Former New York Times editor Adam Rubenstein has a lengthy essay at The Atlantic that pulls back the curtain on the newspaper and its alleged bias in its coverage. The essay follows similar pieces from former editors and writers that range from Bari Weiss to Rubenstein’s former colleague James Bennet. The essay describes a similar work environment where even his passing reference to liking Chik-Fil-A sandwiches led to a condemnation of shocked colleagues.
An opinion-section editor, Rubenstein was involved in the controversy over publishing Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R., Ark.) op-ed where he argued for the possible use of national guard to quell violent riots around the White House.
It was one of the lowest points in the history of modern American journalism. Cotton was calling for the use of the troops to restore order in Washington after days of rioting around the White House. While Congress would “call in the troops” six months later to quell the rioting at the Capitol on January 6th, New York Times reporters and columnists called the column historically inaccurate and politically inciteful. Reporters insisted that Cotton was even endangering them by suggesting the use of troops and insisted that the newspaper cannot feature people who advocate political violence. One year later, the New York Times published a column by an academic who had previously declared that there is nothing wrong with murdering conservatives and Republicans.
Rubenstein noted:
On January 6, 2021, few people at The New York Times remarked on the fact that liberals were cheering on the deployment of National Guardsmen to stop rioting at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., the very thing Tom Cotton had advocated.
Instead, he describes an environment in which the staff routinely rejected conservative viewpoints, subjected conservatives to added demands and editing, and faced staff opposition to working on such pieces. He noted:
Being a conservative—or at least being considered one—at the Times was a strange experience. I often found myself asking questions like “Doesn’t all of this talk of ‘voter suppression’ on the left sound similar to charges of ‘voter fraud’ on the right?” only to realize how unwelcome such questions were. By asking, I’d revealed that I wasn’t on the same team as my colleagues, that I didn’t accept as an article of faith the liberal premise that voter suppression was a grave threat to liberal democracy while voter fraud was entirely fake news.
Or take the Hunter Biden laptop story: Was it truly “unsubstantiated,” as the paper kept saying? At the time, it had been substantiated, however unusually, by Rudy Giuliani. Many of my colleagues were clearly worried that lending credence to the laptop story could hurt the electoral prospects of Joe Biden and the Democrats. But starting from a place of party politics and assessing how a particular story could affect an election isn’t journalism. Nor is a vague unease with difficult subjects. “The state of Israel makes me very uncomfortable,” a colleague once told me. This was something I was used to hearing from young progressives on college campuses, but not at work.
What emerges from the interview is all-too-familiar to many of us on this blog.I have long been a critic of what I called “advocacy journalism” as it began to emerge in journalism schools. These schools encourage students to use their “lived expertise” and to “leave[] neutrality behind.” Instead, of neutrality, they are pushing “solidarity [as] ‘a commitment to social justice that translates into action.’”
For example, we previously discussed the release of the results of interviews with over 75 media leaders by former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward. They concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.”
Saying that “Objectivity has got to go” is, of course, liberating. You can dispense with the necessities of neutrality and balance. You can cater to your “base” like columnists and opinion writers. Sharing the opposing view is now dismissed as “bothsidesism.” Done. No need to give credence to opposing views. It is a familiar reality for those of us in higher education, which has been increasingly intolerant of opposing or dissenting views.
Downie recounted how news leaders today
“believe that pursuing objectivity can lead to false balance or misleading “bothsidesism” in covering stories about race, the treatment of women, LGBTQ+ rights, income inequality, climate change and many other subjects. And, in today’s diversifying newsrooms, they feel it negates many of their own identities, life experiences and cultural contexts, keeping them from pursuing truth in their work.”
There was a time when all journalists shared a common “identity” as professionals who were able to separate their own bias and values from the reporting of the news.
Now, objectivity is virtually synonymous with prejudice. Kathleen Carroll, former executive editor at the Associated Press declared “It’s objective by whose standard? … That standard seems to be White, educated, and fairly wealthy.”
In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.” Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”
Lauren Wolfe, the fired freelance editor for the New York Times, has not only gone public to defend her pro-Biden tweet but published a piece titled “I’m a Biased Journalist and I’m Okay With That.”
Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University Journalism Professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones is a leading voice for advocacy journalism.
Indeed, Hannah-Jones has declared “all journalism is activism.”
It is easy to see how this was a “strange experience” for Rubenstein. He objects that “our goal was supposed to be journalistic, rather than activist,” but he found reporters actively working to advance the political interests of the Democrats and Joe Biden.
It was a strange, not a unique, experience. It is another account of the orthodoxy of American media, which increasingly functions like a de facto state media.
In his description of the sandwich controversy, Rubenstein describes how he was introduced to the culture of the New York Times at his orientation meeting. When asked about his favorite sandwich in the group meeting, he committed the offense of naming Chick-fil-A’s spicy chicken sandwich.
That led to a shocked hush before the rep leading the orientation said: “We don’t do that here. They hate gay people.” That statement was met with the snapping of fingers from the staff in agreement in a communal condemnation.
It is clear from the account that, at the Times and other major outlets, there is much of traditional journalism that they “don’t do . . . here.”
Matt Taibbi does and excellent job of slicing and dicing the problems of AI journalism.
What comes immediatly to mind is that Gemini is precisely what the MSM wants – to be able to lie in great detail about those it hates,
in a way that people beleive it.
https://www.racket.news/p/i-wrote-what-googles-ai-powered-libel
I would note that I enjoyed “The Great” as well as “Dickenson”
Both of which frame historical characters and stories with tapestry that Gemini would be proud of.
I found these to mostly be minor distractions in otherwise very good shows.
SO LONG AS YOU DO NOT CONFUSE THEM WITH TRUTH.
Even today nearly all of eastern Europe and Russia is WHITE.
Amherst MA in the mid 1800’s was lily WHITE
The most progressive americans at the time of the Civil war though of blacks as human and entitled to freedom but INFERIOR.
Lincoln wanted to send them back to Africa.
Our founders were born of grudging acceptance of RELIGIOUS diversity. The most porogressive of them did not envision racial diversity, sexual equality. much less deviations from sexual norms.
Even today most of the things the US left trumpets as truths are rejected near universally throughout the world.
Outside the anglosphere diversity is NOT a value. Throughout the world today most people see people of other races, cultures, on TV at most and live their lives with limited encounters with people different from themselves.
Europe is trying to adopt american views on diversity – after decades of pretending to be enlightened on race.
And it is going BADLY. Europe does have an actual far right that is white supremecist and it is growing unlike in the US.
Billionaires are behind all these purportedly “leftist” trends like the endless stories about gender conflict, race conflict, etc. None of that jive helps the workers. Neither does another few million new foreign scabs help the workers. Helping the nation, ie, as it is reflected in the wide range of average people, ie, the workers– that should be the legitimizing norm for government and socalled journalism.
But in the US we understand, media, which has weaponized the First amendment to protect itself, is all owned or controlled by billionaires, who use it to ply their class interests. Even the exception proves the rule, ie, X, which is one of the most light handed censorial social media regimes, but it too is literally owned by a billionaire. What is not owned outright is controlled, such as by the interlocking ownerships and management of Blackrock and Vanguard, under the heel of Larry Fink.
Ultimately, the First Amendment is designed to protect the most potent weapon of capitalism from government, which is, media: the means of forming mass opinion. So long as the billionaires have this, they can keep on controlling the system.
At the end of the day, citizens united has to go, and the First amendment jurisprudence needs to be vastly limited so that the billionaire mouthpieces like the NY Times can have their wings clipped effectively.
Have you noticed the media also rides in the military industrial complex car? They’re different fingers of the same hand.
Antitrust and RICO laws are tools that will come in handy, breaking the trusts, cartels, and cabals that are destroying America. The billionaires must be arrested and tried for their crimes, and their assets stripped and confiscated for the good of the public. Their lackeys and mercenaries will have to face the music, too.
Saloth Sar
Of course a guy named “Rubenstein” won’t mention the NYT’s fanatical Zionist bias, going so far as to hire non-journalists who worked in IDF intelligence to co-author its debunked front-page “Hamas mass rape story”. What’s Hebrew for “Omertà”?
A cowardly Anti-Semitic escaped from the Soviet Democrats’ Anti-Semitic Socialist Sisterhood posted:
Of course a guy named “Rubenstein” won’t mention the NYT’s fanatical Zionist bias, going so far as to hire
Cowardly anti-Semitics, hiding behind “Anonymous”… for them even one Jew on the payroll is one too many.
That would be the same NYT that covered up Hitler’s ongoing genocide of Jews for YEARS during WWII. And who are now pimping for Anonymous’ fellow genocidal neo-Nazis in Hamas.
What’s Hebrew for “Omertà”?
No idea… but I’m pretty sure Anonymous is a pen name for Joseph Goebbels.
The FBI possessed the 1023 document since June 2020, and wasted over three years without interviewing the document’s source.
The FBI considered the source of the 1023 to be trustworthy and credible. The source had provided information for FBI investigations dating back to 2010, including criminal investigations.
The FBI used that credibility assessment to withhold the 1023 from Congress and argued the public release of the 1023 would put the source at risk – only for the DOJ to ultimately make the source’s name public.
The FBI only investigated the 1023 after Grassley publicly held the agency accountable.
“It’s all pretty simple. I didn’t promote or vouch for the allegations in the 1023 as the truth, like some confused Democrats and partisan media have falsely said,” Grassley said on the Senate floor. “I pushed the FBI to do their job because that’s my responsibility to the taxpayers and the people of Iowa.”
“If the FBI came clean years ago about the 1023, we wouldn’t have had to release the document. Instead, they played games, withheld it from Congress, and provided false and misleading information to Congress and the American people. Transparency brings accountability. Now, folks are being held accountable because of congressional oversight. My oversight will continue. The FBI has a lot of explaining to do for their continued shortcomings and actions in this case,” Grassley concluded.
More including the video and transcripts at: https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/grassley-sets-the-record-straight-on-oversight-of-fbi-generated-1023-document
The left distorts everything and should be held accountable. Bob represents the left and I don’t know if he has said anything true in weeks. He doesn’t care about transcripts of what was said, but I will provide another one in the link above.
It’s the reification of Orwell’s 1984 ‘Ministry of Truth’, where doublespeak reigns supreme. In this case, ‘subjectivity is objectivity’.
It’s sad that this article (Rubenstein’s) is locked away behind a paywall. I used to be a subscriber to The Atlantic but cancelled years ago as it slowly lurched towards the left and stopped being a barely left of center mag that had worthwhile reading. My decision was also made after Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates blocked me from commenting because he disagreed with a comment I had posted. . Took a customer service rep to find out why I couldn’t comment.
Google’s DEI Image Generator
The essence of the NYT’s nonobjective journalism is its habit of conflating reporting (news) and editorializing (opinion). That propagandistic “journalism” goes back to at least the 30’s with Walter Duranty’s “reporting” from Soviet Russia. Then that editorializing-dressed-as-reporting was institutionalized years ago with what the NYT euphemistically calls “news analysis.”
Here is a simpler example of that same attempt to bury objectivity under a heap of “social justice.” Simpler because it is visual:
“A “founding fathers” request [to Google’s Image Generator] returned Indigenous people in colonial outfits; another result depicted George Washington as Black. When asked to produce an image of a pope, the system showed only people of ethnicities other than white. In some cases, Gemini said it could not produce any image at all of historical figures like Abraham Lincoln, Julius Caesar, and Galileo.” (https://www.wired.com/story/google-gemini-woke-ai-image-generation/)
What is wrong with producing actual images of actual people ?
It is not like we do not have those.
Being a journalist appeals to “performative” types, those who seek attention to validate themselves. Yet, the best ones do not want vainglory, just to investigate and report….Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Catherine Herridge, Vicky Ward.
The part not being reported is gradual audience abandonment of activist journalism, and the rise of Substack, podcasts, YouTubes — places where independent journalism by real journalists is flourishing. The audience is retraining the political media through its conscious allocation of attention.
It si pretty damning to the rest of journalism that a handful of relatively left leaning journalists, like Weis, Taibbi, Greenwald, get kudos for something as simple as doing their job with minimal self evident bias.
Or like Jimmy Dore says, “I am a pot head comedian, working out of my garage, and I get what is going on! ”
And he is a person with whom I disagree on most political things.
PbinCA, I love a lot of these writers even if I disagree on theory with them, but things like Substack are not news. Substack is news mixed with opinion, which is fine. Unbiased information is rare.
OT kind of:
Anyone see the investigation report into Queen Letitia’s campaign finances? Ghost donors (George Soros et al?) Thousands on bar tabs, nightclubs, private jets, hotels. Crickets gotta chirp, the whole thing is being financed by the oligarchs that don’t want Trump to interfere with their business.
With 92% of the Michigan votes in, Trump is beating Haley by over 40 percentage points.
The New York Times is compromised…..irreversibly? Who knows. They should consider revising their motto, from ‘all the news that’s fit to print’ to ‘all the opinion that’s fit to print — read at your own risk.’
Why Republicans Hate The New York Times
It’s not ‘just’ The New York Times. It’s The Washington Post, NPR, PBS, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine.. ‘Any’ source employing the best journalists is a threat to conservatives.
The best journalists, and best social scientists, take issues apart and look at every piece. One might compare it to peeling an onion: ‘You unspool every layer until it’s all rolled out’. That unspooling process also makes good writing.
But conservative policies and positions are often simplistic. Consequently they look that way when examined in depth. Journalists discover the issue is far more complicated than portrayed by conservatives. And that enrages conservatives!
Republican ideas play best on Fox News for very logical reasons. Fox specializes in keeping issues simple. Women seeking abortions are dykes and fem-nazis. Every dollar of tax cuts adds five dollars to economy. Mass shootings are a mental health issue.
The formula at Fox News is crafting simple narratives for older White guys in outer suburbs and small towns. Men who fear the country is under siege by non-white influences. Fox plays on their anxieties to breed dependency. That’s how Fox snares all too many old folks.
Notice too the frequency of commercial breaks in Fox News programming. That’s part of the formula. Frequent commercial breaks prevent discussions from covering too much. They also create a sense of movement like time is flying by. And there just ‘isn’t enough time time’ to really look at issues.
You present a vivid fantasy
Ben Rhodes, Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor credited the ignorant and not very bright media as the core to his success at lying to ,to push a radical agenda.
Of course we know from the DNC emails (never hacked) the DNC had a stable of 70 reporters they could hand a pre-written story, the ‘reporter’ would slap their name on, release.
The pathology behind this smug, condescending and self-righteous point of view is best defined in Thomas Sowell’s “Intellectuals and Society.”
I’d like to see a clip of anyone at Fox describing abortion seekers as dykes and femi-nazis. But you will not provide one because you made it up.
That’s why normal people hate you and the NYT, WaPoo, and the rest. They start with the story they want to tell then spin, twist, and lie about the “facts” to create preferred narratives. Fairy tales.
Government polices are ALWAYS simplistic. They must be. Immagine whow large govenrment would have to be to impliment complex polices.
Most everything government does MUST be one size fits all. Government is incapable of the dynamism and flexibility that is required in the real world that markets deliver.
This is why govenrment MUST be limited, because only limited governemnt is actually feasible.
The more diverse society becomes the more limited govenrment must be.
Systems of rules and regulations that do not fail too egregiously for a nation for 20M people where 95% of the people are from the same tribe and have the same religion, can not possibly be exe=pected to work for a nation of 350M people made up of every religion and ethnicity in the world.
The Polcies of Government MUST be “simplistic” – they MUST be only that which can both be easily understood – preferably intuitively understood, by 99% of the people and followed.
Can you cite the text of the law in your state prohibiting Murder ? I doubt you can without google. Yet, you manage to abide by it and myriads of other laws every single day. How ? Because the law reflects the common understanding of right and wrong.
Any law or regulation that directs us how to live that 90% of people are not going to follow without even knowing the actual law is illegitimate.
Conservative policies are simplistic – because only simplistic policies can work for government.
Complexity belongs outside of government.
This is not an issue of ideology. It is an issue of practicality.
Anonymous: Spot on! But I don’t put all Republicans into the same bag. I had a door knocking visit yesterday from a young man running for a Republican spot in the state legislature. I sat him down and we chatted. He’s thirty-eight and understands the climate crisis. He supports abortion rights in a state that has banned it.
The problem is with the MAGA Republicans. They overdosed on the DJT cool-aid. At one time DJT was a marketing genius. The luster has come off because his real estate empire was built on fraud. Now he is reduced to selling golden sneakers because he doesn’t have the money to defend all the judgments against him. And that doesn’t count all the criminal cases against him. Any other candidate whose name was not “Trump” would be spurned.
For the supporters of DJT all that doesn’t matter. They’d vote for him even if he was in federal prison. A lot of DJT’s appeal is to the “lumpenproletariat” and the disaffected–White people who see their world vanishing where “White privilege” no longer counts and women and minorities now outnumber men in college and will increasingly get the plumb jobs.
That’s an upside world for the White MAGA crowd. They see DJT as a “savior”, with simplistic slogans and scapegoating, who will turn back the clock–to a time when women and Black people knew their “place”. MAGA wants “vengeance” and that is what DJT offers. We see these views expressed on this blog. That is also what appeals to White evangelicals. They will overlook his rape and his wife cheating. So an authoritarian type is the last best hope for the MAGA crowd. We saw it in Germany and we could see it here!
More corruption exposed. Two connected demoncrat insiders at fani willis’ office, not just one.
https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2024/02/27/theres-more-than-one-dnc-plant-in-fani-willis-office-and-this-one-is-married-to-a-top-ga-politician-n2170678
That was a great find!
” Now, objectivity is virtually synonymous with prejudice. Kathleen Carroll, former executive editor at the Associated Press declared “It’s objective by whose standard? … That standard seems to be White, educated, and fairly wealthy.” ”
That’s really rich because I have read article after article for years now concerning the former blue collar jug of liquor in the desk drawer standard reporter type from a few decades ago, and that now it’s rich acting white elite educated at the top and in the families that have been boosted for generations and have control over many levers. This new group is just the woke version with affirmative action. They are all supremely privileged and connected.
OT: In win for Paxton, court declares $1.7 trillion federal omnibus was passed unconstitutionally
I hope professor Turley discusses this and the ramifications.
Wow!
Jonathan: Jim Comer no longer trusts the FBI. He finds the arrest of Alexander Smirnov “suspicious”. Why? Because it puts Comer in a difficult position. Smirnov is now charged with lying to the FBI and fabricating his claim about payoffs to Hunter and Joe Biden. Comer was on Fox today now claiming “Smirnov never was a key part of this investigation”.
That’s not what Comer was crowing about just a few months ago. When the FBI released Form 1023, containing Smirnov’s claim, to the House Oversight Committee Comer couldn’t resist an “X” post claiming the Form was “Key Evidence” and “very critical” to his investigation. After Smirnov’s arrest Comer had the posts deleted.
Now Comer is backtracking and running away from his key witness claiming “I don’t know anything about Smirnov”. Funny, how facts seem to get in the way of every false narrative. But Comer doesn’t deal in facts…”We don’t do that here”.
Poor Denise.
Not only do you not know much about the law, you also don’t know much about the world around you.
First, lets set aside the fact that Smirnov is presumed innocent until he’s found guilty. So your presumption of guilt is a bit premature.
But lets for the sake of argument that he is actually found guilty.
And lets also forget some of the nasty other things that are implied about said FBI.
Lets focus on the case against Hunter and the one being built against Joe Biden.
You have potentially one piece of evidence that is removed. At best one piece.
Yet there is a mountain of evidence that still exists. SAR reports for example. Hunter’s laptop. (Which has been authenticated. ) Eye witness testimony that occurred behind closed doors. The list goes on and on.
There is a high probability that he will be impeached after the DNC convention.
Not to mention the heir apparent Newsome is about to face another recall.
The only false narrative here is you.
-G
I don’t believe for one second Smirnov lied to the FBI. It is all the usual, so very convenient, so very late, so very 100% for blundering joe and his criminal cabal. They have blabbed about it now for too long and we still know NOTHING.
That of course is for a reason, they are lying their patooties off again.
The FBI can stick it in their own ten thousand times more and at a much deeper depth without trying, they can all go blow sand. And they probably are, I bet they have thousands all over the middle east 24/7/365
Last week, House Republican Ken Buck said the FBI informed House Republicans that the credibility of Smirnov’s FD-1023 had yet to be determined.
Buck: “We were warned at the time that we received the document outlining this witness’s testimony—we were warned that the credibility of this statement was not known. And yet people, my colleagues went out and talked to the public about how this was credible and how it was damning and how it proved President Biden’s—at the time Vice President Biden’s—complicity in receiving bribes.”
Shakdic, what’s your evidence that Ken Buck is lying?
Like I said before I’ve already heard the recorded oligarch pointing out the 10 million, 4 each, bribes the bidens demanded.
So go blow some sand, paper straws only, of course.
Ken Buck is not lying – but he was lied to. Those are nto the same.
The 1023 was received in 202 – almost 4 years ago. It was judged as highly credible by two FBI field offices in 2020 and forewarded to Weis in 2020 for use int he Hunter Biden case. Weis did nothing with it until Grassley got wind of its existance from an FBI Whistle blower and demanded a copy from Wray.
Only then did Weis set to work trying to discredit a damning but of evidence that FBI field offices already fornd highly credible.
Weis is not even claiming that the central allegation is false. He is claiming that Smirnov got the information from Russian agents not Burisma (though those could be one in the same).
Frankly what I have read of the indictment is not very compelling.
Regardless, Buck is not lying – he is just being used.
Dragt Weis and Smirnov and the FBI Field offices that assessed the 1023 and have them testify.
I am 100% certain that like nearly all FBI CHS;’s that Smirnov lied tot he FBI
I do not beleive that he lied about the core allegation in the 1023 – that someone at Burisma told him that Hunter/Joe had been bribed to fire Shokin.
If I understand the indictment correctly – you do not even have one peice of evidence removed.
Aside from Weise long, irrelevant and incorrect rant int he indictment that the 1023 does not make Biden guilty of anything because it was gfiled in 2020 about a conversation Smirnov had in 2017 – weis fixated on the fact that Biden was not in office during those times.
IGNORING that the conversation Smrinov memorializes was ABOUT events in 2015.
Aside from that I beleive the coure to the indictment is that Smirnov either failed to disclose or lied about contacts with Russian intelligence.
Dennis McIntyre, Bribery Biden’s assigned distracter and serial pathological liar tried playing Professor Turley’s close personal friend again with this:
Jonathan: Jim Comer no longer trusts the FBI.
As completely irrelevant and off topic as just about every single piece of propaganda garbage that Dennis McIntyre shows up here to parrot from Soviet Democrat headquarters.
NOBODY here trusts the FBI any more than they trust Dennis McIntyre as he pimps and poses, insinuating he’s Professor Turley’s close friend on a first name basis.
Dennis can’t understand why nobody trusts the FBI after they covered Biden criminality for years, lied to FISA judges to get fraudulent FISA warrants to spy on Trump, etc.
So now he’s here to also insinuate that this source is the key witness against Bribery Joe Biden – funny how Dennis thinks the other bagmen controlling the ChiCom money flowing into The Big Guy’s pockets are irrelevant witnesses. Ditto Tony Bobulinski, who was present when then Vice President Bribery Biden was swinging deals while Vice President.
That the Soviet Democrats dispatch Dennis McIntyre here to lie for them shows just how much contempt they have for Turley’s readers that they would send such a pathetic waste of skin and incompetent liar as Dennis McIntyre. Surely we deserve somebody more skilful – or at least more amusing – than this oxygen thief and waste of rations.
“Jim Comer no longer trusts the FBI.”
What took him so long
Cointelpro, Richard Jewel, Rubby Ridge, Wacco, Bruce Ivers, Klinedeinst. Whitey Bulger – Ted Stevens, …. just a FEW of the numerous instances where the FBI has bollocks’d things up often politically motivated, but always corrupt.
“He finds the arrest of Alexander Smirnov “suspicious”. ”
Because it is. Read the indictment – most of it is an irrelevant and incorrect defence of Biden.
Weis is making a timeline argument – but gets the timeline WRONG.
It does not matter when Smirnov reported to the FBI, it does not matter when Smirnov was told about the bribery. It does not matter What Biden’s position was at the time Smirnov communicated what he had been told tot he FBI.
What matters is when the actual bribery occured – Which was when Joe was VP in 2015.
Regardless the timing of the indictment is highly suspicions.This intel from Smirnov was rated as trustworthy by two different FBI offices, forwared to weis for action and then only after Grassley starts asking baout the 1023, does Weis decide to investigate Smirnov.
Yes, that is highly suspicions.
Comer has a claim that Weis and others may have obstructed congress in this indictment.
“Because it puts Comer in a difficult position.”
Not at all. Smirnov’s 1023 is icing on the cake. It is not the cake.
Smirnov is now charged with lying to the FBI and fabricating his claim about payoffs to Hunter and Joe Biden. Comer was on Fox today now claiming “Smirnov never was a key part of this investigation”.
“That’s not what Comer was crowing about just a few months ago.”
Correct, he was crowing about checks to Joe,
suspicious activity reports,
bank records,
foreign payments
IRS and FBI whistle blowers,
“When the FBI released Form 1023, containing Smirnov’s claim, to the House Oversight Committee Comer couldn’t resist an “X” post claiming the Form was “Key Evidence” and “very critical” to his investigation.”
It is. What it is NOT is the cornerstone.
I would note that one of the reasons to suspect Weis and the FBI of obstructing congress is because the 1023 is indirectly corroborated by lots and lots of other evidence. It is not impossible, but highly unlikely that the 1023 is false, but the rest of the evidence is not.
“claiming “I don’t know anything about Smirnov””
Because he does not. The FBI hid Smirnov and the 1023 from congress for almost 4 years.
Smirnov’s name was not available to Comer until the FBI indicted him.
” Funny, how facts seem to get in the way of every false narrative.”
Personally I think it is more likely than not that Smirnov is telling the truth and that the DOJ.Weis is actively obstructing congress.
It is highly unlikely that Smirnov is telling a lie that near perfectly matches all known facts and evidence.
Absolutely Smirnovs 1023 is Key evidence – as are many other bits of damning evidence – like the checks to Joe.
It is YOU that are making the assumption that because one damning bit of evidence is subject to question that all the rest of the evidence is false.
Again the odds actually are more likely that Smirnov is telling the truth – or a version of the truth as he knows it.
“But Comer doesn’t deal in facts…”
Dennis -= it is YOU that does not deal in facts.
Personally the Smirnov case is pretty trivial to deal with.
The house can grants Smirnov transactional immunity and call him to testify.
Democrats and republicans can grill him,
and we can determine whether he is lying or not.
Why are we still dealing with this nonsense from you ?
I and others have addressed in great detail all the fallacies in your claim here.
They do not smell sweeter being repeated.
We do not know if Smirnov is lying. All we know is that the FBI rated him highly credible – including two field offices on this 1023 specifically,
And forward his information to Weis.
THEN when the Grassely found out about the 1023, Weis started investigating the FBI’s own confidential source, becuase his 1023 is extremely damning – though I would note that much of it is confirmed by and confirms testimony before the house, various affadavits, emails. and other independent sources.
Comer should subpeona Smirnov, He shoudl also subpeona Weis, and those invoved int he indictment.
Lets get to the bottom of this.
Dennis – can you find any other case where the FBI prosecuted it’s own “resource”?
“. . . facts seem to get in the way of every false narrative.”
Speaking of facts that document the Bidens’ bribery schemes:
There is scores of evidence (including copious bank records) of the kleptocratic Biden family receiving millions from corrupt people in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, China. Along with a mountain of evidence documenting *Joe Biden’s* participation in those bribery schemes.
Remove Smirnov from the case. You still have the Bidens selling out America in a way that makes Benedict Arnold look like a patriot.
Professor Turley Writes:
“..the controversy over publishing Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R., Ark.) op-ed where he argued for the possible use of national guard to quell violent riots around the White House
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Despite an 11 p.m. curfew imposed by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and the activation of the National Guard, protests near the White House fueled by anger over the police killing of George Floyd spiraled out of control again on Sunday night.
Demonstrators were hit in the head with canisters of tear gas. Some protesters broke into offices. Others started fires, one of which may have spread to the basement of St. John’s, the Episcopal church that has been attended at least once by every chief executive going back to James Madison. Firefighters soon put out the flames.
Hundreds of people surged in front of the White House for a third straight night. At 8 p.m., troops could be seen marching across the South Lawn as President Trump sat inside, tweeting about law and order.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/politics/washington-dc-george-floyd-protests.html
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This NYT coverage of the protests in Washington dated May 31, 2020. It certainly sounds like a riot and photos certainly portray a riot.
KEY PASSAGE FROM ABOVE:
“Despite an 11 p.m. curfew imposed by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and the activation of the National Guard”.
The National Guard ‘was’ there! So it’s not clear what Tom Cotton was demanding or ‘who’ he was demanding it from.
You can actually go read the Tom Cotton Op-Ed instead of arguing over what it says based on one sentence paraphrases by others.
Tome Cotton was arguing for the use of the military to put down floyd riots nationally.