Manipulation of the News Media and 'Russiagate'
Operation Mockingbird Revisited
The last time a serious inquiry was launched into the activities of the CIA, FBI and related agencies was almost exactly fifty years ago on January 27, 1975, with the formation of the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, better known as the Church Committee, after its chairman, Democratic Senator Frank Church of Idaho. Can there be any doubt that the United States now needs a new Church Committee? The recent “RussiaGate” tissue of lies, perpetrated by a combination of forces that keyed off a “dodgy dossier” supplied by a former British Intelligence operative, Christopher Steele, was an assault on the American Presidency, the American people, and the world. “It was either the biggest espionage story in history..Putin putting a Manchurian candidate in the White House—or it was the biggest lie in history” was the way that journalist Matt Taibbi put it this past Dec. 5.
The Church Committee hearings revealed a shocking array of covert activities directed, not at America’s adversaries, but at her own citizens. One of these covert activities was Operation Mockingbird, a CIA project that recruited high-profile journalists to serve as conduits for agency propaganda. In 1975, this was considered to be scandalous, but today, manipulation of the press by these agencies is completely out in the open without the public batting an eye. For example, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who both lied under oath to the U.S. Congress about illegal activity by the CIA and NSA, now hold high-profile positions at MSNBC and CNN respectively. Asha Rangappa, a former FBI special agent specializing in counterintelligence investigations, is now a commentator at CNN. It is no longer necessary for the covert agencies to furtively recruit operatives from among the American press corps; They, increasingly, are the American press. The once-free press, exemplified by a few stalwarts such as Julian Assange, Glenn Greenwald, Seymour Hersh, Matt Taibbi and other real journalists, has been largely replaced by “agency people.”
Concerned that the citizenry might turn to social media as an alternative source for news and information, they have also taken steps to impose censorship there. Facebook brought in the vociferously neocon Atlantic Council and the mother of all Regime Change organizations, the National Endowment for Democracy, as consultants in 2018 to help decide which voices should be silenced. Not to be outdone, Twitter hired a part-time officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit as senior executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East in 2019. The following year, Facebook upped the ante by hiring the former Director-General of Israel’s Justice Ministry, a specialist in censorship, as a member of its new “oversight board.” Journalist Matt Taibbi revealed that throughout 2020, the FBI was essentially supervising Twitter censorship policy, with particular emphasis on trying to legitimize evidence-free allegations of foreign interference in U.S. affairs, and on controlling the way that the American Presidential race was allowed to be discussed.
Both Patel and Gabbard have experienced harshly antagonistic relationships with the corporate media. In Patel’s case, he battled them over the “Russiagate” hoax, at one point threatening to “come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens” if they were found to have violated the law. It is a tribute to the power of propaganda that despite the unambiguous conclusions of the Mueller Report, many Americans today still believe that there was some sort of “collusion” between Trump and the government of Russia, and politicians such as Adam Schiff continue to blithely speak of it as if it were real.
A recent response by the FBI to a two year-old Freedom of Information Act request by journalist Aaron Maté raises new questions about the FBI’s role in the Russiagate affair. The response was almost entirely redacted, but it does disclose that Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe opened an investigation of Trump, after he took office in 2017, due to information "...that reasonably indicates that President Donald Trump may be or has been, wittingly or unwittingly, involved in activities for or on behalf of the Russian government which may constitute violations of federal criminal law or threats to the national security of the United States." We can only guess at what that information might be, because it has been redacted. As Matt Taibbi points out, “Either the FBI had evidence to start such an investigation, which would be damning to Trump, or it didn’t, which would be damning to the FBI. Which was it?” Will Kash Patel be the one to provide an answer?
Liz Cheney: Outsourcing Lying to Save Democracy?
- In an October 15, 2024 press release issued by the U.S. Congress Committee on House Administration, it was announced that its Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman, Barry Loudermilk (GA-11), “obtained never-before-seen correspondence between January 6 Select Committee Vice-Chair Liz Cheney, and Cassidy Hutchinson.” Hutchinson, a former White House aide who had served as assistant to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during the first Trump administration, gave sensationalist testimony at the June 28, 2022, public hearings of the House Select Committee on the January 6 U.S. Capitol protests. Hutchinson's testimony was at the time widely publicized in the U.S. news media.
The new texts reveal that Liz Cheney communicated with Hutchinson through an intermediary, Farah Griffin, prior to testimony, while Hutchinson was still a subject of the Select Committee’s investigation and without Hutchinson's attorney's knowledge—this, despite Cheney knowing this was totally unethical. After this surreptitious "communication," Hutchinson dramatically changed her testimony; “In her May 17, 2022, transcribed interview Hutchinson testified to a series of uncorroborated and unverified stories that conveniently fit the Select Committee’s narrative that President Trump is dangerous and solely responsible for the events of January 6. Despite already testifying to the Select Committee twice, (Feb 23 and March 7) Hutchinson never previously mentioned this “new information.” After this third interview, Cheney began communicating directly with Hutchinson. Hutchinson then fired her attorney, Passantino and hired Cheney’s recommended attorneys, who agreed to represent Hutchinson—pro bono.
Tulsi Gabbard vs. the Neocons
In Gabbard’s case, she has locked horns for years with the corporate press, challenging such cherished neocon shibboleths as the notion that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “unprovoked.” She has expressed skepticism about the campaigns to engineer military confrontations with Iran, Syria, and China. The response from the war party has been childishly heavy-handed, with such neocon luminaries as Hillary Clinton and John Bolton suggesting that she is a “Russian asset.” It is difficult for “chickenhawks” with no military service record to convincingly smear Gabbard, a combat veteran who is currently a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, as some sort of traitor. That, however, does not stop media organs such as Newsweek, AP and the London Economist and Guardian from repeating the insinuations. On June 19, 2022, Gabbard said in a speech before the Western Conservative Summit, “To protect our loved ones, to protect our children, to protect our world, we have to—we are talking about an existential threat—we have to stand up to these cowardly warmongering politicians who exist in both parties now.” Is she willing to stand up to the “war party” as President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence? The Liars’ Bureau prefers that she not have that opportunity.
The Ukrainian Biolabs
On March 13, 2022, Tulsi Gabbard posted the following on Twitter:
There are 25+ US-funded biolabs in Ukraine which if breached would release & spread deadly pathogens to US/world. We must take action now to prevent disaster. US/Russia/Ukraine/NATO/UN/EU must implement a ceasefire now around these labs until they’re secured & pathogens destroyed.
What followed was a spectacular display of neocon rage. Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said Gabbard had embraced “actual Russian propaganda” and called it “traitorous.” Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Gabbard was “parroting fake Russian propaganda.”
Oddly enough, neocon queen bee Victoria Nuland had testified six days earlier, in response to a question from Sen. Marco Rubio in hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that “Ukraine has biological research facilities which, in fact, we’re now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of, so we are working with the Ukrainians on how we can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.” Somehow Nuland’s admission that the labs existed was considered to be neither “traitorous” nor “fake Russian propaganda,” perhaps because she managed to include some anti-Russian “spin.” Neither Gabbard nor Nuland claimed that the labs were for weapons research, although Gabbard’s opponents did not hesitate to insinuate that she had done so. Regarding Gabbard’s claim that the labs were “US-funded,” a story in the New York Post appeared the very next week on March 26, with the title: “Hunter Biden helped secure funds for US biolab contractor in Ukraine: e-mails.” The source for the article was now-famous Hunter Biden laptop (more on this below.)
Whether there was a military aspect to the biolabs remains an open question. Much research in biology, physics and chemistry will have both military and civilian applications. There was undeniably a significant buildup, sponsorship and privatization of bio-weapons research by the United States in the immediate aftermath of the September, 2001 anthrax terror attack in which 5 Americans were killed, which followed immediately upon the heels of the 9/11 attacks. The neocons vehemently rejected the idea that there could be any military applications, while the Russians—in particular, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, who headed Russia’s radiological, biological and chemical protection forces—insisted that these were weapons labs. Predictably, the U.K. accused Kirillov of acting as a “significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation.” Kirillov was assassinated on December 17 in a bombing attack for which the Ukrainian government took credit.