RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/28/3-major-problems-with-nyt-story-about-outing-of-fbis-trump-informant/
The story fails on multiple levels to make its central claim that congressional oversight regarding the use of human informants against the Trump campaign is hurting intelligence-gathering in Moscow.

The New York Times published an article last week that claimed “Kremlin Sources Go Quiet, Leaving C.I.A. in the Dark About Putin’s Plans for Midterms.” Reporters Julian E. Barnes and Matthew Rosenberg write that informants close to Russian President Vladimir Putin were talking to U.S. intelligence, but have recently clammed up.

The reporters give three possible reasons, after saying officials don’t think they were compromised or killed. They may have been spooked by more aggressive Russian counterintelligence. Information collection may have been dampened by the expulsion of American intelligence officials from Moscow — in response to American expulsion of Russian officers from the United States. But there’s another theory for what’s gone on, and let’s see if you buy it: Congressional oversight by Republicans is to blame.

https://thefederalist.com/2018/08/27/the-silence-over-a-potential-chinese-spy-in-feinsteins-office-is-deafening/

With concerns over attempts by foreign adversaries to influence the American political system at a fever pitch — notwithstanding that in the case of the president, the commentariat’s charges of certain treasonous Russian collusion have grudgingly been downgraded in slightly more sane quarters to dubious alleged campaign finance infractions — that the story of a Chinese spy in Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office has seemingly died is simply stunning.

From the start, this was a story the media had no interest in covering. Now it is apparent that our political class has no interest in probing it.

The reporting on Feinstein was limited to a few outlets — ignored by large newspaperssuch as The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and major networks, excluding Fox News, which provided scant details as to what transpired and downplayed the potentially dire ramifications of the alleged breach.

The press took at face value boilerplate statements from Feinstein’s office seeking to dispel any suggestion that the Chinese had penetrated her office, with nary a question directed at the senator herself as she enjoyed her tranquil August recess.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/22/nyt-stealth-edits-report-on-mollie-tibbetts-murder-to-attack-trump/

An illegal immigrant was arrested for seizing 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts and murdering her in cold blood, but the latest New York Times article on the subject blasts Trump for “seizing” on the story of the young woman’s murder.

According to records from NewsDiffs, the story’s original headline, “Body Believed to Be That of Mollie Tibbetts, Iowa College Student, Is Found,” was changed to, “After an Immigrant’s Arrest, Trump Seizes on Killing of Mollie Tibbetts, Iowa Student.”

Quotes from President Trump at a rally in West Virgina on Tuesday night were also quietly moved from the bottom of the story to the top, following the lede.

President Trump, who has repeatedly linked crime to illegal immigration, alluded to the case at a rally Tuesday evening in West Virginia.

“You heard about today with the illegal alien coming in, very sadly from Mexico, and you saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful young woman,” Mr. Trump said. “It should’ve never happened. Illegally in our country. We’ve had a huge impact, but the laws are so bad, the immigration laws are such a disgrace.”

The contents of the story’s abstract have also been drastically changed.

Reporter Alex Griswold pointed out that The New York Times has alternative, less violent verbs for headlines about President Obama politicizing tragedies.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/press_mocks_the_murder_of_mollie_tibbetts_once_it_became_an_illegal_alien_story.html

See also: MSNBC panelist labels Mollie Tibbetts a ‘girl in Iowa’ ‘Fox News is talking about’

After whipping up such a brouhaha about illegal immigrants being separated from their children as a result of their lawbreaking, the press was confronted with new story about illegals to report and comment upon, and it didn’t quite tug on the heartstrings the way the crying toddlers narrative did.

According to the New York Times:

A body believed to be that of Mollie Tibbetts, a 20-year-old student at the University of Iowa who vanished a month ago after going for a jog, was found on Tuesday morning, investigators announced. A 24-year-old undocumented immigrant has been charged with first-degree murder in the killing.

The body was found in a field southeast of Brooklyn, Iowa. Ms. Tibbetts was last seen nearby on July 18, Rick Rahn, a special agent of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said at a news conference.

“The identity has not been confirmed, however, we believe it to be the body of Mollie Tibbetts,” Mr. Rahn said. The authorities did not say what the specific cause of death was; an autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday.

The president’s critics are trying to build an obstruction case based on reading Trump’s mind.

The thing to bear in mind is that the president of the United States does not “attempt” to fire anyone in the executive branch. The chief executive either fires an inferior executive official or he does not. “Attempt” does not enter into it.

Yet “attempt” is the foundation on which the New York Times’ Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman build their blockbuster report this weekend about the decision by President Trump — apparently on the advice of his first team of lawyers — to waive executive privilege and attorney-client privilege so that prosecutors on the staff of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III could interview White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn II.

I will in another column address the significance of the waiver. (To my mind, it bolsters the already strong argument that the president should not agree to be interviewed by the special counsel.) For now, let’s keep our eye on the ball: the question of whether there is an obstruction case against the president. The Times report is lengthy, but here is the critical passage:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-press-abets-a-coverup-1534544446?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=3&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

The two biggest shoes are yet to drop in the 2016 investigations. We still don’t know the origins and back story of the intercepted Russian intelligence document that was pivotal in James Comey’s unprecedented, ill-advised and possibly decisive (according to numerous Democratic and independent election analysts) interventions in the presidential race.

Depending on what report you credit, the information was false, it was planted by the Russians, or it accurately indicated an illegal conspiracy to obstruct justice by the Clinton campaign and Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch. If it was a Russian fabrication, then Mr. Comey was spoofed by the Kremlin into his improper intervention in the race. If the parties to the incepted exchange were simply misinformed, it’s hard to understand Mr. Comey’s reason for intervening.

Presumably some of the questions are answered in a still-secret annex to the inspector general’s report that criticized Mr. Comey’s performance, but even that won’t tell us everything we need to know. What did fellow intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, tell the FBI about this intercept? What did they advise Mr. Comey to do?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/271064/obamas-n-word-tape-went-public-and-media-covered-daniel-greenfield

Even though the media admits that Omarosa has less credibility than a drunken sailor on shore leave, it keeps buzzing about the existence of a Trump “N Word” tape.

Does it exist? Doesn’t it exist? Will it change anything?

Obama’s own equivalent of the “N Word” tape was released after his time in office. It was a photo of him posing with Louis Farrakhan, the racist and anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam. Farrakhan had praised Hitler and was the head of a hate group that believes white people are devils, created by genetic engineering, who will be wiped out.

That’s a whole lot worse than a racial slur. (Obama’s mentor Jeremiah Wright, whose black nationalist church the Obamas had attended, used his own racial slurs during services.)

The photo was released. And the media embargoed it. A handful of publications mentioned it.

To this date, no reporter has directly asked Obama about it.