We constantly hear the claim that the media is “leftist.” It’s the central trope of Fox News, which pretends that they are merely allowing a “fair” counterbalance to all the left-leaning views coming from ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN.
In reaction to these claims, some network and cable news channels go out of their way to feature and include correspondents and guests that have far, far-right views and perspectives on a regular basis. Often, we then have the Crossfire scenario of left and right persons paired against each other while a host attempts to “moderate” warfare between the opposing sides. But time and time again, the blatant lies and delusions coming from the right are spouted in rapid-fire succession and even though the others may attempt to address all of them, they usually miss the majority of lies in an effort not to appear overly hostile.
But hostility is the least of what these people deserve as they repeatedly drag the American people down rabbit holes of self-serving delusion.
There are many, many examples of this situation. But here’s just one glaring example from this past week, where one-time Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski—who for a time after he left the campaign was being paid by CNN as a correspondent and also by Trump at the same time—spoke with Jim Scuitto on CNN and yet again claimed that as far as he knew “no one in the Trump campaign reached out to the Russians.”
Lewandowski’s first attack point is the argument that the DOJ is “failing to be transparent” because they responded to House GOP members’ requests for the original memo by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that started the Mueller investigation. What they received was a document full of redactions.
This is how the National Review looks at it.
First, most of it is redacted. The memo is a little over two pages long. After some opening background, Rosenstein instructs Mueller, “The following allegations were within the scope of the Investigation at the time of your appointment and are within the scope of the [May 17 appointment] Order.” But after that, everything is blacked out except for two “allegations” regarding Paul Manafort. The redacted portion is four times bigger than the unredacted Manafort portion, so Rosenstein has obviously authorized Mueller to investigate several “allegations” about which we are still in the dark.
Do these include “allegations” that expressly name President Trump? We do not know.
Second, I quote the memo’s use of allegation advisedly. The special-counsel regulations are not satisfied by mere allegations; they require that there be factual grounds warranting a “criminal investigation of a person or matter.” Now, the regulation governing a special counsel’s jurisdiction (Section 600.4) is unclear on how much must be said about the grounds for the investigation — the acting attorney general must give the special counsel “a specific factual statement of the matter to be investigated.” I believe the term “specific factual statement” implies that more than a mere, conclusory allegation is required; but others will counter the regulation is satisfied by what Rosenstein has provided: general outlines of potential crimes, in the form of allegations. The latter view, if correct, means the public is apt to be in the dark about why there is a special counsel.
Mueller has had several convictions already, so we’re well past the “allegation” stage.
Even with that, the GOP and Trumpsters are on a snipe hunt to discover what happens to be underneath all the redactions on the theory that Mueller’s entire probe somehow isn’t legitimate. CNN, generally speaking, has been oblivious to this particular brouhaha, so when Corey brings it up they’re fairly non-plussed by it even though members of the GOP have begun drawing up impeachment articles over it.
That is impeachment articles for Rod Rosenstein, not Trump.
Throughout our nation’s history, the House has recognized that impeachment power was not intended to be used for political, partisan or ideological purposes.
Yet apparently no one got the word to Republican Reps. Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Jim Jordan of Ohio. The two leaders of the House Freedom Caucus have threatened Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein with impeachment and now, led by Meadows, Freedom Caucus members have actually drafted articles of impeachment against Rosenstein.
His supposed offense? He had the temerity to refuse to throw open Justice Department files related to special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing criminal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Members of Congress simply have no business injecting themselves into the middle of a Justice Department criminal investigation. Such actions can seriously undermine the investigation and provide assistance to its subjects and targets.
Rosenstein flatly rejected this obvious effort to intimidate him and interfere with the Russia investigation. “The Department of Justice is not going to be extorted,” he said Tuesday in a clear reference to the demands and impeachment threats made by Freedom Caucus members.
During the CNN appearance, Scuitto pushed back on Lewandowski by pointing out the obvious: the DOJ does not comment on ongoing investigations. At that point Lewandowski began to play dumb by repeatedly stating, “I don’t understand why they don’t give Congress what they want?” During this section Lewandowski does an amazing thing: he turns this into an interview of Jim Scuitto.
Lewandowski: I don’t understand why the Justice Department isn’t willing to share the information with an agency and a government body which has a right to have them?
Scuitto: Well on that point, why would the Justice Department share documents involved in an ongoing investigation in with the President has an interest, why would they do that?
Scuitto makes a perfectly good point and turns the question back to Lewandowski. But let’s put it another way. Why should you expect Rod Rosenstein to publicly reveal information about a current and ongoing investigation in the same way that Jim Comey did in the Clinton email investigation, for which Rosenstein himself recommended that Comey should have been fired for doing?
The director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General's authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution.
It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors. The Director now defends his decision by asserting that he believed attorney General Loretta Lynch had a conflict. But the FBI Director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the Justice Department. There is a well-established process for other officials to step in when a conflict requires the recusal of the Attorney General. On July 5, however, the Director announced his own conclusions about the nation's most sensitive criminal investigation, without the authorization of duly appointed Justice Department leaders.
Compounding the error, the Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation. Derogatory information sometimes is disclosed in the course of criminal investigations and prosecutions, but we never release it gratuitously. The Director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.
…
Concerning his letter to the Congress on October 28, 2016, the Director cast his decision as a choice between whether he would "speak" about the decision to investigate the newly-discovered email messages or "conceal" it. "Conceal" is a loaded term that misstates the issue. When federal agents and prosecutors quietly open a criminal investigation, we are not concealing anything; we are simply following the longstanding policy that we refrain from publicizing non-public information. In that context, silence is not concealment.
The fact is that not releasing this information is standard DOJ policy for all the above reasons. It would be unfair to the subjects and targets of the inquiry to release the information before the investigation is complete, and it could also compromise the investigation itself by allowing the targets to see “behind the curtain” at the prosecutors evidence and perhaps coach them to give a false but less incriminating response—or even withhold or destroy key evidence.
Generally speaking this information is considered confidential within the DOJ, so they simply don’t release it. And since this is a counter-intelligence investigation involving foreign subjects, the classification rating on these details could even be as high as SECRET or TOP SECRET. They don’t tend to release that information for good reason, because then they’d be “leaking.”
Nevertheless, Lewandowski persisted as if Scuitto hadn't said anything at all.
Lewandowski: Because Congress has the right to have the information. They are a body which is equal to the Administration, they’ve asked for the documents. The president has said “What are we trying to hide information for?” Oversight committees have a right to see the information. This Justice Department for some reason, under the Trump Administration, is refusing to turn over documents that Congress is asking for.
Scuitto: Well to be fair they’ve turned over many, but the argument is that document relevant to an ongoing investigation where the President has a personal interest — they’re not turning over those documents. Is that not a fair argument?
Lewandowski: No. Jim. Aren’t you … wouldn’t you as a news business, wouldn’t you want more transparency and don't you believe that Congress has a right to oversight?
Scuitto: I believe the Congress has a right to oversight. I’m not a lawyer, but I do know that their argument is that it’s an ongoing investigation and the President is a party to it.
Lewandowski: But Jim what does that have to do with turning over the documents to a select group of individuals who have oversight to review this? What does this have to do with the President? Look, what’s amazing is the Administration, the President, is asking the Department of Justice to turn over the information in the air of full transparency [a tweet is not a formal request Corey] to individuals in congress who have oversight authority, that have the legal right to review the documents. I don't understand why the press would even question this, they should be praising the President for this call.
Do you see what he did right there? He turned this into an interview of Jim Scuitto and an indictment of the media for helping cover up for the “deep state.”
What he’s saying in other words is, “Why don’t you support transparency? Why don’t you praise Trump?”
At the very least we’re talking about releasing confidential information that will likely damage or derail the Mueller investigation, or potentially backfire and damage the Trump administration itself. Scuitto gave him the right answer twice, and he just ignored it.
Lewandowski goes on to make a ton of other claims that Scuitto doesn’t even respond to.
He says that the Trump administration has been “fully cooperative” with the Mueller investigation by turning over tons of emails from the campaign, and making people like himself available to Mueller and to Congress (although not Trump himself—yet).
Scuitto doesn’t point out that former White House adviser Steve Bannon refused to answer questions about the campaign even after he’d been subpoenaed, claiming executive privilege over a period when Trump wasn’t the executive. Donald Jr. refused to answer questions about his conversations with Trump during the campaign, claiming attorney client privilege when he wasn’t the attorney or the client. Former White House communications director Hope Hicks refused to answer questions. And Corey Lewendowski himself told Democrats among that “body that has oversight” that he wasn’t answering their fucking questions, according to guess who? CNN.
Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski reportedly shouted and cursed at Democratic lawmakers during an interview with the House Intelligence Committee earlier this month.
CNN reported Thursday that Lewandowski's interview with the panel became heated and resulted in the former Trump aide swearing at Democrats on the panel, including California Rep. Jackie Speier.
"I'm not answering your f---ing question," Lewandowski shouted at the lawmakers at one point, according to four CNN sources. They added that the lobbyist "repeatedly" swore at the lawmakers, who were investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and any possible coordination with the Trump campaign.
So that’s transparency, is it?
CNN reported that story and people on CNN don’t know about that story? They don’t know what their own website says? This is how they let these righties off the hook. This guy just lied right to his face, and Scuitto didn't even blink.
In a later part of the interview Lewandowski claims that he “doesn’t know anyone in the campaign who reached out to the Russians” when at this point we have both George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn who’ve pleaded guilty to lying about reaching out to the Russians. He seems to indicate that his statement doesn’t include Paul Manafort, who as we now know was in contact with an affiliate of Russian Military Intelligence (GRU) during the campaign. This is confirmed by the fact that a lawyer associate of his was convicted for lying that he knew Manafort’s partner Rick Gates was talking to the same GRU operative.
Even if you ignore Manafort, George Papadopoulos was sending out multiple sets of emails about his communications with Russians.
When a Russian news agency reached out to George Papadopoulos to request an interview shortly before the 2016 election, the young adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump made sure to seek approval from campaign headquarters.
"You should do it," deputy communications director Bryan Lanza urged Papadopoulos in a September 2016 email, emphasizing the benefits of a U.S. "partnership with Russia."
But emails described to The Washington Post, which are among thousands of documents turned over to investigators examining Russia's interference in the 2016 campaign, show that Papadopoulos had more extensive contact with key Trump campaign and presidential transition officials than has been publicly acknowledged.
...
Among those who communicated with Papadopoulos were senior campaign figures such as chief executive Stephen Bannon and adviser Michael Flynn, who corresponded with him about his efforts to broker ties between Trump and top foreign officials, the emails show.
As late as December 2016, as President-elect Trump was preparing to take office, Papadopoulos tried to serve as a conduit for the defense minister of Greece, transmitting what he said was a proposal for a strategic alliance from the Russian-allied Greek official that was reviewed by both Bannon and Flynn, then in line to be national security adviser.
So Lanza knew, Bannon knew, Flynn knew, Sessions knew, but somehow the campaign manager Lewandowski didn’t know about any of this? And he still, to this very day, doesn’t know? How’s that even possible?
And oh by the way, Corey Lewandowski personally authorized former Trump adviser Carter Page’s trip to Moscow.
Carter Page, who had long stated his July 2016 trip to Moscow was personal, told the committee Thursday that he informed Corey Lewandowski, then Trump’s campaign manager, about an invitation to visit with Russian officials and that Lewandowski approved as long as it was “not affiliated with the campaign,” according to Page’s testimony released Monday night.
Page also said he informed Trump campaign official Hope Hicks, who was elevated to White House communications director earlier this year, as well as J.D. Gordon, a campaign adviser, about the trip.
During that trip Page was told by Russians that they had “compromising materials” on Hillary Clinton which at the point had not been yet released by WikiLeaks. But somehow Carter Page didn’t report this to the FBI. George Papadopoulos didn't report that he was told the Russians had “thousands of Hillary’s emails” to the FBI. In fact when they did talk to him, he lied about it. Sssions didn’t report that he knew about the Russians having Hillary’s emails to the FBI either, they he lied about even knowing that Papdopoulos and Page were in contact with Russians during his confimation hearings.
Don Jr., Manafort, and Kushner sat in a room with a woman who admits she is an informant for the Kremlin in order to get guess what? “Dirt” on Hillary Clinton, but somehow they didn’t “reach out to any Russians”?
And Lewandowski still doesn’t know about any of that. Even after five — and counting — guilty convictions related to it? Really, man?
Scuitto doesn't push back on any of this, he just lets Corey lie and lie and lie. Then lie some more.
Here’s why it’s understandable that the GOP and the right think that CNN is “biased”: it’s because everyone on the network isn’t like Lewandowski and constantly delivers lies to soothe their china-cup egos. But the idea that just because they might have some people who virulently disagree with Corey like Ana Navarro, Amanda Carpenter, or Tara Setmeyer on every once in a while doesn’t mean that the network is biased for “the left,” particularly since all three of those women are Republicans.
On almost any CNN panel they never have more than one actual Democrat at a time. Meanwhile, they’ll have three or four Republicans. Usually two of them will be anti-Trump and then the last one, sometimes two, is a lying pro-trumper like Corey. I get that they feel outnumbered, but frankly since they’re only there as a “token” for the sake of “diversity” of opinion (y’know because we just have to hear the bleat from the lunatic fringe each and every day), they should be grateful they get to spout their talking points, all without usually being called out on them.
If CNN actually stood up for the “the left” they wouldn’t let people like Lewandowski lie like this without pointing out: he’s lying.
However, they don’t do that. Not even close.
Sunday, May 6, 2018 · 9:22:03 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
Just for the record on Friday Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein after claiming he won’t be “threatened or extorted” by efforts to charge him with contempt of Congress and even Impeach him allowed House GOP Intel members to view his minimally redacted memo authorizing Mueller to pursue charges against Manafort. Ironically Devin Nunes didn’t bother to go read the document and sent his staff and Trey Gowdy instead who afterwards said he didn’t see any problems with the document or Rosenstein’s actions.
Yet again we have a big fat nothing to see here.
Then Nunes called for former Secretary of State John Kerry to be the very first person prosecuted under the Logan Act based on a Boston Globe report that he’s been meeting with diplomats in France and Iran to try and save the Iranian Nuclear Deal which he originally negotiated — which is real odd since he doesn’t think Flynn, Papadopoulos, Manafort, Gates, Don Jr. or Kushner should be prosecuted under the Logan act despite all their meetings with Russians when they were private citizens.
Then Nunes this morning told Fox and Friends that House GOP members will be moving to hold AG Sessions in contempt. [Because why?] Because Rudy Giuliani said Sessions should “end” the Mueller investigation and for the “abuse” of the FISA process involving Carer Page [Which is bullshit, because the application was placed before Sessions was Attorney General and they didn’t hide the fact that political entities — the Washington Free Beacon and DNC law firm Perkins Coie — had both paid for Christopher Steele’s research they simply followed standing masking protocol for U.S. persons, which is exactly why Nunes what previously attacked Susan Rice over when the Crown Prince of the UAE secretly met with Kushner and Bannon at Trump Tower during the transition.]
All of this just proves that these guys will literally stop at nothing to protect Trump, that they’ll try to destroy all the credibility of the Justice Dept. including Trump’s own choices for AG and Deputy AG in the process.
They have no shame. They have no conscience. The gloves are off, this is a battle for the soul of the nation — and the media is still sitting on the sidelines and barely responding to it all.
Sunday, May 6, 2018 · 9:35:38 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
Well, in fairness there has been one recent ray of hope.
Jake Tapper got exasperated with Kellyanne Conway this morning and finally told her “I just want [Turmp] to stop the lying.” As an example he points out that 2 of the 3 North Korean hostages were taken on Trump’s watch, so blaming Obama for failing to free all three is a lie. [Plus Obama with help from President Clinton previously freed Lisa Ling an Euna Lee from North Korea in 2009.]
That’s a step in the right direction, but he’s a long way from the only one. Several other people on CNN, particularly Stephen Moore and Steve Cortes, still lie every day on their dime.
Most of the time, CNN lets them without a response.