER IF THE EVIDENCE THAT IT EXISTED WAS NOT INDEPENDENTLY CONFIRMED BY THE ‘NEWS’PAPER? NO WONDER THE U.S. GOVERNMENT LIES SO ROUTINELY, GIVEN SUCH ‘JOURNALISM’ AS THIS.]
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Just like the U.S. ‘news’ media, in the lead-up to the U.S. Government’s international war-criminal 20 March 2003 aggression (via invasion) against Iraq, on the basis solely of lies, had served as unquestioning stenographers for their lying Government, it’s the same now for that same lying Government against other countries, such as Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Libya, etc. Why do people subscribe to (pay) such ‘news’ media? A person is forced to pay taxes to the lying Government, but is one forced to pay for its propaganda? No — paying for that is strictly voluntary. Why do people pay to be deceived?
Russiagate is fake (it was Obamagate and never even so much as investigated, at all), just like Taiwan’s independence from China is (and just like Russia’s ‘unprovoked’ invasion of Ukraine is) — but where is anyone in America’s ‘news’-media apologizing (much less being prosecuted) for having trumpeted the Government’s lies about anything?
This is not mere negligence — it is active participation. And everyone is looking the other way.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
MORE ON THE TOPIC:
- How America’s News-Media Hide the Extent of America’s Corruptness
- Russian News-Media Are More Honest Than U.S.-And-Allied Ones Are
- How Deceptive U.S.-and-Allied ‘News’-Media Are
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