An urgent request/warning to the denizens of Daily Kos:
Please exercise an abundance of caution on the Kushner/Khashoggi/Turkey blackmail story.
To be honest, I will be surprised if there is any truth to this story, namely because the Washington Post and The New York Times have highly-developed sources on whistleblowers within this administration, and neither paper has even hinted at a story like this.
As noted in the original piece that now sits atop the Rec list, the Daily Mail story is based on a piece by the Cockburn blog in The Spectator. (“Cockburn” is the name of the blog. It is a D.C.-based blog for The Spectator’s U.S. version. There is no single author for the blog, according to The Spectator.)
You can read that short piece in its entirety here:
Within the short piece from Cockburn is one paragraph on The Kushner/Khashoggi/Turkey connection:
According to Cockburn’s source about the seven whistleblowers, there’s more. It is that Kushner (allegedly) gave the green light to MBS to arrest the dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, who was later murdered and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. A second source tells Cockburn that this is true and adds a crucial twist to the story. This source claims that Turkish intelligence obtained an intercept of the call between Kushner and MBS. And President Erdogan used it to get Trump to roll over and pull American troops out of northern Syria before the Turks invaded. Cockburn hears that investigators for the House Intelligence Committee know this whole tale and the identities of some of the people telling it. Whether any of is true is another matter but Adam Schiff certainly seems to be smiling a lot these days.
For one thing, Cockburn doesn’t know what the term “whistleblower” means. In the piece, s/he cites the original anonymous whistleblower, Vindman and Morrison as “whistleblowers.” Only one of these three is an actual whistleblower. S/he says there are four more whistleblowers. We know from credible reporting that there is one more unnamed whistleblower in addition to the original anonymous whistleblower. Cockburn doesn’t know what s/he is talking about when it comes to whistleblowers.
Second, read that clip about Kushner’s supposed involvement. There are more caveats in that short paragraph than there are facts.
Look, I’d love for this to be true. But given the stellar reporting based on solid sources from the Post and the Times on this story to this point, I call “bullshit” on Cockburn, and, by extension, the Daily Mail report. If this isn’t confirmed by either the Post or the Times or some other credible news source (the Daily Mail and Cockburn are not credible news sources) within 24 hours, I’d say this is bullshit.
Caution. Let’s not put ourselves in yet another “Fitzmas” situation.
Monday, Nov 4, 2019 · 4:56:45 PM +00:00 · Bob Johnson
And let me add that we are contributing to disinformation on Facebook and Twitter by sharing the original diary on those platforms. The original post is now among the “Most Shared” list from Daily Kos. We’re not helping. We’re contributing to the Facebook and Twitter messes by spreading this story.
Monday, Nov 4, 2019 · 6:09:57 PM +00:00 · Bob Johnson
I made a suggestion in the comments that may merit discussion. Perhaps kos should consider giving his moderators the ability to remove or disable the Facebook and Twitter “share” buttons on Rec list diaries that contain dubious or unsupported assertions, particularly on diaries that make highly incendiary claims such as the piece in question.
As it stands, the diary in question now stands atop the Daily Kos “Most Shared” list. There is a good chance that this “news” is targeted disinformation. If so, we are guilty of the very thing we are fighting against. We undermine the very real and factual investigation that is ongoing while contributing to the “both-siderism” of the “fake news” argument.