The problem is many of these ‘stories’ were based on anonymous sources that made biased, untrue accusations, which had no basis in fact or principles of law.
Directly after Attorney General William Barr’s summary of Robert Mueller’s investigation was released exonerating President Trump, the ratings for the “conspiracy TV” programs—programs that have been proven to be false and to have only been providing partisan political disinformation—plummeted by up to 50%. Massive, irreparable damage has been done that has permanently undermined the public’s faith and trust of politicians, the media (which acted as a partner to further the positions of the Democratic Party and its politicians), the intelligence services (thanks to numerous lies and disinformation from the ex head of the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, John Brennan and ex head of the National Security Agency, NSA, James Clapper—who are both paid contributors at MSNBC), the Department of Justice “DOJ”, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation “FBI”. What did these lying partisan TV pundits—for example, the queen of conspiracy TV Rachel Maddow—do after the fake collusion narrative was debunked by Mueller? Maddow and conspiracy TV’s echo-chamber all doubled down and created more outrageous and wildly unbelievable conspiracy theories as their ratings collapsed.
It’s important that the role of all the participants in this grand scandal be scrutinised. The members of this irresponsible “media lynch-mob” who actively promoted these deceptive “resist everything Trump” false narratives and fake news must be held to account, yet so far, it seems they are only being rewarded.
Appallingly, the New York Times and the Washington Post were awarded Pulitzer Prizes for “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the president-elect’s transition team, and his eventual administration”.
The problem is that many of these “stories” were based on anonymous sources that made biased, untrue accusations, which, based on Barr’s conclusory letter, had no basis in fact or principles of law. The attempted overthrow of President Trump is the worst political and journalistic scandal in the history of the United States.
One of the first media “heroes” was Michael Avenatti. He began as the voice of pornography star Stormy Daniels. Avenatti and the media made “Stormy Daniels” a household name and a national hero—all in an effort to bring down Trump at any cost.
Avenatti became the media’s authoritative go-to-guy on “everything Trump” and appeared on air well over 100 times. He was hailed by CNN, NBC and ABC, as well as by MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, who stated, “Avenatti is the saviour of our Republic and a 2020 presidential candidate Democrats can learn from.”
It should be clear to anyone who takes even a superficial look at his background that Michael Avenatti is no hero. Avenatti coached one of his clients to present false statements to the US Senate Judiciary Committee as they were holding confirmation hearings on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Avenatti represented that his client, Julie Swetnick was “fully vetted” and released to the committee a sworn statement by Swetnick in which she says she witnessed Kavanaugh “consistently engage in excessive drinking, drugs, and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women at sex parties in the early 1980s”. The media uncritically repeated many of these Kavanaugh allegations. Senator Lindsey Graham commented, “This is the most unethical sham since I have been in politics.” Criminal charges or penalties for submitting false testimony, perjury, to the US Senate Judiciary Committee and attempting to destroy Brett Kavanaugh and his families’ lives: None. Dual justice, Avenatti was a Democratic hero, so “whatever it takes” is acceptable. That hero was arrested recently for trying to extort $25 million from Nike and now faces 90 years in prison if convicted.
Another egregious example of journalistic malfeasance comes from serial liar Joy Reid, the host of MSNBC’s program AMJoy. Reid claimed her blog was hacked and that a racist left homophobic and racist slurs on the site. NBC, MSNBC’s parent contacted the FBI. Reid was later forced to admit she lied and posted the slurs herself, but all was forgiven and she was emboldened to create even bigger and more outrageous unsubstantiated claims. Hollywood celebrity, and millionaire, Joy Reid apparently flashed her uber-liberal, dump-Trump, Democratic credentials and was instantly granted immunity on the basis of “Hollywood-privilege”.
Jeff Zucker’s entire crew, at fake news CNN, created a several billion dollar get-rich-quick industry by shamelessly broadcasting “Bombshells that will torpedo the Trump presidency,” no matter how fake.
The left isn’t just attacking Trump, his family, and close advisors. They will automatically attack without a second thought any
“deplorable” they feel supports Trump. Just take a look at the case of Nicholas Sandman, the 17-year-old boy who was mercilessly attacked for supposedly disrespecting Native American, Nathan Phillips. The entire fake news media cabal claimed that Sandman and his friends were the aggressors when, in fact, the exact opposite was true. Sandman’s only “crime” was supporting President Trump and wearing a red MAGA hat, but that was good enough for the media. He is now suing CNN for $275 million for promoting and distributing this lie.
But if you want to see real racism, then take a look at Sarah Jeong’s tweets in the image given. How did the media respond to her racist comments? The New York Times gave her a job on their editorial board. Of course, she was only racist towards white people, so that must be okay. Jeong’s excuse was that she was constantly being harassed online and was only imitating the rhetoric of her harassers. She apparently learned her lesson although that lesson seems to be that identity politics and social justice are more important to the New York Times than facts, evidence and the rule of law!
So why has this all happened? For the answer, we only need to look back to 2016. In 2016, the Democratic Party put forward the most polarising, divisive and defective presidential candidate in the history of the United States. Accordingly, Hillary Clinton lost the election on her own by running a terrible campaign. The Russian collusion porn we have watched for more than three years is and always was about regaining political power by “whatever means necessary”. It was Hillary’s “Plan B”, an attempt by the media, senior intelligence operatives, members within the judiciary, and members of the Obama administration to stage a coup d’état that would remove our democratically elected President.
The corrupt Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, which Clinton directly controlled, hired a foreign agent to spy on an opposition party, weaponised the intelligence services to interfere in a presidential election and overturn the result. This trail of malfeasance leads directly to President Obama and it is critical for the survival of the Republic that another Special Counsel be appointed to determine every detail regarding how this attempt to overthrow the government came about, who was responsible, who authorised the scheme, when this scheme began, and what laws were broken, by whom and when.
A special prosecutor needs to be appointed to identify and catalogue the crimes committed. Everyone needs to know how this happened and who was involved in perpetrating the biggest fraud in US political history. Those guilty of crimes need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But just like what happened in the cases of O.J. Simpson, Hillary Clinton, and Jessie Smollett, they’ll probably get away with it.
Mitchell Feierstein is CEO of Glacier Environmental Fund and author of Planet Ponzi: How Politicians and Bankers Stole Your Future.