MSM defends ‘extremely accurate’ Russiagate coverage despite Mueller report
Even with the ‘Russian collusion’ narrative buried by the Mueller report, some mainstream journalists have come out to claim their anti-Trump coverage was backed up by the report. Were they reading a different report?
The Mueller report, CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz said on Thursday, “really corroborated a lot of the good journalism that was done” during the last two years.
“One of my main conclusions from the #MuellerReport so far is that the vast majority of *reporting* on Trump and Russia was extremely accurate,” GQ magazine’s Julia Ioffe chimed in.
Prokupecz is not entirely wrong. Both CNN and Mueller’s team shared an obsession with chronicling every last inconsequential encounter between anyone connected to candidate Trump and anyone remotely connected to Russia, no matter how peripheral. From handshakes at the Republican National Convention to missed calls and unanswered emails, Mueller’s report is completely absent of bombshells, but heavy on humdrum contacts.
When it came to examining these tidbits, however, they were often completely wrong.
Both Mueller and the media focused heavily on the infamous Trump Tower meeting, during which Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner met with a Russian delegation to discuss US/Russian relations, and potentially damaging information to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The meeting was, as Kushner told Manafort, a “waste of time,” and no information was provided.
Not to CNN, who reported the “collusion bombshell” that President Trump knew about the meeting in advance, accompanying the headline with the lede: “holy crap.” Of course, the source for the article was none other than former Trump lawyer and convicted perjurer Michael Cohen, but that didn’t stop CNN from suggesting that Cohen’s word could “be the biggest step to date in proving real collusion,” and finishing with the poetic and barf-inducing: “Where have you gone Robert Mueller? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”
Well, Mueller was investigating, and found “no documentary evidence” that Trump knew about the meeting or its “Russian connection.” Sorry CNN.
And it wasn’t just Trump tower. CNN claimed that Trump Jr. was given “advanced access” to the WikiLeaks archive of leaked Democratic Party emails in 2016. Mueller’s report proved this to be false, and even at the time CNN issued a retraction. A year later, three CNN employees resigned over a false story about an alleged investigation into “a Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials.”
CNN was far from the only outlet to cry collusion where Mueller found none. Buzzfeed famously broke the scoop earlier this year that Trump had directly instructed Cohen to lie to Congress about shelved plans to build a Trump Tower property in Moscow. Buzzfeed’s lie was so egregious that Mueller himself spoke out and denied it, three months before the report landed.
As the media peddled conspiracy after conspiracy about Trump and Russia, Mueller’s team combed through federal statutes, looking for a way to make something stick. They ultimately failed to “establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
CNN had circled the wagons ever since Attorney General William Barr released a summary of the report’s main findings late last month, with host Jake Tapper claiming “I don’t know anybody that got anything wrong” in the network’s two years of puffing from the collusion crack pipe.
“We never stated that there was conspiracy/collusion,” Tapper tweeted at the time. “Yes some others did.”
CNN certainly dropped enough “collusion bombshells,” and regularly featured guests who swore up and down that collusion had taken place. Tapper himself seemed happy to send his Twitter followers to articles claiming the same, including one from the Washington Post entitled “bungled collusion is still collusion.”
Now, several weeks and a full report later, the business end of that crack pipe is still hot to the touch. After a panel discussion attacking Attorney General Barr for his “excessive” pronouncement that there was “no collusion,” CNN’s chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin drew his own conclusion, tweeting that Trump’s frustration with the investigation against him was somehow “evidence of guilt.”’
Never change, CNN.
AG Barr has ‘no objection’ to Mueller testifying as Democrats say he ‘spun’ report in Trump’s favor
US Attorney General William Barr has “no objection” to Special Counsel Robert Mueller testifying before Congress regarding his investigations into now-disproven “collusion” between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian officials.
Barr was addressing reporters gathered for a press conference ahead of the release of what is expected to be a “lightly redacted” version over Mueller’s final report.
During his remarks, Barr reaffirmed to reporters that the two-year long investigation concluded that there was “no evidence” that any American — whether part of Trump’s campaign or otherwise — colluded with Russian officials in an attempt to sway the outcome of the election. Barr quoted the report itself and was emphatic about the fact that there was “no collusion” during the campaign.
Democrats, however, have been speculating that Barr has spun the report in Trump’s favor and want to hear directly from Mueller. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler tweeted on Thursday that Congress must hear from Mueller “in person” to “better understand” the findings of the report.
Minutes after Barr wrapped up his press conference, Nadler published a letter asking Mueller to testify no later than May 23.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi attacked Barr and the “staggering partisan effort” by the Trump administration to “spin” the public’s view of the Mueller report. It is unclear whether Pelosi believes Barr is lying about the report’s contents or mischaracterizing Mueller’s findings, but with the report to be released in a matter of hours, the public will be able to assess the situation for themselves.
Splitting Hairs: Comey Says Electronic Surveillance Isn’t the Same as Spying
Comey declares that electronic surveillance is not the same as spying, gives no proof.
During an appearance on CNN, the disgraced former FBI director claimed that “electronic surveillance” is not the same as “spying” in response to Attorney General Bill Barr’s Congressional testimony earlier this week.
James Comey appeared on CNN yesterday to split hairs regarding the spying accusation raised by Barr during his second day of Congressional testimony. Barr made clear that he believes “spying did occur,” and that he has started an investigation into the matter, though questions remain as to whether it was done legally or as part of an extralegal fishing expedition to find dirt on or sabotage President Donald J. Trump’s campaign.
Comey seemingly admitted that “electronic surveillance” did occur, but objected to use of the term “spying” during the interview.
“With respect to Barr’s comments, I really don’t know what he’s talking about when he talks about spying on the campaign,” said Comey. “It’s concerning, because the FBI and the department of justice conduct court ordered electronic surveillance.”
“I have never thought of that as spying.”
While Big League Politics will leave these definitions to the legal experts, in Cornell Law School’s definition of “electronic surveillance,” they offer several examples consider what most Americans would consider spying.
According to the school, “wiretapping, bugging, videotaping; geolocation tracking such as via RFID, GPS, or cell-site data; data mining, social media mapping, and the monitoring of data and traffic on the Internet” are all examples of “electronic surveillance.”
Ironically, President Trump was derided for declaring that President Obama had his “wires tapped” on Twitter in 2017. Comey seems to admit this type of “electronic surveillance” occurred, though stops short of clarifying what types were used.
At this point, regardless of the nomenclature, it only remains to be seen whether the FISA warrant used to gather “electronic surveillance” or to “spy” on President Trump’s campaign was legal, or simply an effort to gain intelligence on failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s competition.
ULTIMATE COMPILATION: DEMS AND MSM TALKING HEADS FREAK OUT OVER AG BARR’S IMPENDING SPYING INVESTIGATION
The collusion hoax will be exposed
APRIL 11, 2019
Watch as the Democrats and MSM talking heads go into a death throes now that they know their game is up.
AG Bill Barr announced he is going to launch an investigation into the spying campaign started by the Obama deep state.
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