Shortly before the release of the Durham report, I wrote about the concern that we have a de facto state media in the United States. The column explored the pattern of false claims replicated across media platforms in the last four years. Then the Report was released and the media seemed intent to prove the point. However, even in this determined group, the Washington Post (which won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the Russian collusion) set a new level of denial with a column by Philip Bump.
Bump has long been controversial for his role in pushing some of the false claims discussed in prior columns. Some of those are worth noting briefly because they share common elements to his most recent column.
For example, Bump was one of those who made the false claims that Attorney General Bill Barr cleared Lafayette Park for a photo op for Trump. He also claimed that Barr lied in his denial of the use of tear gas by federal agents. Bump wrote the Washington Post column titled “Attorney General Bill Barr’s Dishonest Defense of Clearing of Lafayette Square.” Not only did the Post refer to the “debunked claim” that no tear gas was used by the federal government, but goes on to state:
“It is the job of the media to tell the truth. The truth is that Barr’s arguments about the events of last Monday collapse under scrutiny and that his flat assertion that there was no link between clearing the square and Trump’s photo op should be treated with the same skepticism that his claims about the use of tear gas earns.”
It turns out that both assertions were true. Bump and others were pushing a conspiracy theory and exhibited little interest in confirming the facts. (I testified in Congress not long after the clearing of the area and stated that the conspiracy theory was already contradicted by the available evidence).
Indeed, the falsity of the photo op claim was evident within a day of the clearing. When various investigations disproved his earlier allegations, Bump wrote a rather bizarre spin on the controversy where he grudgingly acknowledged the evidence supporting Barr on the park clearing while entirely ignoring his prior accusations on the the tear gas controversy.
Bump also slammed Trump for claiming that his campaign was spied on by the FBI under the Obama Administration. (Trump used the term “wiretapping” which is a rather dated term for surveillance). Bump again guffawed at the suggestion. Later it was shown that the surveillance did target both the campaign and campaign associates.
Bump also pushed the Russian collusion story and slammed the New York Post for its now proven Hunter Biden laptop story. He was also there for the Democrats when he wrote a column titled “Why the Trump Tower meeting may have violated the law — and the Steele dossier likely didn’t.” Of course, nothing came from the Trump Tower meeting because there was no cognizable crime.
In 2021, when media organizations were finally admitting that the laptop was authentic, Bump was still declaring that it was a “conspiracy theory.” Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Bump continued to suggest that “the laptop was seeded by Russian intelligence.”
Bump often seems content that most readers will not go much beyond the headline. For example, when Trump slammed the top 20 most dangerous cities as being Democratic-run, Bump announced it was false in a column titled “Trump keeps claiming that the most dangerous cities in America are all run by Democrats. They aren’t.” However, his statistics showed that on a per capita data, none of the 20 most violent cities were run by Republicans. On a straight crime rate comparison, only one city was run by a Republican (Jacksonville, Fla.). Seventeen of the 20 cities were run by Democrats (two had independent mayors).
Anticipating the obvious response, Bump wrote that “Trump would no doubt shrug at that detail… that his assertion was only slightly wrong.” Well, yeah. The effort of the column was to avoid the underlying point on criminal justice policies to show that the number might be off by a couple cities. It literally focuses on a single tree to avoid seeing (and addressing) the forest. It would still be roughly 95% but that slight difference is the focus of the column rather than the claimed connection of crime rates to criminal justice agendas.
Given that history, many of us were waiting for Bump’s spin after years of pushing these collusion claims. He did not disappoint.
Yesterday, the New York Post ran a column by me that was used as the theme for the cover.
Bump again declared two parts of the column to be false and again proceeded to prove that they were not.
Bump declares:
‘The report details how the Russian collusion conspiracy was invented by Clinton operatives and put into the now-infamous Steele dossier, funded by the Clinton campaign,’ Turley writes, incorrectly. At another point, he writes that “President Barack Obama and his national security team were briefed on how ‘a trusted foreign source’ revealed ‘a Clinton campaign plan to vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin so as to divert attention from her own concerns relating to her use of a private email server.’ It then happened a few days later.” That is also incorrect.”
Let’s start with the second claim. Bump says that it is untrue that Obama was briefed on the Clinton campaign plan. Notably, in the long time line that follows, Bump never shows how the statement is false. Indeed, he admits that “Russian intelligence obtained by the U.S. government indicates that Clinton’s campaign decided to ‘vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.’”
Note Bump does not deny the briefing occurred. Indeed, the line is based on the Durham report and the briefing was previously reported by media. Rather, he later reveals that he is just objecting because the Clinton people would not confirm the intelligence report. He writes:
“That allegation remains unconfirmed to this day despite Durham questioning Clinton staffers about it. Clinton herself told Durham that the claim — sourced to Russia, which Durham describes as a “trusted foreign source” — “looked like Russian disinformation to me; they’re very good at it, you know.”
So Bump is citing Clinton whose campaign funded the dossier, hid the funding in its legal budget, denied its role to reporters, and actively pushed not one but two false claims with the FBI.
Bump then adds, bizarrely, that “it’s strange to argue both that the Clinton campaign explicitly sought to dig up dirt linking Trump to Russia, leading to Steele’s work in June, and that it wasn’t until late July that they decided to make this a core strategy. The latter undermines the former.” I will leave that to you to figure out.
Now on to the main event. Bump says it is false that “The report details how the Russian collusion conspiracy was invented by Clinton operatives and put into the now-infamous Steele dossier, funded by the Clinton campaign.”
Once again, when you get to his proof, it is not there. He does not defend the actual allegations in the dossier that Durham demolishes in his Report. He only suggests that others may have invented or pushed their own conspiracy theories a couple weeks earlier.
Bump curiously starts the relevant timeline in June 2016 and emphasizes that the Clinton campaign did not make the collusion effort a “core strategy” until July. That formal decision is used rather than the earlier dates when Fusion was hired and the research funded by the campaign. Durham details how Fusion approached Steele in May 2016 to do the work.
Bump details how figures like Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook were raising Russian concerns as proof that the Russian collusion allegations were not just the work of the campaign.
Citing the Clinton campaign manager as evidence that others were raising the concerns is hardly compelling. It also does not alter the fact that the campaign’s dossier manufactured false allegations that were then fed to the government and media.
In reality, there were earlier concerns by the government with regard to Carter Page being targeted by the Russians. However, Durham notes that those concerns in March 2016 over Page were not because they believed that he was an asset. Rather American intelligence “was concerned about the Russians reaching out to Page” and found that Page was not “receptive to the recruitment efforts.”
What Bump does not address are the findings in both the Inspector General and Durham reports that the Clinton campaign actively pushed the false claims into the FBI and into the media. The dossier would be used in the FISA court and former FBI Director James Comey would even continue to reference the false “tee-tape” claim from the report in 2018. The dossier would also be cited for years as “corroborated” and reliable by the media as well as Democratic members of Congress.
What is clear is that Clinton efforts were sufficiently pronounced by July 2016 that former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s alleged “plan” to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” The Russian investigation was launched days after this briefing.
Pointing out that there were others raising Russian contacts in the weeks before does not alter the role of the Clinton campaign in fostering the false collusion and Alfa Bank allegations as a political hit job. Bump also does not address how the campaign hid the funding and lied to reporters about its role.
However, Bump saved the best for last. After telling readers that there was nothing to see here, he further assured them that
“there’s an alternative way to consider the Russia probe: that Russia hoped Trump would win, that Trump was happy to have their help and that federal counterintelligence officials saw that as problematic.
173 thoughts on “Wait! Washington Post’s Bump Makes the Last Pitch for Russian Collusion”
Turley,
Regardless of the veracity of Bump, he does have a first amendment right to write these articles.
Surely you can support it.
That said, he should be fired from the NYT for his always being wrong and writing things without knowing the facts.
Oh wait, if we did that then who would end up working the the NYT?
The interesting thing… Bump showed that Clinton lied to the FBI. Yet no charges.
Funny how that works out.
“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
Clinton got a pass on the email scandal… which should have yielded her 10yrs in prison w most of the charges running concurrently.
The one reason why she wasn’t charged is that it would have toppled Obama’s WH and administration.
That said…
Clinton was interviewed by the FBI over the dossier. (Read Bump’s quotes)
That said. she lied to the FBI during those interviews.
Ian: according to the DOJ the reason Clinton wasn’t charged is that she did not have the mens rea–she did not knowingly or intentionally commit any crimes. There’s no proof she did, so why won’t alt-right media let it go?
Because there is no requirement in the statute for mens rea — all someone has to do is violate the statue, even inadvertently, and a crime has been committed.
If you’re referring to 18 U.S. Code § 1001, it quite clearly requires that the person “knowingly and willfully … makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement.” Knowingly and willfully. Mens rea.
Oh she sure did plenty of knowingly and willfully lying, but the charge would have been mishandling of classified material. Do try to keep in the conversation.
Regarding Hillary’s criminal liability, let’s first look at the decision to set up a private, non-secure server to send and receive emails relating to her official duties. This probably violated 8 USC Sec. 1924 “which outlaws the unauthorized removal and storage of classified information. Penalties can include fines and imprisonment for up to one year. That statute was used to prosecute retired Army General David Petraeus, a former CIA director who provided classified documents to his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell. Petraeus was sentenced to two years’ probation and a $40,000 fine as part of a plea deal in March.”
18 USC Sec. 793 also applied. “That law covers national defense information and people who misuse it to injure the United States or benefit a foreign power. Those convicted of violating that law face fines and up to 10 years in prison.” https://freebeacon.com/national-security/watchdog-two-national-security-laws-appear-broken-in-clinton-email-scandal/Sedcond
Regarding her handling of classified materials on the server, James Comey said:
. . . “there is evidence that they [Clinton and her team] were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” The investigation found 110 emails that should have been regarded as classified at the time they were sent; another 2,000 emails were retroactively classified which means they were not classified at the time they were sent. . . . Comey said that “any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding … should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy
Second, when Congress was seeking copies of her illegal emails, she caused her server to be “wiped” –
“On September 20, 2012, just nine days after the deadly Islamic-terrorist attack on the U.S. facility in Benghazi, the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security sent then–secretary of state Clinton a request for any records relevant to the assault, its precursors, and its aftermath.
“Clinton received additional document requests in August 2013 and May 2014.
On March 2, 2015, news erupted about the existence of Clinton’s secret, unsecured, do-it-yourself private server. The next day, the House Select Committee on Benghazi sent now–former secretary Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, a letter requesting that he and Clinton “Preserve all e-mail, electronic documents, and data (‘electronic records’) created since January 1, 2009” and in Clinton’s control.
As if foreshadowing Team Clinton’s actions, the letter asked Kendall to “prevent the partial or full destruction, alteration, testing, deletion, shredding, incineration, wiping, relocation, migration, theft, or mutation of electronic records.”
On March 4, 2015, the Benghazi Committee sent Clinton a subpoena for “all records in unredacted form” related to Benghazi for all of 2011 and 2012.
Then, on March 25, 2015, according to the FBI, employees at Colorado-based Platte River Networks, which managed Clinton’s server after it was removed from her basement, “held a conference call with President Clinton’s staff.” The FBI reports that a PRN staffer “sometime between March 25–31, 2015 deleted the Clinton archive mailbox from the PRN server” with BleachBit, the digital equivalent of Ajax and Brillo pads.”
Deroy Murdock, “Obstruction of Justice Haunts Hillary’s Future”, National Review (9/8/2016)
You clearly missed the point.
_______________________
“It’s the [Deep Deep State “Swamp”], stupid!”
– James Carville
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Hillary and the communists are untouchable.
2020 was rigged, primarily by the deliberate release of “China Flu, 2019” to be effective six months before a presidential election in which Trump was headed for a landslide victory.
For ——‘s sake, Obama isn’t even eligible, yet there he is (e.g. Presidents have had two parents who were citizens since 1788).
Americans cannot win; you don’t like “WINNING.”
Franklin admonished you to “keep it” – in the absence of even a scintilla of resolve, you couldn’t.
How the —- did George Washington ever get across the Delaware?
The Founders gave you the solution to the dictatorship of the monarchy and the current unconstitutional “dictatorship of the proletariat”:
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Start with all of his lying to the American public about how Covid would quickly go away, initially claiming that China was handling it well, that anyone who wanted a Covid test could get one, …
Forget the stupid answer from ATS. He knows very little.
I think Trump’s big mistake was putting one life-long bureaucrat at the center. Fauci had a poor record with HIV and was old. To remain in his position for so long meant he was the consummate bureaucrat who knew how to maintain an almost lifelong bureaucratic position. That is not the man for the job.
Trump should have had multiple people in charge that had different perspectives while letting the VP be the focus.
OMG! Did you just say that Obama, the son of a foreign citizen, was/is eligible to be commander-in-chief of America’s military and president? You are out of your ——- mind! Read Washington and Jay below.
Obama and Harris will NEVER be eligible to be U.S. president.
Obama’s father was a foreign citizen at the time of the candidate’s birth.
– A mere “citizen” could only have been President at the time of the adoption of the Constitution – not after.
– The U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5, requires the President to be a “natural born citizen,” which, by definition in the Law of Nations, requires “parents who are citizens” at the time of birth of the candidate and that he be “…born of a father who is a citizen;…”
– Ben Franklin thanked Charles Dumas for copies of the Law of Nations which “…has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting,…”
– “The importance of The Law of Nations, therefore, resides both in its systematic derivation of international law from natural law and in its compelling synthesis of the modern discourse of natural jurisprudence with the even newer language of political economy. The features help to explain the continuing appeal of this text well into the nineteenth century among politicians, international lawyers and political theorists of every complexion.”
– Law of Nations Editors Bela Kapossy and Richard Whatmore.
– The Jay/Washington letter of July, 1787, raised the presidential requirement from citizen to “natural born citizen” to place a “strong check” against foreign allegiances by the commander-in-chief.
– Every American President before Obama had two parents who were American citizens.
– The Constitution is not a dictionary and does not define esoteric words or phrases, while the Law of Nations, 1758, does.
– English Common Law and the Law of Nations were adopted, accepted or employed by the United States.
– The Law of Nations is referenced in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 10, of the U.S. Constitution: “To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;…”
“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.”
Ben Franklin letter December 9, 1775, thanking Charles Dumas for 3 copies of the Law of Nations:
“…I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy, which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the College of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed,) has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author…”
The Constitution handles pandemics. You are free to get a good doctor. You protect yourself if you are vulnerable. There are no constitutional “emergency” powers. Americans are free to purchase healthcare on the open markets. The government is NOT the ——- caretaker of dependent parasites who refuse to take care of themselves. The communists spread lies all over the world to “daze and confuse” the minions, the poor little comrades. It didn’t matter what Real President Donald J. Trump did, the communists were going to oppose it and subvert the result. Natural immunity is the only “cure” for “China Flu, 2019.” You are a prevaricating propagandist, intent on imposing the “dictatorship of the proletariat” for dictatorship’s sake, having absolutely nothing to do with American freedom.
Has money ever been based on decency, character and morality?
For half a century, politicians from outside DC on both sides of the aisle have used the slogan: “Washington is broken, I will fix it.” One of them was late Senator John McCain (R-AZ) who served for more than 30 years: In ’08, he launched these presidential campaign ads:
* “A maverick, John McCain tackled campaign reform, military reform, spending reform. He took on presidents, partisans and popular opinion. […] Beautiful words cannot make your lives better, but a man who has always put his country and her people before self, before politics can. Don`t hope for a better life, vote for one. McCain.” (7/7/08)
* ” Washington is broken. John McCain knows it. We are worth off than we were four years ago. Only McCain has taken big on tobacco, drug companies, fought corruption in both parties, he reformed Wall Street, battled big oil. He’s the original maverick. One is ready to lead — McCain.” (8/5/08)
* “The original mavericks. He fights pork barrel spending. She stopped the ‘Bridge to Nowhere.’ He took on the drug industry. She took on big oil. He battled Republicans and reformed Washington. She battles Republicans and reformed Alaska. They’ll make history. They’ll change Washington. McCain/Palin: real change.” (9/7/08)
After casting the vote to clear the path to “Repeal Obamacare” he spoke on the floor: The Senate is broken, having lost the ability to work together, to get anything done, or to act as half of a co-equal branch of government to the president. He recalled times when the body was ruled by comity and compromise. It is our responsibility to preserve that, even when it requires us to do something less satisfying than winning, even when we must give a little to get a little. Even when our efforts manage just three yards and a cloud of dust, while critics on both sides denounce us for timidity, for our failure to “triumph.” Later his vote saved “Obamacare”.
Former Vice President Joe Biden spoke at McCain’s Arizona memorial service. “There are times when life can be so cruel, pain so blinding it’s hard to see anything else.” Though they were on opposite ends of the political spectrum, the two men were close friends.
Philip Bump’s [1] columns are commissioned by WaPo since ’14. Anyone who writes for a newspaper with a well-known ideological bias for nine years will internalize this opinion, if he did not already have it before. “It is the job of the media to tell the truth” tells me that he is propagandist, because he is unaware of “blind men and an elephant” parable.
When Special Cousel Robert Mueller was asked by a congressional committee in June 2019 about the origination of Trump-Russia he responded: “That was not in my purview.” If you still don’t know the origination after seven years, but you are interested in it, you will find the answer in Durham’s Report on p 180:
Durham “found no evidence that Millian was a source for any of the
allegations in the Steele Reports. […] Specifically, Fusion GPS records demonstrate that Nellie Ohr first identified Millian as having connections to Trump. Ohr was a Russian-language contractor employed by Fusion GPS and the wife of Department official Bruce Ohr. On April 22, 2016, Nellie Ohr prepared a report for Fusion GPS that set forth, in part, Millian’s connections to Trump. This report was prepared just ten days after Fusion GPS was retained by Perkins Coie to conduct opposition research on Trump, and prior to Steele being retained by Fusion GPS.”
Who paid Fusion GPS? Well, there are ways to find this out.
[1] Those who want to expand their knowledge of electorate’s shift in appealing “Biden/Sanders Manifesto”, can profitably read his book: The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America, Vikin 2023
Dr. Turley, It is clear that Philip Bump is a clown and the Washington Post is lie factory. However, to counterpose Bill Barr, a consummate insider and master of coverups, within the discussion only reduces the stench associated with Mr. Bump, the WaPo, and the sewer known as Washington DC.
Well said. And then they conclude: You, the simpletons, are incapable of grasping these “higher complexities.” Only we, the Philosopher Kings, are able to untangle them. So blindly accept our dictates. Shut up. Obey.
Tyranny is always based on the premise that the individual’s mind is congenitally defective. (Somehow, though, their minds have escaped that defect.)
In the end I suspect that Democrats will settle on “Trump may not have colluded with Putin, but if he had thought of all the things the Clinton camp thought of, he’d have done them! So he’s still kinda guilty”.
A couple of quick points: the original NYT story on the surveillance of Trump actually called it “wiretapping”. I think it was a pee-tape, not a tee-tape/
“Bump then adds, bizarrely, that “it’s strange to argue both that the Clinton campaign explicitly sought to dig up dirt linking Trump to Russia, leading to Steele’s work in June, and that it wasn’t until late July that they decided to make this a core strategy. The latter undermines the former.”
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Kinda sums up DC and our State Media:
“Bump my front, I’ll bump your back
If you bump my side, I’ll bump you right back
Do the bump, do the bump baby
Bump it high, now bump it down
But before you, oo you gotta all”
“In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down inter places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O’Brien’s heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to an assault of a wave. The dark haired girl behind Winston had began crying out, “Swine! Swine! Swine!” and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein’s nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston fount that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in.”
In George Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother and the Thought Police had made a scapegoat out of Emmanuel Goldstein, a fictitious enemy of the state and every morning directed all the citizens to rail against him and to hate him and to direct all their pent up emotions at him. What is bizarre and sobering is how deeply Orwell perceived the mechanisms of tyranny and the phenomenon of groupthink.
If one reads the whole of the first chapter in Orwell’s 1984 and replaces the name Emmanuel Goldstein with Donald Trump, it is uncanny how closely this follows our current times.
E.M. – the Left cannot function without a hate figure. It used to be Joe McCarthy, then it was Barry Goldwater, then it was Richard Nixon, then for awhile, it was Lee Atwater, then for awhile it was Roger Ailes, and others along the way until they hit the jackpot with Donald Trump.
Bump along with Rubin and Milbank is a truly despicable member of the ComPost rag community. I shall never forget that during the Seoul Olympics he saluted the sister of Kim Jong Un who disrespected Trump . If I recall correctly his response was “Go Girl Go”. Only a true hater could align himself with the murderous dictatorship of N Korea so long as Trump was the target. He is a lying partisan hack ; not a journalist.
Such is the MO of propagandists parading as journalists. They don’t “show.” They don’t explain. They don’t prove. They merely assert.
Then they hope that readers aren’t too picky about needing an argument, and hope that readers are on the Authority premise: But Bump claims . . . WaPo alleges . . .
Despite all the facts that have been presented, Bump and all his MSM colleagues either attempt to spin the facts away, or just ignore reality.
And their loyal readers eat it up, or play the same spin, ignore game.
We see it here everyday from our leftist friends.
Mr Turley, thank you again for writing honestly about current events from a patriotic point of view instead of left or right. I would also direct readers (and maybe yourself) of his lack of honesty and basic logic when he (Phillip Bump) attempted to “de-bunk” or discredit the 2000 MULES documentary. He wrote articles and debated Mr Desouza (online). It was comical his reasoning of surveillance videos /GPS aren’t conclusive and there is a lack of videos. ANSWER: many states / areas fought to release any video, “lost” video, improperly aimed, and some had no cameras. He mocked GPS tracking although Supreme court already ruled on accuracy / admittance in tens of thousands of cases. Finally, he misled readers about how HIGH the bar or standard was that TRUE THE VOTE used. How this guy, Bump could damn so many J6 bystanders and strollers with GPS tech yet in this specific case, 2020 election – the GPS location technology is unreliable and impossible to draw conclusions.
Phillip Bump’s column will probably be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize followed by President Biden awarding him the Congressional Medal of Freedom for “saving democracy”. Bump consistently tows the party line I’ll give him that. Traitors all. Thank you, Jonathn, for an excellent article.
Where did the Media come from. That’s obvious. From Journalism Schools around the country. Where they are taught to write but not to think, not to research, not to understand that people think differently and have different points of view, not to study history (where there are almost always examples of previous versions of today’s issues), not to be skeptical, not to study finance, not to study science, or engineering. They fail to understand that nearly 300 million Americans do not live in NYC, D.C., Los Angeles, or San Francisco. Chicago does not really count anymore since it is devolving more rapidly than the others.
The great journalists of the past had a wide experience in the real world from WW1, the depression, WW2, and Korea all packed into a 40 years span. They lived out in the world and knew the people. These journalists have no connection to the people, and in fact despise them. Makes it really easy to LIE when you despise your audience or readers.
Funny but in my life I have been out over most of the US and a lot of the rest of the world and I have never read the New York Times, or the Washington Post and thereby never seemed wanting for having missed them.
Read a lot of other things over that time but not those 2. Did fine as do millions of other Americans.
As far as Mr. Bump is concerned it seems more like a nickname from childhood when he must have fallen or been dropped on his head. Obvious case CTE.
It appears that the trolls are out in full strength today, which further supports Turley’s argument that the Durham report steps on a lot of Democrat toes.
Turley,
Regardless of the veracity of Bump, he does have a first amendment right to write these articles.
Surely you can support it.
That said, he should be fired from the NYT for his always being wrong and writing things without knowing the facts.
Oh wait, if we did that then who would end up working the the NYT?
The interesting thing… Bump showed that Clinton lied to the FBI. Yet no charges.
Funny how that works out.
-G
“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
– FBI Director James B. Comey, July 5, 2016
Poor George…
You clearly missed the point.
Clinton got a pass on the email scandal… which should have yielded her 10yrs in prison w most of the charges running concurrently.
The one reason why she wasn’t charged is that it would have toppled Obama’s WH and administration.
That said…
Clinton was interviewed by the FBI over the dossier. (Read Bump’s quotes)
That said. she lied to the FBI during those interviews.
Just saying…
Ian: according to the DOJ the reason Clinton wasn’t charged is that she did not have the mens rea–she did not knowingly or intentionally commit any crimes. There’s no proof she did, so why won’t alt-right media let it go?
Because there is no requirement in the statute for mens rea — all someone has to do is violate the statue, even inadvertently, and a crime has been committed.
What statute are you referring to?
If you’re referring to 18 U.S. Code § 1001, it quite clearly requires that the person “knowingly and willfully … makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement.” Knowingly and willfully. Mens rea.
Oh she sure did plenty of knowingly and willfully lying, but the charge would have been mishandling of classified material. Do try to keep in the conversation.
Regarding Hillary’s criminal liability, let’s first look at the decision to set up a private, non-secure server to send and receive emails relating to her official duties. This probably violated 8 USC Sec. 1924 “which outlaws the unauthorized removal and storage of classified information. Penalties can include fines and imprisonment for up to one year. That statute was used to prosecute retired Army General David Petraeus, a former CIA director who provided classified documents to his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell. Petraeus was sentenced to two years’ probation and a $40,000 fine as part of a plea deal in March.”
18 USC Sec. 793 also applied. “That law covers national defense information and people who misuse it to injure the United States or benefit a foreign power. Those convicted of violating that law face fines and up to 10 years in prison.”
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/watchdog-two-national-security-laws-appear-broken-in-clinton-email-scandal/Sedcond
Regarding her handling of classified materials on the server, James Comey said:
. . . “there is evidence that they [Clinton and her team] were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” The investigation found 110 emails that should have been regarded as classified at the time they were sent; another 2,000 emails were retroactively classified which means they were not classified at the time they were sent. . . . Comey said that “any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding … should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy
Second, when Congress was seeking copies of her illegal emails, she caused her server to be “wiped” –
“On September 20, 2012, just nine days after the deadly Islamic-terrorist attack on the U.S. facility in Benghazi, the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security sent then–secretary of state Clinton a request for any records relevant to the assault, its precursors, and its aftermath.
“Clinton received additional document requests in August 2013 and May 2014.
On March 2, 2015, news erupted about the existence of Clinton’s secret, unsecured, do-it-yourself private server. The next day, the House Select Committee on Benghazi sent now–former secretary Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, a letter requesting that he and Clinton “Preserve all e-mail, electronic documents, and data (‘electronic records’) created since January 1, 2009” and in Clinton’s control.
As if foreshadowing Team Clinton’s actions, the letter asked Kendall to “prevent the partial or full destruction, alteration, testing, deletion, shredding, incineration, wiping, relocation, migration, theft, or mutation of electronic records.”
On March 4, 2015, the Benghazi Committee sent Clinton a subpoena for “all records in unredacted form” related to Benghazi for all of 2011 and 2012.
Then, on March 25, 2015, according to the FBI, employees at Colorado-based Platte River Networks, which managed Clinton’s server after it was removed from her basement, “held a conference call with President Clinton’s staff.” The FBI reports that a PRN staffer “sometime between March 25–31, 2015 deleted the Clinton archive mailbox from the PRN server” with BleachBit, the digital equivalent of Ajax and Brillo pads.”
Deroy Murdock, “Obstruction of Justice Haunts Hillary’s Future”, National Review (9/8/2016)
IMG,
You clearly missed the point.
_______________________
“It’s the [Deep Deep State “Swamp”], stupid!”
– James Carville
_____________
Hillary and the communists are untouchable.
2020 was rigged, primarily by the deliberate release of “China Flu, 2019” to be effective six months before a presidential election in which Trump was headed for a landslide victory.
For ——‘s sake, Obama isn’t even eligible, yet there he is (e.g. Presidents have had two parents who were citizens since 1788).
Americans cannot win; you don’t like “WINNING.”
Franklin admonished you to “keep it” – in the absence of even a scintilla of resolve, you couldn’t.
How the —- did George Washington ever get across the Delaware?
The Founders gave you the solution to the dictatorship of the monarchy and the current unconstitutional “dictatorship of the proletariat”:
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“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
If Trump had simply handled Covid responsibly, he would have been a shoe-in for reelection.
And Obama is a natural born citizen whether you can admit it or not.
If Trump had simply handled Covid responsibly,
Trump followed every recommendation of the Federal agencies involved.
What did he miss?
Start with all of his lying to the American public about how Covid would quickly go away, initially claiming that China was handling it well, that anyone who wanted a Covid test could get one, …
Forget the stupid answer from ATS. He knows very little.
I think Trump’s big mistake was putting one life-long bureaucrat at the center. Fauci had a poor record with HIV and was old. To remain in his position for so long meant he was the consummate bureaucrat who knew how to maintain an almost lifelong bureaucratic position. That is not the man for the job.
Trump should have had multiple people in charge that had different perspectives while letting the VP be the focus.
OMG! Did you just say that Obama, the son of a foreign citizen, was/is eligible to be commander-in-chief of America’s military and president? You are out of your ——- mind! Read Washington and Jay below.
Obama and Harris will NEVER be eligible to be U.S. president.
Obama’s father was a foreign citizen at the time of the candidate’s birth.
– A mere “citizen” could only have been President at the time of the adoption of the Constitution – not after.
– The U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5, requires the President to be a “natural born citizen,” which, by definition in the Law of Nations, requires “parents who are citizens” at the time of birth of the candidate and that he be “…born of a father who is a citizen;…”
– Ben Franklin thanked Charles Dumas for copies of the Law of Nations which “…has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting,…”
– “The importance of The Law of Nations, therefore, resides both in its systematic derivation of international law from natural law and in its compelling synthesis of the modern discourse of natural jurisprudence with the even newer language of political economy. The features help to explain the continuing appeal of this text well into the nineteenth century among politicians, international lawyers and political theorists of every complexion.”
– Law of Nations Editors Bela Kapossy and Richard Whatmore.
– The Jay/Washington letter of July, 1787, raised the presidential requirement from citizen to “natural born citizen” to place a “strong check” against foreign allegiances by the commander-in-chief.
– Every American President before Obama had two parents who were American citizens.
– The Constitution is not a dictionary and does not define esoteric words or phrases, while the Law of Nations, 1758, does.
– English Common Law and the Law of Nations were adopted, accepted or employed by the United States.
– The Law of Nations is referenced in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 10, of the U.S. Constitution: “To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;…”
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Law of Nations, Vattel, 1758
Book 1, Ch. 19
§ 212. Citizens and natives.
“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.”
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Ben Franklin letter December 9, 1775, thanking Charles Dumas for 3 copies of the Law of Nations:
“…I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy, which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the College of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed,) has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author…”
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To George Washington from John Jay, 25 July 1787
From John Jay
New York 25 July 1787
Dear Sir
I was this morning honored with your Excellency’s Favor of the 22d
Inst: & immediately delivered the Letter it enclosed to Commodore
Jones, who being detained by Business, did not go in the french Packet,
which sailed Yesterday.
Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to
provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the
administration of our national Government, and to declare expressly that the Command in chief
of the american army shall not be given to, nor devolved on, any but a natural born Citizen.
Mrs Jay is obliged by your attention, and assures You of her perfect
Esteem & Regard—with similar Sentiments the most cordial and sincere
I remain Dear Sir Your faithful Friend & Servt
John Jay
The Constitution handles pandemics. You are free to get a good doctor. You protect yourself if you are vulnerable. There are no constitutional “emergency” powers. Americans are free to purchase healthcare on the open markets. The government is NOT the ——- caretaker of dependent parasites who refuse to take care of themselves. The communists spread lies all over the world to “daze and confuse” the minions, the poor little comrades. It didn’t matter what Real President Donald J. Trump did, the communists were going to oppose it and subvert the result. Natural immunity is the only “cure” for “China Flu, 2019.” You are a prevaricating propagandist, intent on imposing the “dictatorship of the proletariat” for dictatorship’s sake, having absolutely nothing to do with American freedom.
Comey was wrong.
Comey was partial, biased and totally corrupt.
Has money ever been based on decency, character and morality?
For half a century, politicians from outside DC on both sides of the aisle have used the slogan: “Washington is broken, I will fix it.” One of them was late Senator John McCain (R-AZ) who served for more than 30 years: In ’08, he launched these presidential campaign ads:
* “A maverick, John McCain tackled campaign reform, military reform, spending reform. He took on presidents, partisans and popular opinion. […] Beautiful words cannot make your lives better, but a man who has always put his country and her people before self, before politics can. Don`t hope for a better life, vote for one. McCain.” (7/7/08)
* ” Washington is broken. John McCain knows it. We are worth off than we were four years ago. Only McCain has taken big on tobacco, drug companies, fought corruption in both parties, he reformed Wall Street, battled big oil. He’s the original maverick. One is ready to lead — McCain.” (8/5/08)
* “The original mavericks. He fights pork barrel spending. She stopped the ‘Bridge to Nowhere.’ He took on the drug industry. She took on big oil. He battled Republicans and reformed Washington. She battles Republicans and reformed Alaska. They’ll make history. They’ll change Washington. McCain/Palin: real change.” (9/7/08)
After casting the vote to clear the path to “Repeal Obamacare” he spoke on the floor: The Senate is broken, having lost the ability to work together, to get anything done, or to act as half of a co-equal branch of government to the president. He recalled times when the body was ruled by comity and compromise. It is our responsibility to preserve that, even when it requires us to do something less satisfying than winning, even when we must give a little to get a little. Even when our efforts manage just three yards and a cloud of dust, while critics on both sides denounce us for timidity, for our failure to “triumph.” Later his vote saved “Obamacare”.
Former Vice President Joe Biden spoke at McCain’s Arizona memorial service. “There are times when life can be so cruel, pain so blinding it’s hard to see anything else.” Though they were on opposite ends of the political spectrum, the two men were close friends.
Philip Bump’s [1] columns are commissioned by WaPo since ’14. Anyone who writes for a newspaper with a well-known ideological bias for nine years will internalize this opinion, if he did not already have it before. “It is the job of the media to tell the truth” tells me that he is propagandist, because he is unaware of “blind men and an elephant” parable.
When Special Cousel Robert Mueller was asked by a congressional committee in June 2019 about the origination of Trump-Russia he responded: “That was not in my purview.” If you still don’t know the origination after seven years, but you are interested in it, you will find the answer in Durham’s Report on p 180:
Durham “found no evidence that Millian was a source for any of the
allegations in the Steele Reports. […] Specifically, Fusion GPS records demonstrate that Nellie Ohr first identified Millian as having connections to Trump. Ohr was a Russian-language contractor employed by Fusion GPS and the wife of Department official Bruce Ohr. On April 22, 2016, Nellie Ohr prepared a report for Fusion GPS that set forth, in part, Millian’s connections to Trump. This report was prepared just ten days after Fusion GPS was retained by Perkins Coie to conduct opposition research on Trump, and prior to Steele being retained by Fusion GPS.”
Who paid Fusion GPS? Well, there are ways to find this out.
[1] Those who want to expand their knowledge of electorate’s shift in appealing “Biden/Sanders Manifesto”, can profitably read his book: The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America, Vikin 2023
Bump is that thing that happens only in the night when it best excites the imaginations of those who are fooled by it. The thing never disturbs the rational and fortunately for the agitable never stays long—it makes a sound, or two, and then leaves just as quickly as anything else not present to the senses and considered to be real.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse3.explicit.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.BEDX7w25uB_6Xwfzfv0DKQHaD4%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=faa81ed02046adafcc5037e22bf4565127fbd10be8e4a06fc70e4dacaa4cc6bd&ipo=images
Dr. Turley, It is clear that Philip Bump is a clown and the Washington Post is lie factory. However, to counterpose Bill Barr, a consummate insider and master of coverups, within the discussion only reduces the stench associated with Mr. Bump, the WaPo, and the sewer known as Washington DC.
So…the fake media is lying? NO WAY!
And yet Bump has not been fired Will Bump cite this as evidence that he is not lying?
Journalism and the WaPo surely thou jests FOOL!!!!!!
Just as Orwell’s 1984 was intended as a warning, not an instruction manual, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a caution, not a caption.
imes. The left loves complex obscurity. It allows them to feel smart while lying through their teeth.
“The left loves . . .”
Well said. And then they conclude: You, the simpletons, are incapable of grasping these “higher complexities.” Only we, the Philosopher Kings, are able to untangle them. So blindly accept our dictates. Shut up. Obey.
Tyranny is always based on the premise that the individual’s mind is congenitally defective. (Somehow, though, their minds have escaped that defect.)
In the end I suspect that Democrats will settle on “Trump may not have colluded with Putin, but if he had thought of all the things the Clinton camp thought of, he’d have done them! So he’s still kinda guilty”.
A couple of quick points: the original NYT story on the surveillance of Trump actually called it “wiretapping”. I think it was a pee-tape, not a tee-tape/
“Bump then adds, bizarrely, that “it’s strange to argue both that the Clinton campaign explicitly sought to dig up dirt linking Trump to Russia, leading to Steele’s work in June, and that it wasn’t until late July that they decided to make this a core strategy. The latter undermines the former.”
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Kinda sums up DC and our State Media:
“Bump my front, I’ll bump your back
If you bump my side, I’ll bump you right back
Do the bump, do the bump baby
Bump it high, now bump it down
But before you, oo you gotta all”
“In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down inter places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O’Brien’s heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to an assault of a wave. The dark haired girl behind Winston had began crying out, “Swine! Swine! Swine!” and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein’s nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston fount that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in.”
In George Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother and the Thought Police had made a scapegoat out of Emmanuel Goldstein, a fictitious enemy of the state and every morning directed all the citizens to rail against him and to hate him and to direct all their pent up emotions at him. What is bizarre and sobering is how deeply Orwell perceived the mechanisms of tyranny and the phenomenon of groupthink.
If one reads the whole of the first chapter in Orwell’s 1984 and replaces the name Emmanuel Goldstein with Donald Trump, it is uncanny how closely this follows our current times.
E.M. – the Left cannot function without a hate figure. It used to be Joe McCarthy, then it was Barry Goldwater, then it was Richard Nixon, then for awhile, it was Lee Atwater, then for awhile it was Roger Ailes, and others along the way until they hit the jackpot with Donald Trump.
If FOX paid near a billion for misinformation over a days…then WAPO, NYT, CNN, etc should be paying $10’s of BILLIONS for YEARS OF LIES
Bump along with Rubin and Milbank is a truly despicable member of the ComPost rag community. I shall never forget that during the Seoul Olympics he saluted the sister of Kim Jong Un who disrespected Trump . If I recall correctly his response was “Go Girl Go”. Only a true hater could align himself with the murderous dictatorship of N Korea so long as Trump was the target. He is a lying partisan hack ; not a journalist.
“Bump never shows how the statement is false.”
Such is the MO of propagandists parading as journalists. They don’t “show.” They don’t explain. They don’t prove. They merely assert.
Then they hope that readers aren’t too picky about needing an argument, and hope that readers are on the Authority premise: But Bump claims . . . WaPo alleges . . .
Despite all the facts that have been presented, Bump and all his MSM colleagues either attempt to spin the facts away, or just ignore reality.
And their loyal readers eat it up, or play the same spin, ignore game.
We see it here everyday from our leftist friends.
Mr Turley, thank you again for writing honestly about current events from a patriotic point of view instead of left or right. I would also direct readers (and maybe yourself) of his lack of honesty and basic logic when he (Phillip Bump) attempted to “de-bunk” or discredit the 2000 MULES documentary. He wrote articles and debated Mr Desouza (online). It was comical his reasoning of surveillance videos /GPS aren’t conclusive and there is a lack of videos. ANSWER: many states / areas fought to release any video, “lost” video, improperly aimed, and some had no cameras. He mocked GPS tracking although Supreme court already ruled on accuracy / admittance in tens of thousands of cases. Finally, he misled readers about how HIGH the bar or standard was that TRUE THE VOTE used. How this guy, Bump could damn so many J6 bystanders and strollers with GPS tech yet in this specific case, 2020 election – the GPS location technology is unreliable and impossible to draw conclusions.
Phillip Bump’s column will probably be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize followed by President Biden awarding him the Congressional Medal of Freedom for “saving democracy”. Bump consistently tows the party line I’ll give him that. Traitors all. Thank you, Jonathn, for an excellent article.
Where did the Media come from. That’s obvious. From Journalism Schools around the country. Where they are taught to write but not to think, not to research, not to understand that people think differently and have different points of view, not to study history (where there are almost always examples of previous versions of today’s issues), not to be skeptical, not to study finance, not to study science, or engineering. They fail to understand that nearly 300 million Americans do not live in NYC, D.C., Los Angeles, or San Francisco. Chicago does not really count anymore since it is devolving more rapidly than the others.
The great journalists of the past had a wide experience in the real world from WW1, the depression, WW2, and Korea all packed into a 40 years span. They lived out in the world and knew the people. These journalists have no connection to the people, and in fact despise them. Makes it really easy to LIE when you despise your audience or readers.
Funny but in my life I have been out over most of the US and a lot of the rest of the world and I have never read the New York Times, or the Washington Post and thereby never seemed wanting for having missed them.
Read a lot of other things over that time but not those 2. Did fine as do millions of other Americans.
As far as Mr. Bump is concerned it seems more like a nickname from childhood when he must have fallen or been dropped on his head. Obvious case CTE.
It appears that the trolls are out in full strength today, which further supports Turley’s argument that the Durham report steps on a lot of Democrat toes.