Sunday, February 11, 2018
Lefties now question the Russian narrative
Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor of the progressive magazine, The Nation. She is married to Stephen F. Cohen, her senior by 21 years. He is 79 and professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University.
In the latest edition of the Nation, Cohen questions the Democratic Party narrative, writing, "The publication of the Republican House Committee memo and reports of other documents increasingly suggest not only a 'Russiagate' without Russia but also something darker: The “collusion” may not have been in the White House or the Kremlin."
Cohen is troubled by one thing: it has been a year now and none of the 35 memos in the Russian dossier have proved true.
"Steele’s dossier, which alleged that Trump had been compromised by the Kremlin in various ways for several years even preceding his presidential candidacy, was the foundational document of the Russiagate narrative, at least from the time its installments began to be leaked to the American media in the summer of 2016, to the US Intelligence Community Assessment of January 2017 (when BuzzFeed also published the dossier), the same month that FBI Director James Comey 'briefed' President-elect Trump on the dossier—apparently in an effort to intimidate him—and on to today’s Mueller investigation," Cohen wrote.
He put briefed in scary quotes for a reason. I am guessing that like me, the two-page summary of the memos was given to Trump just to get CNN to report on it. Comey leaked like a colander throughout his career.
But that is my thought, not necessarily Cohen's.
He is troubled by the facts.
There are not many.
"Even though both have been substantially challenged for their lack of verifiable evidence, the dossier and subsequent ICA report remain the underlying sources for proponents of the Russiagate narrative of Trump-Putin collusion," Cohen wrote.
"The memo and dossier are now being subjected to close (if partisan) scrutiny, much of it focused on the Clinton campaign’s having financed Steele’s work through his employer, Fusion GPS. But two crucial and ramifying question are not, Cohen argues, being explored: Exactly when, and by whom, was this Intel operation against Trump started?
"And exactly where did Steele get the informatio” that he was filing in periodic installments and that grew into the dossier? In order to defend itself against the memo’s charge that it used Steele’s unverified dossier to open its investigation into Trump’s associates, the FBI claims it was prompted instead by a May 2016 report of remarks made earlier by another lowly Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos, to an Australian ambassador in a London bar.
"Even leaving aside the ludicrous nature of this episode, the public record shows it is not true. In testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in May 2017, John Brennan, formerly Obama’s head of the CIA, strongly suggested that he and his agency were the first, as The Washington Post put it at the time, 'in triggering an FBI probe.'
"Certainly both the Post and The New York Times interpreted his remarks in this way. Equally certain, Brennan played a central role in promoting the Russiagate narrative thereafter, briefing members of Congress privately and giving President Obama himself a top-secret envelope in early August 2016 that almost certainly contained Steele’s dossier.
"Early on, Brennan presumably would have shared his 'suspicions' and initiatives with James Clapper, director of national intelligence. FBI Director Comey, distracted by his mangling of the Clinton private-server affair during the presidential campaign, may have joined them actively somewhat later.
"But when he did so publicly, in his March 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, it was as J. Edgar Hoover reincarnate—as the nation’s number-one expert on Russia and its profound threat to America (though, when asked, he said he had never heard of Gazprom, the giant Russian-state energy company often said to be a major pillar of President Putin’s power)."
This is brutal.
We have a lefty expert on Russia asking where the Russians are. This is the Emperor Has No Clothes moment in our scandal, in which the scandal reverses and brings down those who tried to bring the president down.
Presidenticide is like regicide. Those who attempt and fail must themselves fall.
"What was President Obama’s role in any of this? Or to resort to the Watergate question: What did he know and when did he know it? And what did he do? The same questions would need to be asked about his White House aides and other appointees. Whatever the full answers, there is no doubt that Obama acted on the Russiagate allegations. He cited them for the sanctions he imposed on Russia in December 2016, which led directly to the case of General Michael Flynn (not for doing anything wrong with Russia but for 'lying to the FBI'); to the worsening of the new US-Russian Cold War; and thus to the perilous relationship inherited by President Trump, who has in turn been thwarted by Russiagate in his attempts to improve relations through 'cooperation' with Putin," Cohen wrote.
The there is not there. And a few lefties notice -- the ones who are still afraid of a huge government that spies on its people.
@@@
From Leslie Eastman's review at Legal Insurrection:
Autographed copies are available. Email me at DonSurber@GMail.com for details. I am including a "director's cut." I'll email you back the original Chapter 1 that I cut because while the chapter was amusing, it really had nothing to do with the "Fake News Follies of 2017."
Ben Garrison did the cover and I am so happy with it. I told him what the book was about, sent him a copy of the manuscript, and he came up with a perfect cover. I am so pleased.
In the latest edition of the Nation, Cohen questions the Democratic Party narrative, writing, "The publication of the Republican House Committee memo and reports of other documents increasingly suggest not only a 'Russiagate' without Russia but also something darker: The “collusion” may not have been in the White House or the Kremlin."
Cohen is troubled by one thing: it has been a year now and none of the 35 memos in the Russian dossier have proved true.
"Steele’s dossier, which alleged that Trump had been compromised by the Kremlin in various ways for several years even preceding his presidential candidacy, was the foundational document of the Russiagate narrative, at least from the time its installments began to be leaked to the American media in the summer of 2016, to the US Intelligence Community Assessment of January 2017 (when BuzzFeed also published the dossier), the same month that FBI Director James Comey 'briefed' President-elect Trump on the dossier—apparently in an effort to intimidate him—and on to today’s Mueller investigation," Cohen wrote.
He put briefed in scary quotes for a reason. I am guessing that like me, the two-page summary of the memos was given to Trump just to get CNN to report on it. Comey leaked like a colander throughout his career.
But that is my thought, not necessarily Cohen's.
He is troubled by the facts.
There are not many.
"Even though both have been substantially challenged for their lack of verifiable evidence, the dossier and subsequent ICA report remain the underlying sources for proponents of the Russiagate narrative of Trump-Putin collusion," Cohen wrote.
"The memo and dossier are now being subjected to close (if partisan) scrutiny, much of it focused on the Clinton campaign’s having financed Steele’s work through his employer, Fusion GPS. But two crucial and ramifying question are not, Cohen argues, being explored: Exactly when, and by whom, was this Intel operation against Trump started?
"And exactly where did Steele get the informatio” that he was filing in periodic installments and that grew into the dossier? In order to defend itself against the memo’s charge that it used Steele’s unverified dossier to open its investigation into Trump’s associates, the FBI claims it was prompted instead by a May 2016 report of remarks made earlier by another lowly Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos, to an Australian ambassador in a London bar.
"Even leaving aside the ludicrous nature of this episode, the public record shows it is not true. In testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in May 2017, John Brennan, formerly Obama’s head of the CIA, strongly suggested that he and his agency were the first, as The Washington Post put it at the time, 'in triggering an FBI probe.'
"Certainly both the Post and The New York Times interpreted his remarks in this way. Equally certain, Brennan played a central role in promoting the Russiagate narrative thereafter, briefing members of Congress privately and giving President Obama himself a top-secret envelope in early August 2016 that almost certainly contained Steele’s dossier.
"Early on, Brennan presumably would have shared his 'suspicions' and initiatives with James Clapper, director of national intelligence. FBI Director Comey, distracted by his mangling of the Clinton private-server affair during the presidential campaign, may have joined them actively somewhat later.
"But when he did so publicly, in his March 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, it was as J. Edgar Hoover reincarnate—as the nation’s number-one expert on Russia and its profound threat to America (though, when asked, he said he had never heard of Gazprom, the giant Russian-state energy company often said to be a major pillar of President Putin’s power)."
This is brutal.
We have a lefty expert on Russia asking where the Russians are. This is the Emperor Has No Clothes moment in our scandal, in which the scandal reverses and brings down those who tried to bring the president down.
Presidenticide is like regicide. Those who attempt and fail must themselves fall.
"What was President Obama’s role in any of this? Or to resort to the Watergate question: What did he know and when did he know it? And what did he do? The same questions would need to be asked about his White House aides and other appointees. Whatever the full answers, there is no doubt that Obama acted on the Russiagate allegations. He cited them for the sanctions he imposed on Russia in December 2016, which led directly to the case of General Michael Flynn (not for doing anything wrong with Russia but for 'lying to the FBI'); to the worsening of the new US-Russian Cold War; and thus to the perilous relationship inherited by President Trump, who has in turn been thwarted by Russiagate in his attempts to improve relations through 'cooperation' with Putin," Cohen wrote.
The there is not there. And a few lefties notice -- the ones who are still afraid of a huge government that spies on its people.
@@@
From Leslie Eastman's review at Legal Insurrection:
Surber, a recovering journalist with over 30 years of experience, has been cataloging the #FakeNews that has been regularly offered as serious analysis of President Donald Trump’s actions, policies, and opinions. He has brought his enormous collection together in the longest, most serious book he has yet written: Fake News Follies 2017."Fake News Follies of 2017" is available on Kindle and in paperback.
Autographed copies are available. Email me at DonSurber@GMail.com for details. I am including a "director's cut." I'll email you back the original Chapter 1 that I cut because while the chapter was amusing, it really had nothing to do with the "Fake News Follies of 2017."
Ben Garrison did the cover and I am so happy with it. I told him what the book was about, sent him a copy of the manuscript, and he came up with a perfect cover. I am so pleased.
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