Home
This is how conservative media transformed a small news item into a full-blown conspiracy theory that the president (apparently) believes to be true.
BY JAY WILLIS
May 23, 2018
The plot goes like this: During the summer of 2016, on the clandestine orders of then-president Barack Obama, the FBI and CIA hatched an ambitious plan to topple the Trump campaign from the inside. In a scandal of unprecedented scope, Democratic politicians commandeered American counterintelligence resources to spy on their primary political opponent and boost Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the election. The Russia investigation that has dominated headlines for nearly two years is, in fact, a desperate smokescreen conjured up by terrified Deep State actors to conceal evidence of their own wrongdoing, and to frame the president for heinous crimes he didn't commit.
On May 8, The Washington Post reported on the White House's decision to back the Justice Department's withholding of information from House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, on the grounds that disclosure would expose the identity of "a U.S. citizen who has provided information to the FBI and CIA." The authors added, though, that the individual had been a source of information used by the special counsel's office—and that it was unclear whether Trump knew this "key fact" when his administration chose to side with law enforcement.
It didn't take long for him to find out. Almost immediately, the right-wing-media ecosystem began laundering and repackaging this news item, weaving its constituent elements together with Trumpian talking points until a full-blown conspiracy theory worthy of the president's tweets emerged on the other side. This metamorphosis is what would happen if a word cloud sourced from a Trump rally were used in a giant game of telephone—but one in which the gibberish end result were then broadcast as news to hundreds of millions of recipients.
How did this happen?
May 10
Two days after the initial report, citing "the Washington Post's unnamed law-enforcement leakers," The Wall Street Journal publishes an analysis by conservative commentator Kim Strassel. "[W]e might take this to mean that the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign." Such a development, she writes, "would amount to spying, and it is hugely disconcerting." Strassel continues (all emphasis mine):
[W]hen precisely was this human source operating? Because if it was prior to that infamous Papadopoulos tip, then the FBI isn’t being straight. It would mean the bureau was spying on the Trump campaign prior to that moment. And that in turn would mean that the FBI had been spurred to act on the basis of something other than a junior campaign aide’s loose lips.
This is at once cautious and bold, introducing the salacious vocabulary of espionage to a detail about an intelligence source—but only, she clarifies, if the allegations are true. Strassel does not offer a reason for entertaining her hypothetical, other than her characterization of the players' accounts of the investigation as "suspiciously vague." She is, in the classic style of well-compensated public intellectuals filling up column inches, just asking questions.
That night, other journalists are happy to offer answers. On Sean Hannity's Fox News show, journalist Sara Carter, citing Strassel, tells listeners of “concern that the FBI actually had a spy within the Trump campaign.” Hannity is dumbfounded: “What? What?” he splutters. "Yes," replies Carter. Blogs like Gateway Pundit kick off the breathless hyperbole category. "Now we know why the Deep State has been working so hard to take down President Trump and the republic," said the post, linking to and block-quoting Strassel. "OBAMA DEEP STATE HAD A SPY INSIDE THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN!"
May 11
The baton is passed to Fox News, which syndicates Strassel's article and changes the headline from “About that FBI ‘source’” to “Did the FBI place a mole inside the 2016 Trump campaign?” On Fox & Friends, the president's morning program of choice, Pete Hegseth weighs in, hesitantly at first. "Did the FBI have a spy in the Trump campaign? Just asking the question. There’s an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal about it." Ainsley Earhardt quotes at length from the column before positing that it means the FBI and DOJ had someone "paid to go and spy on President Trump."
[...]
https://www.gq.com/story/spygate-conspiracy-theory-explained
*************
PROFESSIONAL LIAR
Pkr, you always seem to know which professional liar to quote. Why is that?
From the Diary of Kimberley Strassel
Dear Diary,
Well, I just wrote my 47th column on Hillary’s emails. They’ve all been pretty much the same—Hillary is a she-devil who did bad things and is crooked. Only I did come up with a clever new slogan: I called 2016 “the year of the Democratic email dump.”
Of course, just between me and you, Dear Diary, that’s not true. If anything, 2016 was the year of Trump. But “the year of the Democratic email dump” keeps people thinking Hillary did something wrong, and we have to keep that up, at least until the election.
God, I hate that Clinton b***h. Sometimes I myself wonder why. I don’t know, I just do. She’s so…perfect. Maybe I’m jealous? Successful career, the most successful female politician in American history, by all accounts a great mom, smart, funny, a policy wonk, rich, and she did stand by Bill’s side during Monicagate. And talk about grace under pressure! I can imagine myself, under other circumstances, liking her. But let’s face it, smearing Hillary is what they pay me for. I need this gig at the Wall Street Journal. We’re under orders, from the Murdochs on down through Baker, Blumenstein and Murray (sounds like a Wall Street lawfirm, doesn’t it, haha) to keep up the attack, and so we do, me and Rove and Henninger and Jenkins and Noonan and the rest of us op-ed junkyard dogs. Sometimes, I’ll run into one of them in the break room, and we’ll look each other in the eye and feel something like shame, or embarrassment, over how cheap and misleading our columns usually are. We never really talk about it. It’s not something you’d actually admit. But it’s there.
Peggy is the worst, she really is. I think she’s always resented me, since I’m the only other editorial page woman, and most professionals respect me more than her! Everybody knows Peggy was just a dreary little speechwriter for Reagan—they only gave her unimportant things, like D-Day, because she couldn’t handle anything bigger—but, good Lord, she’s ridden that “I worked for Ronald Reagan” horse for thirty years like she’d been one of the Apostles. She’s also a lot older than me, which quite frankly, Diary, she resents. So we avoid each other, if at all possible. But I will say this: there’s sort of a competition between us over who can be bitchier, especially towards Hillary.
Actually, I’m pretty proud of my latest column. You know what the trick is to writing a great column about Hillary? It’s to pack as many scandals into the piece as you can, and on this one I did a great job! I not only got the emails in there, but Benghazi, Blll’s adultery and all his other baggage, Hillary’s religious beliefs (or lack of them), her campaign contributions, the high price she (and Bill) charge for speeches, the way Bill sold ambassadorships to the highest bidder, her Hollywood friends, her relationship with Anthony Weiner—in short, the entire Almanach de Gotha of horrors. Now, Dear Diary, once again between you and me, let’s be honest and admit that the Clintons haven’t done anything any other politician, including other Presidential couples, hasn’t done. But that doesn’t matter. The important thing is to stir up anger and resentment against the b***h. My therapist, Dr. Fegelin, asked me the other day if I, as a woman, ever have second thoughts about stirring up anger against Hillary because she’s a woman, and it’s really easy to make white people, especially Christians, resent women with power.
Well, in answer to Dr. Fegelin, no, I don’t have any second thoughts. I have a lot of self-respect for myself; as my husband reminds me every day, I am beautiful!
strassel
It’s true that I could use a nip-and-tuck here and there, but really, I have fabulous hair (thank you Mr. Kenneth! Muah!), and with the right makeup and lighting, I could be one of those Fox News blond glamor gals (move over Megyn Kelly!). And to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t mind that. She makes, like, what? twenty times what I make here at the Journal, and what does she have that I don’t, besides good legs? Anyhow, if I keep churning out these hit pieces on Hillary, maybe Rupert will put me on T.V. One can always hope, right?
Look, life is war. We do what we have to do to win. Besides, I’ve been at this for so long that I barely have any moral compass left. You’d be surprised how easy it is to toss your conscience overboard, Dear Diary! Conscience is a hassle, anyway, especially for a Wall Street Journal columnist. It’s so much purer, and more lucrative, to peddle hate.
http://www.steveheimoff.com/index.php/2016/09/26/from-the-diary-of-kimberley-strassel/comment-page-1/#comment-631813