While it is true that the truth has no agenda, it is also true in the media business that if one is forced to acknowledge some truth that is “unfavorable” to any narrative that you have created, it is best to do so on the eve of a holiday or on a Friday night. Fewer people will see it then since they are getting into the holiday mood or just zoning out for the weekend.
The NYTimes won Pulitzers for their coverage of the lies about the 2016 election and Russia’s role in it. The recent revelations by Tulsi Gabbard has put the NYTimes in a tough spot since inarguable evidence has been presented showing that the Times reporting was false.
So, the NYTimes has come out and admitted some “uncomfortable” truths about Russiagate. Russiagate is what most people call the fraudulent intelligence community assessment (ICA) that claimed that Russia interfered with the 2016 election and elected Trump President. This admission about Russiagate was done in true media fashion last Friday evening to reduce the NYTimes exposure.
Of course, this is the NYTimes doing this. So, they are still preaching a story that has largely been discredited. For example:
The Trump administration in recent weeks has released a series of reports intended to undermine the conclusion reached by intelligence agencies before President Trump’s first term that Russia had favored his candidacy in 2016 and sought to improve his chances of winning.
“Undermine the conclusion?” The Mueller investigation concluded that no Russian interference occurred. That was more than six years ago. The ICA was long ago discredited. Perhaps the NYTimes is trying to hold onto the Pulitzers they “won” for preaching a lie.
The NYTimes did concede (in paragraph 4) that some new information has been made public. Of course, they had to package it inside hyperbole written to discredit the facts presented.
Still, even if the administration’s use of the reports is wildly overstated, some of the information has not been made public before. It provides some messy details about how the intelligence community assessment was hurriedly produced during Mr. Obama’s final months in office.
“Messy?” That wildly understates the case. It was part of the arguably criminal effort to undermine the peaceful transition of power that has been a hallmark of the American republic since its infancy. This was the most vile betrayal of American principles in my lifetime.
The NYTimes goes on to defend the discredited ICA several more times in this piece. It is like they cannot help themselves. There is a reference to the hacked Democratic emails which was most likely an inside job. There was no hack ever proved. The FBI was never given access to the servers in question. Some indications, most notably from Julian Assange, pointed to the murdered Seth Rich as the likely source of the emails. Of course, the NYTimes does not go anywhere near that story. The writer probably does not want to become another Arkansas suicide.
The Steele dossier makes an appearance in this piece.
The dossier, a compendium of later-discredited claims about Trump-Russia ties compiled by a former British spy, was part of a Democratic-funded political opposition research effort.
It was not “later-discredited.” The FBI knew it was garbage well before the discredited ICA was published. The dossier is a proven fiction.
The dossier “complicates” things for John Brennan.
Mr. Brennan has publicly said the Steele dossier material was not incorporated or used in the assessment itself because of the C.I.A.’s concerns. In 2017, he told Congress that the dossier “was not in any way used as a basis for the intelligence community assessment [I.C.A.] that was done.”
The newly disclosed material complicates that narrative.
The newly available information shows that the dossier was used and that John Brennan fought to have it included. That makes his testimony under oath before Congress worthy of a perjury accusation.
There is a lot more verbiage in the piece about how Russia and Mr. Putin sought to support Trump and denigrate Clinton. What is ignored is the information that the Russians supposedly had that Clinton was heavily on tranquilizers and was psychologically unstable. If this was the case and Russia wanted a Trump victory, why wasn’t this information released?
This piece is mostly spin that is designed to mitigate the damage that the truth is doing to the Democratic Party. However, the author did admit that there are uncomfortable facts that have been released. This alone represents a tectonic shift in media coverage,
The truth sometimes has a way of bringing this about.
The NY Times Piece