Trump accuses 'fake news' media of making up sources

[Dashinka 24,493]

7 hours ago, eieio said:

RUSSIA,RUSSIA,RUSSIA!! lol

 

MARSHA,MARSHA,MARSHA

Always love a Jan Brady reference!

 

[IAMX 3,055]

An apt op-ed..

 

“

This nation was dedicated to freedom under law, not under mobs.”

 

So wrote the late Justice, Tom Clark, who gave me my first tour of the Supreme Court in the 1970s.  Justice Clark cared deeply about the role of the news media in holding our government accountable.  But he would be dispirited to see their embrace of “mobocracy,” as he once described it. 

The mob as a ruling class is today’s mainstream media.  They assert political control by denigrating and vilifying.  No act by the Trump administration, however slight, will be spared a full-throated “scandal” as declared by the media.  All deeds are treated as crimes or impeachable offenses.   

The latest victim is President Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser, Jared Kushner.  His crime appears to be no crime at all.  He met with two foreign officials from Russia –an ambassador and a banker.  Back channel communications were allegedly discussed.  Mass hysteria in both print and television ensued. 

There was no attempt at reasoned analysis, no context of historical precedence.

The media all but shouted, “off with his head!”   Execution first.  A trial with real or imagined evidence sometime later, if ever. 

Back Channel Communications

The Washington Post ignited the media firestorm by publishing a story that Kushner met with Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to Washington, in December and allegedly sought a private communications channel with the Kremlin. 

Within an hour, television reporters and pundits were declaring it a “bombshell” –their favorite description of anything related to Trump.  No one bothered to point out that nearly every recent president has established and relied on similar back channel contacts. 

Notably, President John Kennedy depended on two sets of back channel communications with the Soviets to diffuse the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962.   His brother Bobby Kennedy arranged an urgent deal with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to remove the missiles in Cuba in exchange for the U.S. removing obsolete missiles in Turkey.  At the same time, the State Department commandeered ABC correspondent John Scali to work out other details with Soviet Embassy official Alexander Fomin.  A catastrophic nuclear exchange was averted.

But nowhere in the hyper-media coverage was this mentioned in the hours after the Kushner story broke.  Only two days later, in an opinion column by David Ignatius, did the Washington Post admit the value of secret contacts when he observed, “Such back channels can add stability and predictability in foreign relations.”  Few in the media have picked up on it.

It makes no difference whether the idea of a private communications channel was broached before or after President Trump took office.  It is a distinction without a difference.  As Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly observed, “It’s both normal, in my opinion, and acceptable.”   

So much for the “bombshell.”  More like a media dud.  Of course, they’ll never admit to it. 

The Logan Act Charade

Because the Kushner meeting occurred after Trump was elected but before he took office, the media continues to claim that the Logan Act was violated.  Passed in 1799, it prohibits private citizens from interfering in diplomatic disputes with foreign governments.  Surely, Kushner violated that law, the media exclaimed. 

But no one has ever been prosecuted under the Logan Act.  Therefore, it is legally inoperable because it has remained dormant for more than two centuries.  Prosecutors are not allowed to use a statute that has fallowed for such a long period of time.  In other words, it is dead.  It sits on the books of our criminal codes only as words collecting dust.  Nothing more. 

Even if it was somehow germane and valid, Kushner was not acting as a private citizen as the Act requires.  He was serving as a representative of the incoming administration.  Other presidents have had discussions with foreign governments before taking office, including President Obama. 

Yet the media seems oblivious to both the law and its application. 

Security Clearance Form

The media continues to speculate that Kushner committed a crime by omitting his Russian meetings when he filled out his security clearance forms.  But the press almost never mentions that people are rarely prosecuted because it is exceedingly difficult to demonstrate that it was “knowingly falsified or concealed,” as the law demands.   

Have you ever seen one of these forms?  They are long and confusing.  Few people manage to fill them out correctly or completely. 

Since violation is not a strict liability crime, the feds would have to prove “specific intent.”  That is, Kushner tried to deliberately deceive the government.  Incomplete paper work, by itself, is not a criminal act. 

Significantly, the day after Kushner submitted his form, his attorney alerted the FBI it was in error and would be amended to include several meetings with foreign officials.  These circumstances hardly constitute a crime.  Immediate notification of a filing mistake vitiates any legal culpability.  

But, again, journalists seem to conveniently overlook this.  The story is too good to let the facts get in the way.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/05/30/gregg-jarrett-jared-kushner-gets-mugged-by-media-mob.html

[IAMX 3,055]

As usual, fake news unravels as no proof found anywhere of claims based on anonymous sources.. 

 

The Washington Post editors refuse to publicly release the smoking gun “anonymous letter” that serves as the foundation of their sensational charge that White House advisor Jared Kushner sought a secret, back-channel to Russian officials.

The “anonymous letter” was part of a front-page article claiming the president’s son-in-law sought to set up a private communications channel to Russian officials during a discussion with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The piece was published Sunday and received high profile coverage throughout the long Memorial Day weekend.

“The Post was first alerted in mid-December to the meeting by an anonymous letter, which said, among other things, that Kushner had talked to Kislyak about setting up the communications channel,” the article’s three authors stated.

WaPo also claimed American intelligence agencies discovered the ploy through an intercepted open phone call by Kislyak to Moscow. Observers have noted that Kislyak, a seasoned spy, made the phone call on an “open line,” and therefore knew it was likely to be intercepted.

To date, there has been no independent verification the letter is real or that WaPo’s description of its contents is accurate. The Washington Post editors also never explain why they withheld the letter.

The Post’s secrecy has produced its doubters. Over the weekend, Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who serves on the Senate Committees on Armed Services and the Judiciary, said he believed The Post’s account was bogus.

“I don’t trust this story as far as I can throw it,” the South Carolina Republican said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Graham, who served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence between 2007 to 2009, doubted the Russian Ambassador would transmit the Kushner proposal via an open line, saying it “made no sense” since Kislyak would know U.S. intelligence authorities were monitoring the communication.

“I don’t know who leaked this information, but just think about it this way — you’ve got the ambassador of Russia reporting back to Moscow on an open channel, ‘Hey, Jared Kushner’s going to move into the embassy,'” Graham said on CNN.

Former U.S. Attorney Joseph DiGenova told TheDCNF other unreleased parts of the letter could undermine the credibility of the author and discredit the allegations about Kushner.

“Here’s the problem: we don’t know what else is in the letter. The letter may be so outrageous in its claims that if we read it all, it would throw doubt onto this particular allegation. And it may very well be that the letter is so scurrilous and outrageous that they won’t release it because it will make them look bad for relying on it at all,” he told TheDCNF in an interview.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a nonpartisan government watchdog group dedicated to openness and transparency, said he thought there could be references that show the letter’s author had a partisan agenda, which WaPo reporters wanted to hide.

“Are they coloring their documents in any way?” he asked during an interview with TheDCNF. “The way you figure that out is whether they disclose their politics or their agendas. We don’t know if the characterization of the underlying documents is accurate or if it’s being slanted.”

Former Air Force Col. James Waurishuk, a senior intelligence and political-military affairs advisor who served on the National Security Council and worked with news organizations, told TheDCNF journalistic integrity has evaporated in Washington.

“We’ve been turning the corner for some time on journalistic integrity. I remember in my career a time when a press organization would not release anything to jeopardize a source, jeopardizing a military operation or some ongoing political dialogue. I think those days are gone,” he told TheDCNF.

Another issue testing the credibility of mainstream news organizations is a May 16 New York Times article claiming a memo former FBI Director James Comey wrote revealed President Donald Trump asked him to drop his investigation of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

But The NYTimes never possessed the Comey memo. According to the newspaper, “The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter.”

 

http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/30/what-is-the-washington-post-hiding-about-its-jared-kushner-story/

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

6 minutes ago, IAMX said:

As usual, fake news unravels as no proof found anywhere of claims based on anonymous sources.. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/30/what-is-the-washington-post-hiding-about-its-jared-kushner-story/

 

7 minutes ago, IAMX said:

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a nonpartisan government watchdog group dedicated to openness and transparency, said he thought there could be references that show the letter’s author had a partisan agenda, which WaPo reporters wanted to hide.

Where to you get this pablum?

[LionessDeon 2,060]

And yet I have read tweets on trump twitter page where he cites information from unnamed and anonymous sources.  Both sides do it.