Russia hoax
April 6, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Last week Tablet published Jacob Siegel’s “A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century.” Subhead accompanied by the profile of a blackbird’s head: “Thirteen ways of looking at disinformation.” (The subhead and graphic allude to the Wallace Stevens poem). Siegel’s magnum opus runs to some 13,000 words. The introduction is followed by a table of contents with links to the chapters: I. Russophobia Returns, Unexpectedly: The Origins of Contemporary
»
February 18, 2023 — Scott Johnson
With a little help from Andrew McCarthy I wrote about former New York Times investigative reporter Jeff Gerth’s four-part Columbia Journalism Review retrospective on the bigfoot media’s promotion of the Russia hoax in “The deep meaning of ‘no comment.'” Aaron Maté took up Gerth’s series in the February 15 RCP column “Unchastened by Russiagate, the NY Times Doubles Down in Its Special Counsel Coverage.” Now Maté has interviewed Gerth in
»
February 16, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Twitter Files lie at the intersection of the law enforcement and national security establishment, the bigfoot press, social media, and the Democratic Party. Reporter Matt Taibbi has immersed himself in the Twitter Files courtesy of Elon Musk. By my rough count, Taibbi has posted 10 or so of the 15 Twitter Files threads so far. Taibbi has also compiled a summary of each of the threads here at his
»
February 11, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Former New York Times investigative reporter Jeff Gerth has written a lengthy retrospective on the coverage of the Trump presidency and the award-winning journalism supporting the Russia hoax in particular. Indeed, we regularly mocked the coverage of the Russia hoax, as in my five-part mock epic Dossiad ridiculing the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer. It is useful to have Gerth’s 24,000-word series as published in four parts by the Columbia Journalism
»
January 28, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi has posted the fifteenth installment of the Twitter Files. It is a thread that comes in 42 tweets that can be accessed via the first (below) or read in unrolled form via the Thread Reader app here. 1.THREAD: Twitter Files #15MOVE OVER, JAYSON BLAIR: TWITTER FILES EXPOSE NEXT GREAT MEDIA FRAUD pic.twitter.com/bLRpDpuWql — Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 Taibbi’s thread addresses the Hamilton 68 “dashboard” fronted by
»
January 24, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Charles “Charlie” McGonigal helped originate the FBI’s Russia hoax investigation of President Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign. As the New York Post explains, FBI Deputy Assistant Director Jonathan Moffa told Senate Judiciary Committee staffers in 2020 that he got a July 2016 email from McGonigal which “contained essentially that reporting, which then served as the basis for the opening of the [Crossfire Hurricane] case.” After serving as chief of
»
January 9, 2023 — Steven Hayward
The Washington Post, today: Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters Russian influence operations on Twitter in the 2016 presidential election reached relatively few users, most of whom were highly partisan Republicans, and the Russian accounts had no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior, according to a study out this morning. The study, which the New York University Center for Social Media and Politics
»
January 8, 2023 — Scott Johnson
In following the multiple installments of the Twitter Files written by several hands, it is not easy to grasp the big picture. Lee Smith has formulated a sort of unified field theory of social media penetration by the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the United States. He makes his case in the Tablet column “How the FBI hacked Twitter.” The Twitter Files themselves make for a part of the
»
January 7, 2023 — Scott Johnson
RealClearPolitics reporter Paul Sperry was suspended from Twitter a few months Adam Schiff sought his banning as a result of his entirely accurate reporting for RCP. We learned of Schiff’s behind-the-scenes efforts in part 12 of the Twitter Files per Matt Taibbi. Now Sperry explains and responds in the fantastic New York Post column “How Democrat Adam Schiff abused his power to demand I be kicked off Twitter simply due
»
January 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi posted two more Twitter Files threads yesterday afternoon. They are the eleventh and twelfth such threads posted by the journalists to whom Elon Musk has opened the files of old Twitter. Taibbi has taken the lead in documenting The eleventh thread includes 33 tweets that can be accessed via the first (below). 1.THREAD: The Twitter FilesHow Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In — Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3,
»
October 12, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Scott wrote earlier today about the first day’s testimony in the trial of Igor Danchenko. I want to elaborate on the most significant point that emerged from the testimony of FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten: the FBI offered Christopher Steele $1 million if he could come up with evidence to support the wild allegations in his “dossier” on Donald Trump. This at a time when the FBI knew that,
»
October 2, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Within the last few days, the letter that the FBI sent to Peter Strzok when it fired him has been made public. The letter is dated August 8, 2018, and was signed by Deputy Director David Bowdich. Its rebuke to Strzok is stinging and unqualified. Here it is: [scribd id=597902354 key=key-x5p6FSJaKVIOYYAXRExQ mode=scroll] The language is largely quotable: [I]t is difficult to fathom the repeated, sustained errors of judgment you made
»
September 4, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Sweden has established a new Psychological Defence Agency to combat potential Russian disinformation, the London Times reports. The agency hasn’t actually spotted any Russian disinformation yet, the article says, but it knows where to look: Staff at the agency, which has its headquarters in the western city of Karlstad, are working in a nation increasingly plagued by polarisation and mistrust. Next week, parliamentary elections will take place in a climate
»
June 1, 2022 — John Hinderaker
In the wake of the risible Sussman verdict, it has emerged that for the last ten years, the FBI has maintained a “secure work environment” within the offices of Perkins Coie, the Democratic Party’s law firm. Marc Elias, the DNC’s top lawyer, was until recently a partner in Perkins Coie. It was Perkins Coie that laundered the money the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS for what
»
May 31, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Well, of course, that didn’t take long. The guilty guilty guilty Perkins Coie/HRC attorney Michael Sussmann was acquitted by his District of Columbia peers/HRC campaign donors sitting in judgment on his case. I’m not sure whether the jury spent more time picking a foreman or deliberating over the evidence. Perhaps some enterprising reporter will get us inside the process. Thanks to the evidence introduced at trial by the lawyers in
»
May 24, 2022 — John Hinderaker
I was skeptical that the Sussman prosecution would tell us much that is new, but some significant nuggets have come out. Like this one: “FBI brass were ‘fired up’ about now-debunked Trump-Russia ties.” FBI leaders, including then-Director James Comey, were “fired up” about a potential connection between the Trump campaign and Russia — which ultimately was proven false, text messages and court testimony revealed Tuesday. On Sept. 21, 2016, two
»
May 21, 2022 — John Hinderaker
In the ongoing Sussman trial, campaign manager Robby Mook testified that Hillary Clinton personally approved spreading the lie about Donald Trump and Alfa Bank. This has been treated by some as a revelation. Jonathan Turley, for one, finds it significant: Clinton personally approved the plan to spread the false Alfa bank story. It was one of the most successful disinformation campaigns in American politics, and Mook implicated Clinton as green-lighting
»
