Why Is the New York Times Misleading the American People About the Paid Informant Who Was Spying on the Trump Campaign?

MIKE WHITNEY • MAY 31, 2018

 

On Tuesday, the New York Times accused Donald Trump of spreading conspiracy theories about “a spy inside his presidential campaign.” Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“Last week, President Trump promoted new, unconfirmed accusations to suit his political narrative: that a ‘criminal deep state’ element within Mr. Obama’s government planted a spy deep inside his presidential campaign to help his rival, Hillary Clinton, win — a scheme he branded ‘Spygate.’ It was the latest indication that a president who has for decades trafficked in conspiracy theories has brought them from the fringes of public discourse to the Oval Office.” (“With ‘Spygate,’ Trump Shows How He Uses Conspiracy Theories to Erode Trust”, The New York Times)

The article is clearly intended to show that Trump is paranoid and delusional, but what the author fails to mention is that it was the Times that originally published the story about the spy in the Trump campaign. Take a look at this clip from last week’s article titled “F.B.I. Used Informant to Investigate Russia Ties to Campaign, Not to Spy, as Trump Claims”:

“F.B.I. agents sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers only after they received evidence that the pair had suspicious contacts linked to Russia during the campaign. The informant, an American academic who teaches in Britain, made contact late that summer with one campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, according to people familiar with the matter. He also met repeatedly in the ensuing months with the other aide, Carter Page, who was also under F.B.I. scrutiny for his ties to Russia.” (“F.B.I. Used Informant to Investigate Russia Ties to Campaign, Not to Spy, as Trump Claims”, New York Times)

While the Times admits the FBI “sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers”, they seem to think there is a difference between an informant and a spy, but in this case there clearly isn’t because the informant was surreptitiously gathering information on members of the campaign which, by definition, is spying. The Times compounds its error by alluding to the Trump campaign’s “suspicious contacts to Russia” which is again misleading because–as the Times knows– after an exhaustive 18 month-long investigation, those “suspicious contacts” have amounted to nothing. So we must logically conclude that Trump’s assertion, that an informant was planted in his campaign for political reasons, is at least as credible as the Times assumption that members of the Trump campaign were improperly mixed up with Russia. In fact, if we compare Trump’s broader theory –that the Russia probe is a politically-motivated attack on his presidency– to the Times‘ theory– that Trump is in bed with Moscow–there is no question as to which version is more believable. Here’s more from the Times:

“Now that he is president, Mr. Trump’s baseless stories of secret plots by powerful interests appear to be having a distinct effect….Mr. Trump’s willingness to peddle suspicion as fact has implications beyond the Russia inquiry. It is a vital ingredient in the president’s communications arsenal, a social media-fueled, brashly expressed narrative of dubious accusations and dark insinuations that allows him to promote his own version of reality…

“He’s the blame shifter in chief,” said Gwenda Blair, a Trump biographer. (“With ‘Spygate,’ Trump Shows How He Uses Conspiracy Theories to Erode Trust”, The New York Times)

What is the point of ridiculing Trump in article after article after article? Is anyone persuaded by these blistering smears that are passed off as unbiased reporting. It’s not just unprofessional, it’s irrelevant. If the Times took its ‘duty to inform the public’ seriously they would have provided a little background on the “FBI informant” in question. Who is he? What is his personal history? Was he involved in counterintelligence operations in the past? That’s what curious people want to know, they’re not interested in the name-calling. Take a look at this excerpt from an article by Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept:

“Four decades ago, Stefan Halper (The FBI informant) was responsible for a long-forgotten spying scandal involving the 1980 election, in which the Reagan campaign – using CIA officials managed by Halper, ….got caught running a spying operation from inside the Carter administration. The plot involved CIA operatives passing classified information about Carter’s foreign policy to Reagan campaign officials in order to ensure the Reagan campaign knew of any foreign policy decisions that Carter was considering…. the CIA’s perceived meddling in the 1980 election… was a somewhat serious political controversy. And Halper was in that middle of that, too.” (The FBI Informant Who Monitored the Trump Campaign, Stefan Halper, Oversaw a CIA Spying Operation in the 1980 Presidential Election, The Intercept)

Okay, so now we know that the informant has a history of political espionage. That’s a step in the right direction. Halper spied on the Carter administration just like he spied on the Trump campaign, same thing, different decade. So why didn’t the Times simply acknowledge what they knew about Halper instead of splitting hairs over the term ‘spy’? And why did they conceal his connections to the CIA that go back decades? Doesn’t the Times think their readers deserve to know what’s really going on or do they think the facts will undermine their sketchy version of events?

The Halper situation is just one of the more glaring omissions in the Times coverage of the Russia probe, there are many others too. For example, did you know that the FBI never seized or searched the Democrat servers for forensic evidence? It’s true. The entire Russia meddling probe is based allegations that Russia hacked DNC servers, but the FBI never conducted its own investigation of the computers. They just took the word of a private company with close ties to the Democratic party, which means the whole thing could be made up, we’ll never know for sure. Imagine if a homicide detective left the smoking gun that was used in a murder with the wife of the victim saying they’ll just take her word about what happened. Does that make sense? Of course not. So, why would the FBI take the word of an openly partisan organization who had every reason to misrepresent their findings. And why are the journalists at the Times so lacking in curiosity that they won’t even look into the matter? It makes it look like they’re part of a big cover-up.

The Times has also ignored the fact that neither Wikileak’s founder Julian Assange nor former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray have ever been asked to testify by the Mueller investigation? Isn’t that a bit strange? Keep in mind, that these are the only two men who can positively verify whether Russia stole the DNC emails and gave them to Wikileaks or not. And even though both men have expressed their willingness to testify on the matter, they’ve never gotten the call from Mueller. Why? Why wouldn’t Mueller want to hear what they have to say?

The reason he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say is because they can positively confirm what actually happened, right? And what actually happened, doesn’t jibe with Mueller’s political objectives so he’s abandoned any thought of interviewing them. Isn’t that what’s really going on?

 The Times has never once inquired about this matter, which is entirely in keeping with their unflinching support for the Mueller Inquisition, despite the fact that Mueller only interviews the people who move him closer to his political goals. Trump is right, the whole investigation is rigged. Now take a look at this clip from Investors Business Daily:

“CIA Director John Brennan used the flimsy excuse of a tip from the Estonian intelligence agency that Putin was giving money to the Trump campaign to form an “inter-agency taskforce” on supposed Trump-Russia collusion in 2016. It met at CIA headquarters, spy central. The Estonian tip didn’t pan out, but the task force remained.” (“Sorry, But Obama White House, Not Dossier, Was Behind Trump Investigation, Investors Business Daily)

Have you ever read anything about Brennan’s inter-agency taskforce in the Times? Of course not. Why would the Times want to cover something as mundane as a CIA Director brainstorming with his Intel friends about infiltrating a political campaign or sabotaging a presidential candidate who didn’t get the deep-state seal of approval? Nothing to see here, move along.

According to George Neumayr, writing in The American Spectator:

“Both before and after the FBI’s official probe began in late July 2016, Brennan was bringing together into the same room at CIA headquarters a cast of Trump haters across the Obama administration whose activities he could direct — from Peter Strzok, …to Jim Clapper,… to an assortment of Brennan’s buddies at the Treasury Department, Justice Department, and White House. It eventually led, on July 31, 2016, to the creation FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” program to spy against the Trump campaign.” (“Sorry, But Obama White House, Not Dossier, Was Behind Trump Investigation”, Investors Business Daily)

If you read the Times, you’d never suspect that the Intel agencies, the FBI, and the DOJ were all huddling in secret trying to figure out the best way to stick it to Trump. The author of the Investors Business Daily piece refers to Brennan’s group an “inter-agency taskforce”, but it could as easily be called a cabal of fifth columnists and junta leaders all of who were determined to reverse the outcome of the 2016 elections and remove Trump from office. Take a look at this insightful “must read” post at Sic Semper Tyrannis by Publius Tacitus who sums up precisely what has been going on below the radar:

“There is solid reporting that British intelligence agencies–MI6 and GCHQ to be precise– were involved early on in trying to tie Russia to Trump….(GCHQ is the British version of the NSA. It intercepts emails and telephone calls and the information is stored in massive databases and can be retrieved at will.)…

GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added….But both US and UK intelligence sources now acknowledge that GCHQ played an early and important role in kickstarting the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation..

…the actual intelligence does not show that Trump associates took the initiative in reaching out to have contact with Russians. Nope. The Trump associates–Papadopoulos and Carter Page in particular–were baited with information. Once they took the bait and communicated that information back to other Trump associates, their communications were seized by the Brits, put into a SIGINT report and then shared with the US intelligence authorities. This duplicitous, machiavellian tactic allowed CIA Director Brennan and DNI James Clapper to pretend that the information about Trump links to Russians came from independent sources that just happened, innocently, to stumble on the intelligence….

To put it bluntly, Trump has been a target of a coup d’etat that has relied of information warfare rather than actual arms…..” (The Plot to Slaughter Donald Trump by Publius Tacitus”, Sic Semper Tyrannis)

Let’s see if I got this right: Brennan gets his buddies in the UK to feed fake information on Russia to members of the Trump campaign, after which the FBI uses the suspicious communications about Russia as a pretext to unmask, wiretap, issue FISA warrants, and infiltrate the campaign, after which the incriminating evidence that was collected in the process of entrapping Trump campaign assistants is compiled in a legal case that is used to remove Trump from office. Is that how it’s supposed to work?

It certainly looks like it. But don’t expect to read about it in the Times.

http://www.unz.com/mwhitney/why-is-the-new-york-times-misleading-the-american-people-about-the-paid-informant-who-was-spying-on-the-trump-campaign/