The meta-story about press coverage of Trump administration ties with Russia shows a repeated pattern. The press reports some portion of the story; the Trump administration stonewalls, lies, or counterattacks; and then leakers tell the press some additional portion of the story, further exposing the administration’s lies and denials. It has been a slowly escalating war.
The pair of stories from the Washington Post, about Mike Flynn’s discussion of sanctions with the Russian ambassador, is a good example.
In a normal administration, after the story showing Flynn had been lying about the calls, the administration would have taken some quick action, and probably fired him. Instead, the administration stonewalled through a weekend, and on Monday, it looked like Flynn would keep his job.
Leakers then upped the story, revealing that the Trump administration had known for weeks that sanctions had been discussed. With the falseness of claims by the whole administration exposed, Flynn had to be sacrificially fired for his.
On Thursday, CNN reported that the administration had tried to get the FBI to counter the story about continual ties between Trump associates and Russia, and the FBI refused. On Friday, Trump counterattacked in his CPAC speech, and news organizations reporting on the Russian story were barred from a press briefing. In his speech, Trump said that the nine sources cited in the Washington Post story, were just made up.
A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people.
(APPLAUSE)
Because they have no sources, they just make ’em up when there are none. I saw one story recently where they said, “Nine people have confirmed.” There’re no nine people. I don’t believe there was one or two people. Nine people.
And I said, “Give me a break.” Because I know the people, I know who they talk to. There were no nine people.
But they say “nine people.” And somebody reads it and they think, “Oh, nine people. They have nine sources.” They make up sources.
They’re very dishonest people.
That evening, the Washington Post reported that in a campaign directed by the White House, some other administration officials, besides the FBI, had talked to the media to combat the story. The Washington Post knew about this, because the officials, in the campaign, had talked to the Washington Post.
Newspapers do not often report on their behind the scenes dealings with unnamed officials like this.
Even more unusually, the Washington Post has come very close to burning a source. Having been accused by Donald Trump of just making up sources, and been called very dishonest people by him, they have near on told us that one of their sources is CIA director Mike Pompeo, who was calling them on behalf of Donald Trump.
After FBI officials James Comey and Andrew McCabe refused to combat a story for Trump, the administration got Pompeo to do it instead, the Post reports. The Post story strictly only speaks of calls from individuals insisting on being identified as “a senior intelligence official in the Trump administration” and “a senior member of the intelligence community.”
But the following section of the article, naming CIA director Mike Pompeo, identifying him as fiercely partisan, saying that contacts between a CIA leader and news organizations would be problematic in this case, and containing a very strongly hedged anonymous statement about Mike Pompeo, would be inexplicable, if the anonymous senior intelligence official in the Trump administration was not Pompeo.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo is the senior-most intelligence official in the administration, with former senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.) still awaiting confirmation as director of national intelligence.
As a Republican member of Congress, Pompeo was among the most fiercely partisan figures in the House investigation of Benghazi, which centered on accusations that the Obama administration had twisted intelligence about the attacks for political purposes.
It is not unusual for CIA leaders to have contact with news organizations, particularly about global issues such as terrorism or to contest news accounts of CIA operations. But involving the agency on alleged Trump campaign ties to Russia could be problematic.
The CIA is not in charge of the investigation. Given the history of domestic espionage abuses in the United States, CIA officials are typically averse to being drawn into matters that involve U.S. citizens or might make the agency vulnerable to charges that it is politicizing intelligence.
A U.S. intelligence official declined to discuss any Pompeo involvement except to say that he was “not involved in drafting or approving statements for public use by the White House this past weekend on alleged Russian contacts.”
The New York Times, as well, has called attention to the White House attacking the practice of anonymous sourcing, while providing information to the press on condition of anonymity.
At another point, he said, “A few days ago, I called the fake news the enemy of the people because they have no sources — they just make it up.” He added that his “enemy of the people” label applied only to “dishonest” reporters and editors.
Those comments came shortly after his own aides had held a briefing for the White House press pool on the condition of anonymity to deny CNN’s story suggesting there had been improper contact between the White House and the F.B.I. regarding the Times article on Russian contacts.
Here is a timeline of events.
JANUARY 10
CNN breaks the story that Donald Trump had been briefed on the existence of an opposition research dossier, which says that Russian intelligence has compromising information on him.
Buzzfeed publishes the dossier.
JANUARY 11
Trump goes on an early morning twitter rant to combat the story. He equates the intelligence services with Nazi Germany.
At a press conference, Trump attacks the media and the intelligence services.
A senior U.S. government official tells David Ignatius at the Washington Post that Mike Flynn had phoned Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on December 29, and Ignatius publishes the story.
JANUARY 20
Trump is inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States.
JANUARY 26
Acting attorney general Sally Yates informs the White House that Flynn had misled senior administration officials about his communications with the Russian ambassador. (WaPo, WaPo, WaPo)
FEBRUARY 9
In the evening, the Washington Post, citing nine current and former U.S. officials, breaks the story that Mike Flynn discussed sanctions with Sergey Kislyak.
Around midnight, the New York Times also reports that Flynn discussed sanctions with Kislyak.
FEBRUARY 10
Aboard Air Force One, heading to Florida, Donald Trump pretends he is unaware of the reports.
February 13
In the afternoon, senior counselor Kellyanne Conway says that Trump has full confidence in Flynn. Shortly later, press secretary Sean Spicer says instead that Trump is evaluating the situation. According to an administration official, new information came to light between Conway's comments and the Spicer statement. (CNN)
At 8:25 pm, the Washington Post reports that the Justice Department had warned the White House in January that Flynn had so mischaracterized his communications with Kislyak that he might be vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow.
At around 9:00 pm, Flynn resigns.
February 14
The New York Times and CNN report that Trump associates and advisors had been in constant communication during the campaign with Russians known to US intelligence.
February 15
Chief of staff Reince Priebus asks the FBI to go on the record to combat the story. FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and director James Comey refuse. Priebus then asks the two to combat the story quoted as anonymous officials. Comey and McCabe refuse this as well. (CNN, AP)
As part of a campaign orchestrated by the White House, a senior intelligence official, presumably Mike Pompeo, calls the Washington Post to try to combat the story. The Post does not use his comments. (WaPo) The “senior intelligence official in the Trump administration” is indeed Mike Pompeo. Sean Spicer orchestrates the calls. (Axios)
February 16
The Wall Street Journal reports that the intelligence community has been withholding sensitive information from Trump.
February 17
Trump calls CIA director Mike Pompeo, and yells at him for not pushing back hard enough against the intelligence-withholding story. (CBS)
February 23
CNN reports that the administration tried to get the FBI to combat the CNN and New York Times story about ties between Trump associates and Russia, but that the FBI refused.
February 24
In an early morning twitter rant, Trump attacks the practice of anonymous sources in the press, and the FBI for not being able to track leakers down.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a White House source briefs the press, denying the CNN story. (NYT)
Speaking at a conservative political conference, Donald Trump attacks the media. He says that the Washington Post had just invented the nine sources for its Feb. 9 story that Flynn had discussed sanctions with Kislyak.
Reporters from the BBC, Buzzfeed, CNN, Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, the New York Times, Politico and others are shut out from a press briefing by press secretary Sean Spicer (BBC, Buzzfeed, CNN, HuffPo, LAT, NYDN, NYT, Politico)
In the evening, the Washington Post reports that after the FBI had refused to combat the story about Trump associates’ ties to Russia, intelligence officials and Republican congressmen made calls to the media, in a campaign directed by the White House. This is the story that pretty much identifies Mike Pompeo as an anonymous source.
February 27
Mike Allen, at Axios, citing a senior official, identifies CIA director Mike Pompeo and Senate intelligence chair Richard Burr as the officials who made the calls, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal as the media outlets involved, and Sean Spicer as orchestrating the calls.
Sunday, Feb 26, 2017 · 9:20:04 AM +00:00 · Garrett
An additional detail point:
The authors of the Feb. 9 Washington Post article, with the nine anonymous sources that Donald Trump claimed were just made up, are Greg Miller, Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima. Trump had called those reporters, quite personally, very dishonest people.
The authors of the Feb. 24 Washington Post article are Greg Miller and Adam Entous.
There is a blunt and baldfaced quality to Trump’s lie — his claiming that the nine sources were just made up (he had fired Mike Flynn, basically for what that news story had reported) — that is hard to convey in words.
Close parsing of events can be insufficient for dealing with Trump.