{"id":181325,"date":"2021-03-22T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2021-03-22T12:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=181325"},"modified":"2021-03-19T11:01:23","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T11:01:23","slug":"aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official-russia-claims-that-proved-to-be-bogus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/03\/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official-russia-claims-that-proved-to-be-bogus\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaugh! A Brief List of Official Russia Claims That Proved to Be Bogus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Director of National Intelligence releases a report, and the press rushes to kick the football again.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9ivn0C8oebg<\/p>\n

18 Mar 2021 – <\/em>The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has released a much-hyped, much-cited new report on \u201cForeign Threats to the 2020 Elections<\/a>.\u201d The key conclusion:<\/p>\n

We assess that Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden\u2019s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former\u00a0President Trump<\/a>, [and] undermining public confidence in the electoral process\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The report added Ukrainian legislator Andrey Derkach, described as having \u201cties\u201d to \u201cRussia\u2019s intelligence services,\u201d and Konstantin Kilimnik, a \u201cRussian influence agent\u201d (whatever that means), used \u201cprominent U.S. persons\u201d and \u201cmedia conduits\u201d to \u201claunder their narratives\u201d to American audiences. The \u201cnarratives\u201d included \u201cmisleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden\u201d (note they didn\u2019t use the word \u201cfalse\u201d). They added a small caveat at the end: \u201cJudgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Glenn Greenwald already pointed out<\/a>, the \u201claunder their narratives\u201d passage was wolfed down by our intelligence services\u2019 own \u201cmedia conduits\u201d here at home, and regurgitated as proof that the \u201cHunter Biden laptop story came from the Kremlin<\/a>,\u201d even though the report didn\u2019t mention the laptop story at all. Exactly one prominent reporter, Chris Hayes, had the decency to admit<\/a> this after advancing the claim initially.<\/p>\n

With regard to the broader assessment: how many times are we going to do this? We\u2019ve spent the last five years watching as anonymous officials make major Russia-related claims, only to have those evidence-free claims fizzle.<\/p>\n

From the much-ballyhooed \u201cchanged RNC platform\u201d story (Robert Mueller found no evidence the changed Republican platform was \u201cundertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia<\/a>\u201d), to the notion that Julian Assange was engaged in a conspiracy with the Russians (Mueller found no evidence for this<\/a> either), to Michael Cohen\u2019s alleged secret meetings in Prague with Russian conspirators (\u201cnot true<\/a>,\u201d the FBI flatly concluded) to the story that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress (\u201cnot accurate<\/a>,\u201d said Mueller), to wild stories about Paul Manafort meeting Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy<\/a>, to a \u201cbombshell\u201d tale about Trump foreknowledge of Wikileaks releases that blew up in CNN\u2019s face in spectacular fashion<\/a>, reporters for years chased unsubstantiated claims instead of waiting to see what they were based upon.<\/p>\n

The latest report\u2019s chief conclusions are assessments about Derkach and Kilimnik, information that the whole world knew before this report was released. Hell, even Rudy Giuliani, whose meeting with Derkach is supposedly the big scandal here, admitted there was a \u201c50\/50 chance<\/a>\u201d the guy was a Russian spy. Kilimnik meanwhile has now been characterized as having \u201cties\u201d to Russian intelligence (Mueller), and as a \u201cRussian intelligence officer\u201d (Senate Intelligence Committee), and is now back to being a mere \u201cinfluence agent.\u201d If he is Russian intelligence, then John McCain\u2019s International Republican Institute (where Kilimnik worked), as well as embassies in Kiev and Moscow (where Kilimnik regularly gave information, according to the New York Times<\/em>), have a lot of explaining to do.<\/p>\n

No matter what, the clear aim of this report is to cast certain stories about Joe or Hunter Biden as misinformation, when the evidence more likely shows that material like the Hunter Biden emails is real, just delivered from a disreputable source. That makes such stories just like, say, the Joe Biden-Petro Poroshenko tapes, which were also pushed by Derkach and reported on uncontroversially by major media outlets like the <\/a>Washington Post<\/a>, <\/em>before it became fashionable to denounce those reporting such leaks as Russian \u201cproxies\u201d and \u201cconduits.\u201d<\/p>\n

I never thought the Hunter Biden laptop story was anywhere near as big of a deal<\/a> as the efforts by platforms like Facebook and Twitter to block access to it, which seemed a historic and dangerous precedent. This new effort to cast the reporting of \u201callegations against President Biden\u201d as participation in a foreign intelligence campaign is nearly as ominous. Even worse is the degree to which press figures are devouring the message. Will any bother to point out the huge quantity of recent official takes on the Russia story that went pear-shaped? A very, very brief sample:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. All 17 U.S. intelligence agencies backed an assessment that cyberattacks in 2016 came from the \u201chighest levels of the Kremlin<\/a><\/strong>.\u201d That was later corrected in congressional testimony to four (it was actually three):<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n
    \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
      \n
    1. The Trump organization was communicating with Russia via a mysterious server tied to Russia\u2019s Alfa Bank<\/a><\/strong>. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz noted the FBI concluded \u201cby early February 2017 that there were no such links<\/a>,\u201d yet stories pegged to anonymous intel officials persisted for years after that.<\/li>\n
    2. Russia \u201chacked a Vermont utility<\/a>,<\/strong>\u201d according to U.S. officials! Except, the next day:\n
      \n
      \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
    3. Four \u201ccurrent and former American officials,\u201d citing a \u201ctrove of information the FBI is sifting through,\u201d said the Trump campaign had \u201crepeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials<\/a><\/strong>.\u201d Months later:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
      \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
        \n
      1. A \u201csenior U.S. government official\u201d characterized the ex-spy who claimed Russia had been cultivating Donald Trump for at least five years, and could \u201cblackmail him,\u201d was \u201ca credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government<\/a><\/strong>.\u201d But Christopher Steele was subsequently dismissed as an FBI source for his \u201ccompletely untrustworthy\u201d decision to talk to the media, and Horowitz not only discovered that both the FBI and the CIA (who dismissed his reports as \u201cinternet rumor\u201d) had many reservations about his credibility, but that his famed \u201cblackmail\u201d claims about pee and prostitutes had been made in \u201cjest,\u201d over \u201cbeers<\/a>.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
          \n
        1. Former Trump adviser Carter Page was a \u201ccatalyst\u201d for the FBI investigation into connections between Donald Trump and Russia<\/strong>, according to \u201ccurrent and former law enforcement and counterintelligence officials<\/a>.\u201d Similarly, the New York Times <\/em>cited court documents in describing George Papadopoulos: \u201cTrump Campaign Adviser Met With Russian to Discuss \u2018Dirt\u2019 on Clinton<\/a>.\u201d<\/strong><\/em>But Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe testified that as early as August of 2016, Page became the focus of secret surveillance because Papadopoulos had been deemed a dead end. This scarcely reported detail only rendered the entire predicate for the FBI\u2019s Trump-Russia investigation absurd:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
          \n
          \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
            \n
          1. Jeff Sessions did not disclose contacts with a Russian ambassador in a security clearance form<\/strong>, Justice Department sources told <\/a>multiple outlets, in what became a major, front-page scandal. Except it came out later he didn\u2019t have to make those disclosures<\/a>, and as for the contacts themselves? \u201cBrief, public, and non-substantive<\/a>,\u201d said Robert Mueller.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
              \n
            1. \u201cSenior FBI and national intelligence officials\u201d told the White House and major news outlets that releasing the name of an \u201cinformant\u201d in the Trump-Russia investigation could \u201crisk lives<\/strong>,\u201d one of many such stories (we heard similar warnings before the release of the name of Christopher Steele, his source Igor Danchenko, the \u201cexfiltrated spy\u201d Oleg Smolenkov, the \u201canonymous\u201d New York Times <\/em>editorialist, the Ukraine \u201cwhistleblower,\u201d and others). The \u201cinformant\u201d Haspel warned about, Stefan Halper, turned out to have been a professor outed by name as an intelligence source in the New York Times <\/em>all the way back in 1983:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
              \n
              \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
                \n
              1. \u201cCurrent and former intelligence officers\u201d told the <\/strong>New York Times <\/strong><\/em>that CIA director Gina Haspel showed Donald Trump pictures of British children sickened, as well as ducks killed, by a Russian assassination in England using the deadly nerve agent Novichok<\/strong>. It turns out there were no such sick children or dead ducks, and Haspel didn\u2019t show such pictures, an error the Times <\/em>chalked up to lack of research time:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
                \n
                \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
                  \n
                1. According to \u201cofficials briefed on the matter,\u201d <\/strong>New York Times <\/strong><\/em>reported, and the <\/strong>Washington Post \u201c<\/strong><\/em>confirmed<\/a>,\u201d that \u201ca Russian military spy unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to attack coalition forces in Afghanistan<\/strong>.\u201d Two months later, an on-the-record military official was less certain:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
                  \n
                  \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

                  One could go on and on with this list, from the bogus claims about Maria Butina that ended up as Times <\/em>headlines (\u201cSuspected Secret Agent Used Sex in Covert Plan<\/a>\u201d), to overhype of the Cambridge Analytica story (which turned out to have nothing to do with Brexit<\/a>), to the bass-ackwards denunciations of the so-called \u201cNunes memo\u201d (validated almost entirely by Horowitz), and on, and on.<\/p>\n

                  Does this mean the Russians don\u2019t meddle? Of course not. But we have to learn to separate real stories about foreign intelligence operations with posturing used to target domestic actors while suppressing criticism of domestic politicians. It\u2019s only happened about a hundred times in the last five years \u2014 maybe it\u2019s time to start asking for proof in these episodes?<\/p>\n

                  ______________________________________________<\/p>\n

                  \"\"<\/a>Matthew C. Taibbi is an American author, journalist, and podcaster. He has reported on finance, media, politics, and sports. He is a contributing editor for <\/em>Rolling Stone, author of several books, a winner of the National Magazine Award for commentary<\/em>, co-host of <\/em>Useful Idiots, and publisher of a newsletter on <\/em>Substack.<\/p>\n

                  Go to Original \u2013 taibbi.substack.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                  18 Mar 2021 – The Director of National Intelligence releases a report, and the press rushes to kick the football again: Konstantin Kilimnik, a \u201cRussian influence agent\u201d (whatever that means), used \u201cprominent U.S. persons\u201d and \u201cmedia conduits\u201d to \u201claunder their narratives\u201d to American audiences. Maybe it\u2019s time to start asking for proof in these episodes?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":39943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[867,2314,1855,70,1365],"class_list":["post-181325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-anglo-america","tag-corporate-media","tag-mainstream-media-msm","tag-usa","tag-war-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}