When it comes to legacy media (NBC and New York Times), conservatives question everything they read and see. They could only suspect “fake news” until the smoking gun came from Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who just released de-classified documents proving the Times printed lies. To wit, Peter Strzok’s internal FBI memo rebuts an article (“Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contact With Russian Intelligence”) by Times reporters Schmitt, Mazzetti and Apuzzo. Clearly, that “news” was not fit to print.
At the very least, reporters should get the who-what-when-where of their story correct, but either a leaker dis-informed or the Times mis-informed; resulting in bush league journalism unworthy of America’s journal of record.
The WHO is a lie. The Times reported, “one of the advisors picked up on the calls was Paul Manafort, who was Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman.” Mr. Strzok corrects, “we are unaware of ANY calls with ANY Russian government official in which Manafort was a party.” The guess here is the Times wanted a bombshell and pushed the false claim of collusion at the top.
The WHAT is a lie. The Times reported, “phone records and intercepted calls show that members of [the Trump] campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian officials in the year before the election.” Strzok is blunt: “this statement is misleading and inaccurate [because] we have not seen evidence of ANY individuals in contact with Russians.” What does it say about reporters when the allegation of their article did not even exist?
The WHEN is a lie. The Times reported, “the investigation into Mr. Manafort began last spring [2016].” Strzok set the record straight: “this is inaccurate: our investigation of Manafort was opened in August 2016.” Either the Times reporters trusted a low-level mine of misinformation or a senior official pushing propaganda. In either case, it was sloppy reporting to pass on false claims.
The WHERE is a lie. The Times reported, “the FBI did not have enough evidence to obtain a warrant for a wiretap of Mr. Manafort’s communications, but it had the NSA closely monitor the communications of Ukrainian officials he had met.” Strzok refutes this: “this is inaccurate.” Making up sh*t is the definition of “fake news” in most vocabularies.
Under oath, FBI Director James Comey gave the Senate Intelligence Committee the same explanation of the Times article: “in the main, it was not true.” Because Comey and Strzok were under oath and the Times reporters were not, I think it’s odd Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy doubled down: “we stand by our reporting.” And that exemplifies the mad-liberal media’s defense of the 1st amendment: we have the right to spread lies because, on occasion, we do inform.
The Times has fallen from its moral perch of 1971, when The Pentagon Papers were real reporting. Back then, the Supreme Court upheld their 1st amendment right to report leaked secrets because, as Justice Hugo Black opined, the press was to serve the governed, not the governors. Now, America’s legacy media are so aligned with left-wing politicians, Times reporters muckraked to support Democrat talking points. How does this serve Republicans and Independents?
I have read the New York Times since my father got the Sunday edition in the sixties, and never thought it could be over-run by hacks. After reading Strzok’s corrections and Bari Weiss’s resignation letter, I am convinced left-wing extremists have hijacked the Times – and I’m now skeptical of the 2020 election outcome. If a partisan press misleads independent voters, and blue-precinct Democrats harvest mail-in ballots, your crazy uncle’s conspiracy theories will come true.
NOTE: vote-harvesting keeps polls open until Democrats count and solicit enough Democrat mail-in ballots to eke out a close race. This occurred in California mid-terms and has the GOP terrified.