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Flynn Drama Has All The Intrigue Of A Russian Spy Thriller

Flynn Drama Has All The Intrigue Of A Russian Spy Thriller

If the late, great Donald Westlake had written spy thrillers instead of crime capers, they’d read a lot like the opening weeks of the Trump administration. My favorite Westlake novel is “Bank Shot,” in which a gang conspires to steal a temporary bank building by towing it off with a truck, only to confront the reality—oops!—that Long Island is indeed an island, and they can’t haul the thing to the upstate boondocks without encountering police road blocks.

That’s when things get complicated.

Well, things have suddenly gotten complicated for the Trump White House and its timid enablers among congressional Republicans.

Let’s put it this way: the simplest explanation that fits the facts could be that President Trump encouraged national security adviser Michael Flynn to sweet-talk the Russian ambassador about U.S. sanctions imposed by President Obama for interfering in our presidential election, and then urged him to brazen it out when word of their improper conversations leaked to the press.

Trump, see, would likely have been ignorant of the fact—as he’s ignorant of so much—that NSA would monitor the calls and that their contents would alarm intelligence professionals. Assuming minimal competence, Gen. Flynn—the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency—surely knew that the Russian ambassador’s phone conversations were intercepted. But he may have assumed that the president could protect him. Indeed, until the Washington Post put well-sourced accounts of those conversations on the front page, it appeared that the White House would brazen it out.

Minimal competence is probably all that should ever have been expected of Flynn, who was sacked from the DIA job due to managerial bungling and a fondness for conspiracy theories.

Seriously, didn’t it make you a little uneasy to know that the genius advising our impulsive Commander-in-Chief subscribed to the “Comet Pizza” conspiracy—the idea that Hillary Clinton ran pedophile orgies in the basement of a Washington pizza joint that doesn’t even have one?

“Lock her up!” the general chanted at Trump rallies.

Seriously. I wouldn’t trust the guy to walk my dogs. But that’s just me.

A Democratic president that appointed an aide whose previous job was starring on a Russian propaganda TV network…

Republicans would squawk like a tree full of screech owls.

Meanwhile, Flynn’s not the first, and he’ll surely be far from the last to learn that Trump’s insistence upon personal loyalty is a one-way street. The president appears to recognize little difference between running the White House and running scams in the cutthroat New York real estate game.

But this ain’t real estate or reality TV. Trump’s foolhardy bravado is catching up with him fast. Maybe he and Flynn also assumed that if push came to shove, Vice President Mike Pence could be rolled.

And maybe he could have been. That is until then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates told the White House that she feared that “Flynn had put himself in a compromising position” and that Pence had a right to know that he had been misled.

The vice president would be an odd politician indeed if the phrase “President Mike Pence” didn’t occur to him then. Yates, along with director of national intelligence James Clapper and CIA director John Brennan, warned that Flynn had exposed himself to Kremlin blackmail.

On CNN, the ubiquitous David Gergen, who has worked for four presidents, said “It’s unimaginable that the White House general counsel would sit on it (and) not tell anybody else in the White House. In every White House I’ve ever been in, this would go to the president like that,” he said, snapping his fingers.

Meanwhile, Trump fired not Flynn, but Sally Yates.

On Feb. 13, Kellyanne Conway told reporters Gen. Flynn had the president’s complete confidence. Early on Feb. 14 news shows, she clung fiercely to the fiction that the White House had been kept in the dark. By noon, White House spokesman Sean Spicer assured reporters that Trump had been all over the situation for weeks, and had demanded Flynn’s resignation.

The collective incompetence is a wonder to behold.

Leave it to Sen. John McCain to describe the “troubling … dysfunction of the current national security apparatus.” He added that the whole farcical episode “raises further questions about the Trump administration’s intentions toward Vladimir Putin’s Russia, including statements by the President suggesting moral equivalence between the United States and Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, threats to our NATO allies, and attempted interference in American elections.”

In terms our Queens president would understand, Trump appears to have put his withered testicles right into Vladimir Putin’s muscular hand. Also into FBI director James Comey’s who may feel the need to regain his forfeit honor.

Do you suppose Flynn told FBI investigators the truth about his Russian contacts while he was lying to the vice president?

And if not, then what?

This ain’t real estate now.

IMAGE: National security adviser General Michael Flynn arrives to deliver a statement during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington U.S., February 1, 2017. Picture taken February 1, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

The 2016 Election Emboldened Dangerous ‘Citizen Journalist’ Vigilantes

The 2016 Election Emboldened Dangerous ‘Citizen Journalist’ Vigilantes

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters for America.

Unaccountable so-called “citizen journalism” is on the rise, with vigilantes peddling private citizens’ personal information and engaging in illegal recording and harassment in an effort to practice what they call undercover reporting. And these tactics are actively endorsed by President-elect Donald Trump.

Trump’s campaign rhetoric and behavior, and his allies in the media, fueled virulent conservative distrust of established media outlets — regardless of their individual successes and failures — leaving a patchwork of fragmented, and often disreputable, news sources to fill that void.

Anonymous internet vigilantes and so-called “citizen journalists” like discredited video artist James O’Keefe are capitalizing on this moment of distrust to push their dangerous “reporting” tactics. O’Keefe is getting help from his supporters, such as Trump allies and media conspiracy theorists Alex Jones and Roger Stone, and the anonymous internet users O’Keefe and others have tried to incite as “agents of truth.” And these self-styled journalists have been directly validated — and even funded — by our next president.

Trump specifically cited distortions from O’Keefe’s latest round of heavily edited videos on the campaign trail, and his charitable foundation gave at least $20,000 to O’Keefe’s nonprofit, Project Veritas, in 2015. Trump also personally validated and encouraged “new media” to combat “the total dishonesty of the press” on Reddit. In July, Trump hosted an AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) forum in July in the popular “r/The_Donald” pro-Trump subreddit, a community that combs through hacked personal emails, pushes hateful memes, and promotes conspiracy theories under the guise of “journalism.” Shortly before the election, Trump posted a brief missive to the subreddit declaring that “MAINSTREAM MEDIA is rigged!” and encouraging followers to “stop the RIGGED mainstream media” by watching a presidential debate on his website instead of on any news channel.

Throughout the election season, Trump and his allies tweeted unvetted nuggets of misinformation from anonymous social media users, sometimes originating from the Trump subreddit. In the final weeks before Election Day, the Trump campaign seized on context-less soundbites from discredited video artist O’Keefe to push conspiracy theories at rallies and on air, stoking fear and further distrust of the government among his supporters.

GOP presidential candidates like Carly Fiorina and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) also elevated the work of another wannabe journalist: Media Matters’ 2015 misinformer of the year, David Daleiden, who created a series of  deceptively edited “investigative journalism” videos smearing Planned Parenthood. In a September CNN debate, Fiorina infamously delivered an impassioned — and completely factually inaccurate — speech describing a “video” in which she claimed to have seen a “fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.” No such video exists, but media praised Fiorina for her “fiery” remarks.

The danger lies in the stakes: Partisan activists who pose as “citizen journalists” have no stake in getting it right. They are not beholden to editors or to upholding any publication’s reputation for accuracy. With minimal name recognition and a clearly political agenda, though, these operatives do have an incentive to get media and public attention by any means.

These operators willfully misrepresent their findings with deceptive editing and refuse to release full footage. They follow trails of misinformation — without the benefit of a fact-checker to guide the way — to private citizens’ doorsteps and church vans transporting people to the polls. They produce extreme headlines that don’t reflect reality but do confirm polarized beliefs — enough for lawmakers and presidential candidates to cite them, at least. They delight in collecting “scalps” — people who have lost their jobs because of deceptively edited undercover footage — even as the truth later vindicates many of these individuals.

They also call to action anonymous internet users who have even less to lose and the time to pore through obscure data or tail random members of the public, looking to find and publicize the personal information of individuals they perceive as unethical. In December, this danger culminated in a man shooting a rifle at a D.C. pizzeria as he attempted to “self-investigate” a conspiracy-laden fake news story propped up by anonymous, self-styled citizen journalists who accused the restaurant of operating a child sex-trafficking ring. The early stages of this collective internet investigation, too, were encouraged by conspiracy-loving Trump allies like 9/11 truther Alex Jones, and Michael Flynn Jr., a former Trump transition team member whose father is Trump’s pick for national security adviser.

This work is irresponsible, dangerous, and sometimes illegal; it is not journalism.

Responsible, independent journalism is a hallmark of the American free press, and it’s a critical tool for holding leaders accountable for the decisions they make. It makes sense that some of the bright spots of 2016 stemmed from quality investigative reporting, but it also makes sense that a twisted view of the journalism field has elevated the worst in people this year.

In the wake of Trump’s victory, right-wing activists styling themselves as “citizen journalists” are growing bolder. Since Election Day, they’ve been fearmongering and fundraising among their new supporters, congratulating each other on their journalistic chops, and touting “serious journalism being done onFacebook (sic) and YouTube.”

O’Keefe’s post-election fundraising email included categorical threats of surveillance aimed at Attorney General Loretta Lynch, interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile, CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer, and President Barack Obama. “The tide has turned,” the email stated, “and we have them on the run.”

Additionally, O’Keefe uploaded a video to YouTube the day after the election titled “Main Stream (sic) Media Is Now Powerless,” in which he described receiving “thousands of tips about fraud” and encountering “hundreds of people who seek to become undercover journalists.” O’Keefe also thanked “truth-seekers and Internet sleuths” who “crowd-sourced the investigative journalism” on Reddit and promised viewers they would hear more from him soon.

When we do, let’s be prepared.

IMAGE: Alex Jones protesting in Dallas, TX. Sean P. Anderson/Flickr

Alex Jones Deletes Video Urging Fans To Personally “Investigate” Pizzagate

Alex Jones Deletes Video Urging Fans To Personally “Investigate” Pizzagate

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters for America.

Alex Jones suggested last month on his radio show that “something’s being covered up” at the restaurant that’s been falsely accused in the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory and “it needs to be investigated.” Days later an Alex Jones listener attempted to “self-investigate” Comet Ping Pong and ended up firing his gun inside the restaurant. After the shooting — and after media began reporting that the shooter is a fan of Jones — Jones deleted the YouTube video.

Jones is a radio host who has pushed the conspiracy theories that the U.S. government perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and the tragedies at Columbine, Oklahoma City, Sandy Hook, and the Boston Marathon. Jones has also repeatedly accused the Clintons of murder. He has been elevated from the fringes to the mainstream by President-elect Donald Trump, who appeared on his show in December 2015 and praised his “amazing” reputation. Trump adviser Roger Stone is also a regular Jones guest and contributor.

Jones and his Infowars website have promoted the false conspiracy theory dubbed “Pizzagate,” which alleges that top Clinton associates such as campaign chairman John Podesta are trafficking children through the Comet Ping Pong restaurant.

On his November 27 program, Jones spent roughly half an hour pushing Pizzagate conspiracy theories and told his audience that they “have to go investigate it for yourself,” claiming, “Something’s going on. Something’s being covered up. It needs to be investigated.” From that program:

ALEX JONES: Now I want to be clear. Not everybody in the WikiLeaks is involved in this. Clearly. You have to go investigate it for yourself. But I will warn you, this story that’s been the biggest thing on the internet for several weeks, Pizzagate as it’s called, is a rabbit hole that is horrifying to go down…

Let’s go ahead and go to the report, “Pizzagate Is Real.” The question is: How real is it? What is it? Something’s going on. Something’s being covered up. It needs to be investigated. To just call it fake news — these are real WikiLeaks. This is real stuff going on. [Genesis Communications Network, The Alex Jones Show, 11/27/16] 

Jones then aired a previously taped video titled “Pizzagate Is Real: Something Is Going On, But What?” During that video, Infowars producer Jon Bowne stated that Clinton allies were “using a code to communicate child sex trafficking as casually as ordering a pizza.” The video then claimed that Comet Ping Pong “may be competing for the lucrative Washington, D.C., pedophile market right out in the open.”

Jones also suggested that he himself would be “getting on a plane” to visit Comet Ping Pong. He stated: “I couldn’t sleep last night and you know, people may look into it. I may take off a week and just only research this and actually go to where these places are and stuff. In fact I’m looking at getting on a plane — it’s just like Bohemian Grove and stuff, I can’t just say something and not see it for myself. They go to these pizza places, there’s like satanic art everywhere.” 

Later in the program, Jones backtracked and said that he “can’t go out there and investigate it myself. We’ve had reporters on that have been there. They say it’s really creepy because — I don’t have the self-control to be around these type of people. So you want us to cover Pizzagate, we have covered it. We are covering it. And all I know is God help us, we’re in the hands of pure evil.”

Days later an Alex Jones fan decided to “self-investigate” the conspiracy theory at Comet Ping Pong. On December 4, Edgar Maddison Welch entered the pizzeria and, during his attempt to uncover the supposed sex ring, fired an assault rifle inside while scaring patrons and staff.

Welch also told The New York Times that he listens to Jones, and he reportedly “liked“ Infowars on Facebook. The FBI said that Welch shared a separate video headlined “Watch PIZZAGATE: The Bigger Picture on YouTube” with a friend. “Pizzagate: The Bigger Picture” is the headline Infowars used for a December 1 article — still online — promoting a video from Infowars producer Jon Bowne that also pushes the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.

Jones has been scrubbing his Pizzagate content from the Internet following the shooting. The November 27 report that called for people to “investigate” pizzagate was originally uploaded to Jones’ YouTube channel under the headline “Down The #Pizzagate Rabbit Hole – Warning! Soul Sucking Info.”

He has since removed the video. According to the Internet Archive, the “Down The #Pizzagate Rabbit Hole” video was online as of December 6 but “removed by the user” by December 7. A tweet by Jones promoting the video is still online; it captures roughly 10 minutes of the video and links to the removed YouTube page. Non-Jones YouTube accounts have re-uploaded the “Down The #Pizzagate Rabbit Hole – Warning! Soul Sucking Info.” The video is roughly 30 minutes long.

Jones also removed the Jon Bowne video that Jones played during his November 27 program. On November 23, Jones’ YouTube channel posted the video with the headline “Pizzagate Is Real: Something Is Going On, But What?” The video was removed “by the user” shortly after the shooting, according to the Internet Archive.

Jones posted a December 15 video in which he lied about his prior promotions of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. He claimed that he actually said there’s “probably nothing going on there” and his lawyers reviewed his coverage and found that he’s been the “most restrained of all the coverage” in the alternative media.

Jones also said in the recent video that that he warned his staff that Pizzagate was “probably a setup” and that unnamed adversaries are “probably going to shoot that place up or something” and then blame Jones. He then claimed that they were setting him up so they can ban “free speech” and have him “taken off the airwaves.”

Conspiracist Alex Jones Tries To Scrub Pizzagate Content From Infowars

Conspiracist Alex Jones Tries To Scrub Pizzagate Content From Infowars

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters. 

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is scrubbing online content pushing the false and dangerous conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton’s campaign trafficked children through a D.C. pizzeria. A man who recently entered the pizzeria with a rifle and fired shots reportedly shared a piece of Jones’ content before the shooting; the video he shared is still on the website.

Jones is a radio host who has claimed that the government perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and the tragedies at Columbine, Oklahoma City, Sandy Hook, and the Boston Marathon. Jones has also repeatedly accused the Clintons of murder. He has been elevated from the fringes to the mainstream by President-elect Donald Trump, who appeared on his show and praised his “amazing” reputation. Trump adviser Roger Stone is also a regular Jones guest and contributor.

Jones and his Infowars website have promoted the false conspiracy theory dubbed “Pizzagate,” which alleges that top Clinton associates such as campaign manager John Podesta are trafficking children through the Comet Ping Pong restaurant.

The false claims took a dangerous turn when Edgar Maddison Welch fired an assault rifle inside the pizzeria because he was trying to “self-investigate” the conspiracy theory. FBI special agent Justin Holgate stated in a criminal complaint that Welch said he sent a video on the night of December 1 with the message “Watch PIZZAGATE: The Bigger Picture on YouTube” to a friend before the shooting:

“Pizzagate: The Bigger Picture” is the headline Infowars used for a December 1 article — still online — promoting a video from Infowars producer Jon Bowne that pushes the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Jones tweeted the headline on December 1. The headline was also used on YouTube by a non-Infowars account to promote the Infowars video.

Welch also toldThe New York Times that he listens to Jones, and he reportedly liked Infowars on Facebook.

Jones and Infowars appear to be scrubbing commentary about Pizzagate. Jones’ YouTube channel posted a November 23 video headlined “Pizzagate Is Real: Something Is Going On, But What?” The video has since “been removed by the user,” though it’s not clear when.

The video has been re-uploaded or re-upped by other toxic conspiracy theorists (some of whom speculated about why Jones deleted it). During the video, Jon Bowne states that Clinton allies are “using a code to communicate child sex trafficking as casually as ordering a pizza.” The video then states that Comet Ping Pong “may be competing for the lucrative Washington, D.C., pedophile market right out in the open.”

Jones promoted the video on his Facebook account but has since deleted the post. Infowars also deleted a November 27 article by Bowne that promoted the video.

While Jones has removed content related to pizzagate, his website still contains false articles promoting the conspiracy theory. For instance, Kit Daniels posted a November 5 piece headlined “Law Enforcement Begs World: Read Hillary Emails To Find Child Rape Evidence; Hillary Linked To Child Sex Ring, Emails Suggest.” The article suggested that John Podesta was potentially involved in “child molestation” and “child pornography” because his hacked email account contained “strange” references to “pizza”:

Jones has been attempting to distance himself from his clear promotions of pizzagate. Yet Jones’ own content — scrubbed or otherwise — proves that he can’t run away from it.