Both Jonathan Turley and Glenn Greenwald, unlike most journalists, have covered the indictment of attorney Michael Sussman. John Durham's investigation into Russia-gate revealed that Sussman is a liar who misled the FBI. Why did he mislead the FBI? Because he was being paid by his client Hillary Clinton -- a detail he left out of his remarks to the FBI.
From Jonathan Turley's walk-through of the indictment:
The 26-page indictment of former cybersecurity attorney and Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann by special counsel John Durham is as detailed as it is damning on the alleged effort to push a false Russia collusion claim before the 2016 presidential campaign. One line, however, seems to reverberate for those of us who have followed this scandal for years now: “You do realize that we will have to expose every trick we have in our bag.”
That warning from an unnamed “university researcher” captures the most fascinating aspect of the indictment in describing a type of Nixonian dirty tricks operation run by — or at least billed to — the Clinton campaign. Fifty years ago, Nixon’s personal attorney and the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) paid for operatives to engage in disruptive and ultimately criminal conduct targeting his opponents. With Clinton, the indictment and prior disclosures suggest that Clinton campaign lawyers at the law firm of Perkins Coie helped organize an effort to spread Russia collusion stories and trigger an investigation.
Durham accuses Sussmann of lying to the general counsel of the FBI in September 2016 when Sussmann delivered documents and data to the FBI supposedly supporting a claim that Russia’s Alfa Bank was used as a direct conduit between former President Trump‘s campaign and the Kremlin. According to Durham, Sussman told the FBI general counsel that he was not delivering the information on behalf of any client. The indictment not only details multiple billings to the Clinton campaign as the data was collected and the documents created; it claims Sussman billed the campaign for the actual meeting with the FBI. At the time, Perkins Coie attorney Marc Elias was general counsel for the Clinton campaign. Both men have since left the firm.
The big trick in 2016 was the general effort to create a Russia collusion scandal with the help of Justice Department insiders and an eager, enabling media.
It was only last October, for instance, that we learned that then-President Obama was briefed by his CIA director, John Brennan, on an intelligence report that Clinton planned to tie then-candidate Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” That was on July 28, 2016 — three days before the Russia investigation was initiated.
The problem was that both the Steele dossier and the Alfa Bank allegations fell apart soon after being fed to the FBI. A key source for dossier compiler and former British spy Christopher Steele was viewed by American intelligence as a Russian agent, and it was believed that the Clinton campaign and the dossier were being used by Russian intelligence to spread disinformation.
Glenn Greenwald adds:
The indictment reveals for the first time that the data used as the basis for this fraud was obtained by another one of Sussman's concealed clients, an ‘'unnamed tech executive'’ who ''exploited his access to non-public data at multiple internet companies to conduct opposition research concerning Trump." There will, presumably, be more disclosures shortly about who this tech executive was, which internet companies had private data that he accessed, and how that was used to spin the web of this Alfa Bank fraud. But the picture that emerges is already very damning — particularly of the Russiagate sector of the corporate press."
And Sarah N. Lynch (REUTERS) notes:
The indictment accuses Sussmann of falsely telling Baker he did not represent any client when he met him to give the FBI white papers and other data files containing evidence of questionable cyber links between the Trump Organization and a Russian-based bank.
The indictment alleges that Sussmann turned over that information not as a "good citizen" but as an attorney representing a U.S. technology executive, an internet company and Clinton's presidential campaign.
The dirty tricks were appalling and, as Elaine pointed out, "truly worse than Watergate." Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign does not speak well for her or for democracy and we wouldn't be opposed to her being called before Congress to confess to what she and her campaign did. But even then, her ridiculous defenders would probably think up some new delusion -- like, "She only says she's responsible now because she's being forced to. She's innocent."
Hillary was never innocent. She was our first known presidential candidate from a major political party (Democrat or Republican) to campaign while they were the target of a criminal investigation carried out by the Justice Department. That's what it was. At THE COMMON ILLS, we noted that in real time. The FBI does criminal investigations.
That's what's known as a fact. But when we noted here or at THE COMMON ILLS, we'd get e-mails insisting otherwise and we would be told that CNN, for example, wasn't calling it a criminal investigation.
No, they weren't.
And they were wrong not to. They did what the campaign dictated. They let the campaign define the terms (they'd do the same in 2020 with Joe Biden's campaign). That's not reporting. That's not journalism. You might want to call it ''creative writing." If so, let 'em teach a seminar and get them off the airwaves.
Maybe it's time they started having to be truthful in the most basic form or get off the airwaves?
MSNBC kicks off it's day with MORNING JOE. It's a talk show. If you stretch it, you could call it public affairs. But that's all it is and, here's the thing, Joe Scarborough has never pretended otherwise. Good for him. But his show is followed by MSNBC REPORTS, CRAIG MELVIN REPORTS, ANDREA MITCHELL REPORTS, then (after the daily MEET THE PRESS), KATY TUR REPORTS and HALLIE JACKSON REPORTS. None of those shows, despite having "REPORTS" in the title, do reporting. They have no reporting budget. They're yacking, gas bagging talk shows.
Imagine if they were forced to be honest in their titles?
See, when Russia-gate started, trust in journalism -- for some reason -- was still a bit higher than it is today. And we can remember encountering or first MSNBC-freak in the first week of February 2017. He wanted to scream about Hillary and how wronged she was. We were there for a talk about the war and hadn't brought up Hillary but her cult was so damn obsessive. We let him rant and spew and it was educational. He was getting all of his 'facts' (they weren't facts) from MSNBC --
"It's a news channel," he insisted to everyone present as though they had insulted it. Like most devoted MSNBC viewers, if he was hearing disagreeing voices at that moment, they were all in his head. As he ranted and raved, he told us that Hillary was the most qualified candidate for president ever -- no, she wasn't. That wasn't a fact, that was a claim promoted by her campaign. She was not more experienced than most candidates and even the very John F. Kennedy had more experience than she did. She was the victim of sexism, the man thundered, snarling that Rachel Maddow and Andrea Mitchell had established that. Huh? Hillary was the victim of sexism . . . in 2008. And few bothered to say "boo." From THE CBS EVENING NEWS desk, Katie Couric called out the nonsense and attacks and her reward? "Worst Person Of The Week." That's hat MSNBC declared her on air. Bonnie Erbe and Marie Cocco were two other established journalists who called out the sexism. The ladies of MSNBC didn't say a word -- not even Andrea Mitchell or Rachel Maddow (Rachel called Chris Matthews out for sexism in an interview with AP and then got her own show to shut up -- which she did).
Hillary "nut crackers" were sold during the 2008 run. She was mocked for crying -- Bill Moyers' called it her ''moisty moment'' -- when she didn't cry. Bill and Kathleen Hall Jameson had a field day with that early in 2008; however, the program and Dr, Kathy were silent months later when Joe Biden did cry. No talk of what it meant, no insisting that Joe needed to drop out of the race.
This is the same Dr. Kathy who trafficked in sexism throughout 2008 and (naturally?) went on to deny that sexism was used against Hillary when asked by THE NEW YROK TIMES.
February 2017 was the first encounter with a deranged idiot schooled by MSNBC. It wasn't the last. These people are nuts. Do they ever wake up? We think some leave the cult because if they had hung around from 2008, it's doubtful that they would be blaming mythical Russian actions with Donald Trump for Hillary's defeat.
Reality: Hillary ran a lousy campaign in 2016. This was not the candidate mixing with the people and throwing back boilermakers. She no longer barnstormed, she no longer went everywhere. In fact, some of the states she lost were ones she refused to visit during the campaign for the general election.
That's on her.
Her refusal to connect with people and to instead run a campaign on celebrity overload is on her too.
It was a lousy campaign.
[Jim note: Adding this link after Ava and C.I.'s piece posted -- link to Ava and C.I.'s report on Hillary's campaign the day after the 2016 election "So, uh, we weren't with her? (Ava and C.I.)."]
She really didn't connect with a number of people who were strong supporters of Barack Obama in 2008. And there she can point to others. Specifically, she can point to MSNBC. That's the network that repeatedly called her a racist in 2008, that's the network that said she belittled MLK by praising LBJ, that's the network that said she was urging someone to kill Barack
We're not joking, sadly. Bob Somerby (THE DAILY HOWLER) loves to go on about how, at the end of the 90s, Chris Matthews would repeat the charges in the crackpot CLINTON CHRONICLES put out by Jerry Falwell. He's been silent on smears against Hillary. We're not Hillary's biggest fans (we did support her in the 2008 primaries -- for a number of reasons including her experience and the fact that the American people would hold her responsible with regards to withdrawing US troops from Iraq -- we knew they wouldn't hold Barack accountable and we were right); however, saying she wanted Barack killed? Insisting she was calling for him to be assassinated? Letting that garbage be broadcast on the airwaves?
There's no way Hillary would coast to victory in 2016 after the way the media portrayed her in 2008. It was a scorched earth policy in 2008 and she was stupid to think it didn't matter.
She was also stupid to plot against Donald Trump and carry that plot out during the election. But she was horrid to continue this lying after the election.
Donald Trump is not the worst president ever or even in our lives. Clearly, Bully Boy Bush holds that title with all the wars he started, his attacks on the LGBTQ community, his attacks on Muslims, his attacks on free speech, his attacks on privacy . . . Bully Boy Bush is a War Criminal. We're not saying Donald's much better. but, yes, he was better than Bully Boy Bush. His winning the election let a lot of crazy in. MSNBC, as usual, was where the worst of the worst ended up.
Russia-gate was the worst waste of time. There were real issues to focus on, real people in need. Instead, led by Hillary, it was one lie after another about how Russia helped Donald steal the election. She should be ashamed of herself. She should not have a microphone in front of her or attached to her blouse again unless she's ready to admit what she did and apologize for it. Until that day comes, everything she says is suspect.
But 'news channel' MSNBC has a great to deal to answer for as well. MSNBC is the ultimate bubble which is why Bill Clinton long ago compared it to FOX but where FOX is better is that they will have on the opposing view. They have been rightly ridiculed in the past for having 'liberals' like Alan Colmes on. But we're not talking about that, we're talking about guests (including Glenn Greenwald) who aren't singing from the hymnal of a specific political party as well as some who are. In addition, they have one of the country's finest legal minds as an analyst (Jonathan Turley -- who is a Democrat and a liberal in the classical sense of the term).
Russia-gate ran wild every where in the corporate media -- and for reasons that go far beyond the piece -- however, MSNBC induced a sick fervor in their viewers and that might have been because of their Home On The Range approach to conversations and gas bagging ("where never is heard a discouraging word" when promoting any crazy claim that some Democratic politician is pushing as reality).
Last June, Rich Edmonds (POYNTER) reported:
The United States ranks last in media trust — at 29% — among 92,000 news consumers surveyed in 46 countries, a report released Wednesday found. That’s worse than Poland, worse than the Philippines, worse than Peru. (Finland leads at 65%.)
The annual digital news report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford also found some improvement in trust in nearly all the countries surveyed — probably thanks to COVID-19 coverage — but not in the U.S. where the low rating was flat year to year.
The distrust has a lot of factors. We all saw the US media help lie the country into war. They did that, in part, by silencing the debate, by refusing to allow certain voices to be heard. MSNBC's guests? It's the same thing. And stop saying it's a channel for the left because the center-left corporatists are not voices of the left. In a democracy, the answer is not fewer voices, it's always more voices.
And guess what? Had MSNBC allowed on dissenting voices during all of their Russia-gate lying? They still could have lied. But right now, they'd be able to point out, "Yes, we did get it wrong. But we also had on many guests who got it right." And guess what? Most people would be okay with that. We don't expect journalists to be psychics. We do expect them to be fair. And that's what's flown out the window. We notice it, even Bill Clinton feels compelled to comment on it.
We don't feel Russia-gate was as damaging as the (ongoing) Iraq War. But we do feel it was a distraction and it did real harm On our side, the left, it led to far too much acceptance for a squishy political party (the Democrats) that did nothing. MSNBC and others had fun trumping up Trump stories and elected Democrats coasted along with no responsibility. Imagine if the time MSNBC had given daily to Russia-gate had been given to the climate crisis. Then take a moment to grasp how many real issues they -- and others -- ignored to present gossip as fact and never learn as one Trump scandal after another exploded in their face.
The media, like Hillary, has a lot to answer for. Including (a) why they were so determined to destroy Donald Trump (as opposed to merely covering him) and (b) how sad they are that presented with a person like Donald Trump that not only could they not 'bring him down' and that they had to invent things about him -- invent things about Donald Trump! -- to make him look bad.