{"id":34262,"date":"2018-09-12T11:26:07","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T15:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=34262"},"modified":"2018-09-12T11:26:07","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T15:26:07","slug":"the-leaking-echo-chamber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=34262","title":{"rendered":"The Leaking Echo Chamber"},"content":{"rendered":"

Real Clear Investigations<\/a> posted an article today about the targeted anti-Trump leaks to the press coming from the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

A trail of evidence appearing in major news outlets suggests a campaign to undermine President Trump from within the government through illegal leaks of classified information, and then to thwart congressional investigators probing the disclosures.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Monday the Justice Department released a handful of texts and other documents<\/a> that included two former officials known for their anti-Trump bias \u2013 Peter Strzok and Lisa Page of the FBI \u2013 discussing the DOJ\u2019s \u201cmedia leak strategy.\u201d Strzok now says<\/a>, through his lawyer, that that strategy was aimed at preventing leaks. Nevertheless, days later he and Page approvingly mention forthcoming news articles critical of Trump associates.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe leaks that have been coming out of the FBI and DOJ since 2016 are unconscionable,\u201d said retired FBI supervisory special agent James Gagliano. \u201cThere\u2019s a difference between whistleblowing and leaking for self-serving or partisan purposes.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Past and present U.S. officials say the template for the leak campaign can be traced back to the Obama administration\u2019s efforts to sell the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which made the press reliant on background conversations and favorable leaks from government officials.\u00a0Obama adviser Ben Rhodes told the New York Times<\/a> in 2016 that \u201cwe created an echo chamber\u201d that \u201chelped retail the administration\u2019s narrative.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThat same configuration,\u201d said Michael Doran, a senior official in the George W. Bush White House, \u201cthe press, political operatives, newly minted experts, social media validators\u2014was repurposed to target Trump, his campaign, transition team, then presidency.\u201d The echo chamber\u2019s primary instrument in attacking the current White House, said Doran, \u201cis the Russia collusion narrative.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the quote from the New York Times article about the echo chamber:<\/p>\n

As Malley (Rob Malley, a favored troubleshooter who ran negotiations that could keep the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in power during the Obama administration) and representatives of the State Department, including Wendy Sherman and Secretary of State John Kerry, engaged in formal negotiations with the Iranians, to ratify details of a framework that had already been agreed upon, Rhodes\u2019s war room did its work on Capitol Hill and with reporters. In the spring of last year, legions of arms-control experts began popping up at think tanks and on social media, and then became key sources for hundreds of often-clueless reporters. \u201cWe created an echo chamber,\u201d he admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. \u201cThey were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is how it works. Find a cooperative person who wants to be on television as an expert. Feed him the conclusion you want him to draw. Then find another one.<\/p>\n

The press is not currently our friend. Maybe that will change someday, but right now that is the situation. If we want to keep our representative republic, we need to vote against the political party that has consistently used government agencies and anyone in the press who was willing to cooperate for partisan purposes.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Real Clear Investigations posted an article today about the targeted anti-Trump leaks to the press coming from the Justice Department. The article reports: A trail of evidence appearing in major news outlets suggests a campaign to undermine President Trump from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8324,9283,1711,10589,11786,8558],"class_list":["post-34262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ben-rhodes","tag-iran-nuclear-deal","tag-media","tag-president-trump","tag-real-clear-investigations","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34263,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34262\/revisions\/34263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}