Investigative Journalism

expensive, so cut in media consolidation (aha 4/17 TARGETS jack anderson)

SEE CANCER CHEMICAL CLASSIC CASE OF HARD JOB FOR INV REP

slack picked up by Franklin etc BS

watergate high point? tends to annoy advertisers, so often big downsides

60 MIN BARI WEISS ELLISON OLIG; BEZOS WAPO?

wfb poses as, blur into oppo research

correction, Mod, supports norms/inst ~ corruption pro transparency, trump called enemy of pPl [on Tshirts] lamestream bias, soc media BS?

https://theconversation.com/nobel-peace-prize-for-journalists-serves-as-reminder-that-freedom-of-the-press-is-under-threat-from-strongmen-and-social-media-169579

PI ~ duterte, ~ vlad

---

hunting of prez doc says whitewater [ark pjt?] was bernstein and woodward wannabes trying to make their bones? isikoff?

===

---

ALSO NOEM PLANE?

AN 3 26

The Wall Street Journal— hardly an outpost of left-wing propaganda — reported yesterday on the results of an investigation conducted by the Journal’sHannah Critchfield and her team.

I’m summarizing it below because it deserves your attention.

Critchfield and her team found that 279 people have been accused online by the Trump administration of assaulting federal ICE and Border Patrol agents, and more than half of these people — 64 percent — are American citizens.

Of the 181 American citizens that the Trump administration has accused of attacking federal ICE and Border Patrol officers, close to half have never been charged, and none have been convicted at trial. But the public charges alone have caused them significant harm.

The investigation

The Journal’s team analyzed more than 200 videos associated with allegations of assault against ICE and Border Patrol agents, using both police body camera footage and bystander recordings from social media. Many of the videos cast doubt on the federal government’s claims that agents were assaulted.

The Journal also reviewed more than 100,000 posts on X, posts made in the last year by accounts linked to government agencies and senior government officials.

Each time the government identified a person on a post, theJournal tracked that case through the legal system to see what charges were brought, under what statute, whether the charges were later modified, and what happened to the person in the case.

One of the cases they investigated was that of Sydney Lori Reid, a 44-year-old veterinary assistant in D.C. and a U.S. citizen.

In July, Reid went to a jail to witness an immigration enforcement action. Federal officers had gone there to arrest two migrant men, and Reid said she felt a duty to document it.

As Reid began videotaping, an agent grabbed her and pinned her to a wall. Reid was then surrounded by several federal law enforcement officials. One of them was an FBI agent wearing a face covering and an FBI vest. Two others were ICE officers, dressed in plain clothes, plaid shirts, and khaki pants.

Reid was handcuffed and told she was being arrested for interfering with their operation. Videos reviewed by Critchfield and her team cast doubt on the agents’ claims.

Reid was then placed in a government vehicle and transferred to federal custody. Like many American citizens who wind up in the crosshairs of DHS, she was accused of assault.

The government alleges she assaulted an FBI agent on the basis of scrapes on the agent’s hands, but the scrapes occurred in the process of putting handcuffs on Reid.

The government later charged Reid with felony assault of a federal official, a charge punishable with up to 20 years in prison — a serious federal charge that’s being applied far more broadly now than at any time in recent history.

When Reid was being arrested, she dropped her phone, but the phone was still recording. An agent picked up the phone and put it into the same vehicle that she was riding in on her way to detention.

One officer says: “We’re at the D.C. jail. We’re at the D.C. jail. We have an agitator in custody for ...”

Reid was handcuffed in the backseat. You can hear agents going back and forth about exactly how Reid had assaulted them. First, it was a raised knee, then an elbow.

Another officer: “Yeah, it appeared that there was an elbow that was ... When she was resisting, but she definitely interfered. So we have interfering and I’m going to get ...”

One of the ICE agents called her a stupid female as he was talking to a colleague: “Hey brother, are you good? I have to return to 1D and process this stupid female now that I f------ don’t want to process her.”

Reid was held by federal authorities for roughly two days. She wasn’t allowed to make a phone call during that time.

In the aftermath of her arrest, prosecutors tried to indict her, but that needed to be done through a grand jury, and the grand jury declined to indict her. They tried again before another grand jury, which also declined to indict her. Then they went back to a third grand jury, which declined to indict her.

This is almost unheard of. It showed both the resistance from the public to charge her based on the evidence and the government’s determination to bring charges in this case.

Prosecutors ultimately charged Reid with misdemeanor assault of an officer, a lesser offense that doesn’t require going through a grand jury. Reid was acquitted of that misdemeanor charge at trial.

The Trump Administration’s Strategy

Critchfield and her Journal team found that the push to charge more people for assaulting federal officers — as happened to Reid — is an administration-wide strategy.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and her Department of Justice have pledged to prosecute these cases aggressively. From the very beginning of Bondi’s tenure, starting on her first day in office, she issued a flurry of memos, including one that encouraged prosecutors to aggressively investigate any instances of violence against law enforcement or obstruction of law enforcement.

Gregory Bovino, then the head of Border Patrol, directed his agents to arrest anyone who touched them. “Arrest as many people that touch you as you want to. Those are the general orders all the way to the top, everybody f------ gets it if they touch you. You hear what I’m saying?”

In addition to an increasing number of prosecutions, the Department of Homeland Security has been using social media to exaggerate these alleged attacks, often with a warning to the public: “Don’t be like this person. If you behave in this way, we will come for you.” And they have posted people’s pictures and their full names, seeking to make an example out of these people even before they’re convicted of a crime.

This happened to Reid. A week after she was arrested, her mug shot and name went up on the official ICE account on X, along with the fact that she’s based in Washington, D.C., and a post that said, “Assault an officer or agent get arrested. It’s not rocket science.”

ICE also publicly alleged that Reid assaulted federal agents on behalf of two alleged international gang members.

The Purpose of This Strategy

The Journal’s investigation makes clear that the purpose of this strategy has been to intimidate and silence Americans who might otherwise protest what ICE and Border Patrol are doing.

ICE publicly describes many of these protesters as rioters, agitators, thugs, and terrorists.

Here’s Vice President JD Vance speaking of Renee Good’s death:

“I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe against our law enforcement officers.”

And here’s then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on the death of Alex Pretti:

“This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism, that’s the facts.”

Renee Good was in her car when she was killed. Critchfield and her team found that federal government officials have accused 32 U.S. citizens of intentionally using their vehicles as weapons. DHS considers a vehicle to be a deadly weapon, justifying the use of force. Of those 32 drivers, only one pleaded guilty to an assault charge. Three had their cases dismissed; the rest were never charged.

TheJournal investigation found that in most cases where citizens were accused by the government, the outcome was similar to Reid’s.

181 citizens were accused by the government on X of attacking federal officers, but close to half of them were never even charged at all. When people werecharged, more often than not, the cases fell apart. Either they were acquitted or found not guilty at trial.

Fifteen people mentioned in government posts pleaded guilty before going to trial. Ten of whom pleaded guilty for lesser offenses than what the government initially charged them with.

Videos have often played major roles in contradicting the government’s case. Critchfield and her team viewed videos that repeatedly cast doubt on the government’s allegations. Protesters were often called violent rioters or professional agitators and accused of making physical contact in some way with agents, but video footage often showed immigration agents being the first to lay their hands on demonstrators.

TheJournal found that most of the government’s assault allegations against American protesters posted on X were unsubstantiated. Even federal prosecutors themselves acknowledged that in some cases, the evidence to back up these charges wasn’t there.

Federal prosecutors across the nation told Critchfield and her team that they are facing intense pressure to charge demonstrators and bystanders with crimes even when video evidence contradicts what officers initially claimed about what occurred, or in situations where they wouldn’t normally pursue federal charges.

The costs to those who are arrested are substantial. Even in cases where the person is exonerated, they must still deal with posting bail, securing defense attorneys, and taking days off from work to appear in court. In more extreme cases, people are doxed online and face death threats.

Reid says she’s been more hesitant about engaging in political speech, even though, as she put it, “Those are our rights as U.S. citizens and they’re being stifled.”

Conclusions

The Journal’sinvestigation concluded that:

“U.S. citizens are caught in the crosshairs of an aggressive government campaign to detain and demonize detractors, including by calling them terrorists, rioters, and agitators. The Department of Homeland Security, which was created in 2002 to protect Americans, has turned its force against U.S. citizens.”

By putting a public bull’s-eye on Americans whom the government accuses of assault, the Journal also found that the Trump administration is chilling First Amendment expression:

“People who had been accused publicly by the federal government of assaulting federal officers … are less likely to participate in protests and less likely to put themselves in situations where their name might be tracked…. There is a real pressure to crack down and send a message to people who the government views as perceived dissenters, even if video contradicts what agents have initially claimed happened.”

Again, let me remind you that this comes from The Wall Street Journal.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.}:

---

1021

The far right wing cable network One America News (OAN) is funded almost entirely by telecom and tech giant AT&T.

OAN, which is even more far right than Fox News or Newsmax, served as a mouthpiece for the Trump administration and is being sued in a $1.6 billion defamation case by Dominion Voting Systems. The extremist network regularly promotes far right wing conspiracy theories as it attacks Democrats and the left.

OAN, according to aReuters special report, is "at the center of a bitter national divide over politics and truth."

But it's how OAN got there that is disturbing for the AT&T brand.

"AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN," Reuters notes, adding: "Ninety percent of OAN's revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant."

AT&T, the world's largest telecom company and majority owner of DirecTV, has funneled "about $57 million" into OAN. The "news" network's founder and CEO, Robert Herring Sr., "has testified he was offered $250 million for OAN in 2019. Without the DirecTV deal, the accountant said under oath, the network's value 'would be zero.'"

"If Herring Networks, for instance, was to lose or not be renewed on DirecTV, the company would go out of business tomorrow," OAN lawyer Patrick Nellies told the court, a transcript shows.

How did a far right wing "propaganda machine," as The Daily Beast called OAN in 2019, come into being, seemingly overnight?

"They told us they wanted a conservative network," Herring said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters. "They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other [leftwing] side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one."

Numerous reports have documented OAN's lies, propaganda, and mistruths, yet despite – or because of – that, Reuters notes, over a two-year period "Trump touted the network, known as @OANN online, to his 88 million Twitter followers at least 120 times."

Read the entire Reuters report here.

---

http://documentedinvestigations.org/fullpage/fullpage-home/

buzzfeed and TDB lead on this:

[[[

---

a corp that hired pvt security, sold rights to another corp oann, which is being sued for libel but raising dark $ for audit?? ~ trans b/c proproetary, NDA's

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/arizona-audit-oan/

no twt

With devotees of former Present Donald Trump currently conducting a blatantly partisan audit of the 2020 election results in Maricopa County, Arizona, One America News Network has been offering glowing coverage of that event. Journalist Sarah Mimms, in an article published by BuzzFeed News on May 18, examines the connection between OAN employees and the audit — which was ordered by Republicans in the Arizona State Senate and is being conducted by the Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas, whose founder Doug Logan is a far-right Trump supporters who pushed the former president's false claims of voter fraud in 2020.

"Two reporters at One America News, a far-right TV station, are running a dark money organization that they say is helping fund a counter-reality 'audit' that former President Donald Trump and his supporters believe will overturn Arizona's 2020 election results in his favor," Mimms explains. "What's more, one of those reporters, Christina Bobb, is the network's most visible correspondent covering the very 'audit' that she is helping scare up money for on OAN's airwaves, while she and the network enjoy unique access to the process where private contractors and volunteers are searching for fraud and have examined ballots for nonexistent watermarks and 'bamboo fibers.' OAN has a deal as the exclusive livestream partner for the audit."

Bobb hosts a program on OAN called "Weekly Briefing," and Mimms points out that on April 9, she tweeted that she had founded a group devoted to promoting the audit: Voices and Votes. According to Bobb, the group raised $150,000 that day.

"According to its website," Mimms observes, "Voices and Votes is run by Bobb as the CEO and president, as well as OAN's White House correspondent Chanel Rion, who is listed as the chief marketing officer, and Courtland Sykes, Rion's fiancé, who is listed as the group's chief operations officer."[twt dANGEROUSLY UNDERFUNDED"

although the Maricopa County audit is being slammed as a joke by Trump's critics on both the left and the right, legitimate audits or recounts of the election results in Arizona have been conducted — and they showed that now-President Joe Biden won Arizona fair and square. Biden's Arizona victory was reported by the decision desk at Fox News on Election Night 2020 and was later certified by conservative Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.

Mimms explains why the current Maricopa County audit is a "farce," noting, "It's important to pause here and note that the audit itself is not really an audit at all. What happened is the Arizona Senate, which is controlled by 16 Republicans to 14 Democrats, sent a subpoena to Maricopa County — which was upheld by a judge, forcing the county to hand over 2.1 million ballots,as well as vote tabulators and a bunch of election data. The 'audit,' which is being run by outside contractors hired by the Senate, will have no force or effect on the 2020 election results; Joe Biden is president, andArizona already did an audit of Maricopa County in the presidential race and didn't find a single ballot discrepancy.The county itself, which is not involved in the current Senate audit either, also hired two independent firms to review its elections equipment in February, which came back clean as well."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

---

ref no pix twt

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sarahmimms/arizona-election-results-oan-reporters-fundraising

two reporters at One America News, a far-right TV station, are running a dark money organization that they say is helping fund a counter-reality “audit” that former president Donald Trump and his supporters believe will overturn Arizona’s 2020 election results in his favor.

What’s more, one of those reporters, Christina Bobb, is the network’s most visible correspondent covering the very “audit” that she is helping scare up money for on OAN’s airwaves, while she and the network enjoy unique access to the process where private contractors and volunteers are searching for fraud and have examined ballots for nonexistent watermarks and “bamboo fibers.” OAN has a deal as the exclusive livestream partner for the audit.

:{:{}:

Christina Bobb hosting her show Weekly Briefing on OAN pix]

Bobb has not made a secret of her work to keep that audit going. On April 9, she tweeted that she’d founded a group called Voices and Votes to help the Republican-led Arizona Senate complete its audit of the vote in Maricopa County. The group reached its $150,000 fundraising goal that same day,according to Bobb, and she’s continued soliciting money for the audit since, both on Twitter and on air.

According to its website, Voices and Votes is run by Bobb as the CEO and president, as well as OAN’s White House correspondent Chanel Rion, who is listed as the chief marketing officer, and Courtland Sykes, Rion’s fiancé, who is listed as the group’s chief operations officer. The group’s website also says that Voices and Votes is registered as a 501(c)(4) organization, meaning its donors will never be made public.

That also means that the group will never have to give an accounting of how much money it has raised or where that money actually went. Bobb did not respond when BuzzFeed News asked how much Voices and Votes has brought in, but insisted that all of the money raised “has gone to the auditors.”Cyber Ninjas, the firm leading the audit, and its CEO did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether it had received money from Voices and Votes.

twt]

it’s important to pause here and note that the audit itself is not really an audit at all. What happened is the Arizona Senate, which is controlled by 16 Republicans (to 14 Democrats) sent a subpoena to Maricopa County, which was upheld by a judge, forcing the county to hand over 2.1 million ballots, as well as vote tabulators and a bunch of election data. The “audit,” which is being run by outside contractors hired by the Senate, will have no force or effect on the 2020 election results; Joe Biden is president, and Arizona already did an audit of Maricopa County in the presidential race and didn’t find a single ballot discrepancy. The county itself, which is not involved in the current Senate audit either, also hired two independent firms to review its elections equipment in February, which came back clean as well.

On Monday, Maricopa County’s Board of Supervisors, which is majority Republican, wrote a scathing letter to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, calling the audit a threat to democracy and telling her to end it. “The Arizona Senate is not acting in good faith, has no intention of learning anything about the November 2020 General Election, but is only interested in feeding the various festering conspiracy theories that fuel the fundraising schemes of those pulling your strings. ... The result is that the Arizona Senate is held up to ridicule in every corner of the globe and our democracy is imperiled,” the board wrote.

But, as Bobb told her OAN audience a few weeks ago, the new Senate audit will “unravel the Democrats' schemes from 2020” and Trump “will determine our next House and Senate” — whatever that means. In the same segment, she backtracked slightly, saying that “maybe” the audit would show there was no fraud. “Maybe,” she said, laughing, “Biden legitimately won Arizona.”

Needless to say, no legitimate newsroom would allow its reporters to fundraise for an actual news event they’re covering. Nonetheless, Bobb has continued soliciting donations for Voices and Votes, actively fundraising to keep the story she is covering going. Bobb tweeted as recently as April 28 that the audit isn’t “fully funded yet” and asked followers to “please help get this audit across the finish line!” That weekend she dedicated segments of her Weekly Briefing show to her reporting from the audit and an interview with the Arizona Republican Party chair.

[twt]

after reaching her $150,000 goal, Bobb announced the group’s “second pledge,” this time without naming a monetary goal, tweeting, “Let’s get this audit funded!” with a donation link.

Just a week later, the Arizona Republican Party tweeted that OAN would be the exclusive livestreamer of the audit. The network now runs nine cameras 24/7 showing contractors examining the 2.1 million ballots. And Bobb herself has been there reporting on it for OAN the whole time, posting photos of herself alongside some of the architects of the audit and thanking those “true Patriots” for making it happen.

Bobb and OAN are getting access to the audit that no other news outlets have, reporters on the ground say. While reporters at other Arizona and national media outlets have had to rotate through a few select spots to cover the audit, Bobb and a writer with the Gateway Pundit, another pro-Trump outlet, are exempted from that pool. She reported live from the coliseum where the audit is taking place every day last week.

Bobb disputed that she and OAN had received any “special treatment” in an email to BuzzFeed News on behalf of Voices and Votes. While she acknowledged that she had different access than members of the Arizona press corps, she said her access to cover the audit depended on “availability.” “I have been denied access at certain times and had to go on different days or at different times,” she wrote. “I am not permitted to attend whenever I want.”

Bobb also noted that OAN is not “in any way” affiliated with her fundraising group “other than allowing me to mention my efforts on air” and said the network “has not received anything as a result of Voices and Votes' donations.”

“I have openly and honestly disclosed all my efforts on air, and have handled the funds exactly as I said that I would,” she said.

Rion did not respond to requests for comment. Fann, the Senate president, deferred questions about OAN’s access to former Arizona secretary of state Ken Bennett, who is serving as an audit liaison. Bennett did not respond to multiple requests.

OAN correspondent Chanel Rion asks then-president Donald Trump a question during a White House press briefing on April 6, 2020. pix ]

Bobb noted last week that Arizona senators won’t say what would happen if the audit does find “some type of fraud” — which won’t happen, because legitimate audits have already been conducted — and that senators have said this audit is about promoting trust in future elections, not about 2020. “They would not commit to saying that they would overturn anything, but they did say they were certainly taking a look at it,” she said, citing anonymous Arizona legislators.

OAN did not respond to requests for comment on the conflict between Bobb and Rion’s work for their network and their affiliation with Voices and Votes or whether the network has a conflict-of-interest policy.

The audit itself has so far been a farce, enough so that one of the Republican state senators who voted for it told the New York Times that in practice the audit is “ridiculous” and “makes us look like idiots.” At one point, workers were checking for any traces of bamboo in the ballot paper in a frankly stupid and racist attempt to test a conspiracy theory that thousands of illegal ballots were shipped in from Asia. They were shining UV lights on ballots for reasons that weren’t really explained by officials at the time but seemed to line up with a QAnon-adjacent theory that Trump’s Department of Homeland Security had watermarked real ballots so the Democrats’ fraudulent ones could be easily found. That prompted the Maricopa County Elections Department to publicly post a fact check: “There are NO watermarks on Maricopa County ballots.”

Then there’s the firm that the Arizona Senate hired to run the whole thing, Cyber Ninjas, owned by Doug Logan. As the Arizona Mirror reported, Logan repeatedly posted conspiracies about the election being stolen and falsehoods about Dominion Voting Systems on his since-deleted Twitter account. Logan is also the author of a three-page document of “election fraud facts” posted to former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell’s website intended for senators to use in explaining why they would object to the election results and try to give the White House back to Trump, the Mirror also reported. Logan, it's worth noting, stood behind the document in a statement to the Mirror.

His firm and three others are now paying contractors $15 an hour and bringing in volunteers to examine the ballots — among them was a former state representative who lost his 2020 race and was also filmed on the Capitol steps during the Jan. 6 insurrection. With the process taking way longer than expected, a big bill is coming and it’s unclear who is paying it.

The Arizona Senate only gave $150,000 in taxpayer money to the project, which they knew was a laughable sum for an election audit of this size, and is allowing Cyber Ninjas to raise the rest from whoever. And several prominent Trump supporters have stepped up. Former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who has peddled some of the more out-there election conspiracy theories, kicked in $1 million and has his own dark money group raising funds, per the Arizona Republic. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell told the Daily Beast that he had donated. And Lin Wood, an attorney who filed a bunch of lawsuits trying to overturn the election, told Talking Points Memo and confirmed to BuzzFeed News that his 501(c)(4) #FightBack had donated to Bobb’s Voices and Votes.

Meanwhile, reporters at other outlets who are not paying for the audit had to fight to cover it at all. At one point, the Arizona Senate told media that they could only have access to the audit if they signed up for at least five six-hour shifts as volunteer observers. To be clear, they wouldn’t then get to report on the audit, their only access under this plan was as workers for the audit they were trying to cover. And, the Senate said, they could not bring laptops or cellphones or even a paper and pen with them. “People observing even executions are allowed to bring their notebooks in with them,” Arizona Capitol Times reporter Julia Shumway, who has since covered the audit, told BuzzFeed News.

Shumway and her colleagues eventually did get press access to the audit, but only after the Arizona Mirror, the Arizona Republic, and the Arizona Broadcasters Association got lawyers involved. Now, reporters have to pool their resources with one print journalist, one videographer, and one photographer allowed into the audit at any given time, and they must be escorted, even to the bathroom, Shumway said. Meanwhile, Bobb and a reporter for the Gateway Pundit can report outside of the pool.

When asked about the discrepancy in treatment for OAN and the Gateway Pundit and every other news outlet, Fann told PBS that OAN was given livestreaming rights to the audit because “they have covered this from the beginning. They are one of the firms that came in right off the bat and said we will help do all the 24-hour video so everybody has access to this 24/7, that they wanted to be a part of it. So I don’t think that’s a bad idea. If there was another network had come up and said that first, we would have went with them probably.”

She later accused other, unnamed reporters of trespassing and said they had worried about too many members of the media “walk[ing] all over the place and tak[ing] pictures.” Asked if she had any similar concerns about OAN, she responded simply, “No, huh-uh. Nope.”

UPDATE

May 18, 2021, at 2:13 p.m.

The Arizona Mirror, the Arizona Republic, and the Arizona Broadcasters Association brought the legal fight to get reporters access to the audit. A previous version of this story was unclear on who led the legal effort.

---

https://www.thedailybeast.com/oan-host-christina-bobb-has-been-helping-rudy-giuliani-with-trumps-legal-efforts

as it seeks to overturn the election results and keep President-elect Joe Biden from assuming power, President Donald Trump’s legal team, fronted by lawyers such as Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and until recently Sidney Powell, has been operating out of a conference room at the 2020 campaign’s downsized headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

Aiding Trump’s so-called “elite strike force” team in that effort has been an on-air host at One America News Network (OAN), a vociferously pro-Trump cable-news channel that has been endorsed by the president.

---

omfg

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/9/28/cia_julian_assange_assassination_plot

yahoo isikoff

did the CIAunder the Trump administration plan to kidnap and assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during a shootout in London? That is one of the explosive findings in a new exposé by Yahoo News that details how the CIA considered abducting and possibly murdering Assange while he took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid being extradited to Sweden for rape allegations, charges that were dropped in 2017. More than 30 former officials say formerCIADirector Mike Pompeo was apparently motivated to get even with WikiLeaks following its publication of sensitive CIA hacking tools, which the agency considered “the largest data loss in CIA history.” Michael Isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News, lays out the plans and describes how the abduction plan “was one of the most contentious intelligence debates of the entire Trump era,” noting it ultimately spurred the Justice Department to fast-track its legal case against Assange. We also speak with Assange’s legal adviser Jennifer Robinson, who says the latest revelations should alarm American citizens, as well as journalists around the world. “This is the CIA talking about conspiracy to kidnap and murder an Australian citizen and an award-winning journalist and editor who has done nothing but publish truthful information.”

---

Christina Bobb chairs the Weekly Briefing on OAN. She’s also a lawyer by trade.And in recent days, she’s been spotted by several Trump officials at their office in the conference room with the rest of the president’s team. Her presence has caused a bit of confusion among actual campaign staff, who wondered if she was there to embed with the Trump legal “strike force” as a reporter.

But according to multiple knowledgeable sources, Bobb has actually been assisting the president’s long, long, long-shot legal effort—effectively taking on a secondary role as a pro-Trump lawyer even as she continues her job as a pro-Trump TV host.

“Christina is an attorney and has helped with some legal work in her personal capacity and not on behalf of OAN,” Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to Trump and his 2020 campaign, told The Daily Beast on Monday afternoon.

### The Year of Batsh*t at OAN, Trump’s New Favorite Channel

ONE AMERICA, UNDER TRUMP

Justin Baragona

Such an arrangement would be absolutely unthinkable in other newsrooms. But OAN’s editorial stance is so committedly pro-Trump that it almost, almost makes sense. Bobb certainly hasn’t hidden her feelings for the president or his current legal endeavors. Even when compared to the output of other OAN on-air staff, she has shown intense commitment to the premise that Trump actually won the election that he clearly lost.

Bobb’s Twitter feed is clogged with baseless claims of fraud and grand proclamations about Trump’s chances of overturning the election results and securing a second presidential term. During on-air segments, she has suggested that there was indeed a “massive amount” of voter fraud both in Trump’s election and potentially in others, including former Republican candidate Kim Klacik’s race in Maryland (she lost her race in a heavily Democratic district by over 40 percentage points).

In recent segments about the Trump campaign’s legal efforts, Bobb has not disclosed that she has been an informal consultant to those very same efforts.

During her weekend show, she interviewed Ellis—her current legal collaborator—about recent developments in the campaign’s challenges to election results in several states. But she did not note during the segment that she had any sort of role in the campaign’s legal fight. On Twitter, Bobb has cheered on the Trump legal team, even praising its performance in a press conference in which such wild conspiracies were spun about voting corruption that the president himself reportedly thought it too far fetched. Once more, she never disclosed that she has been working with that team.

Since Friday, Bobb has not responded to multiple messages seeking comment on this story. Reached by phone on Monday, network founder and president Charles Herring declined to comment on his employee’s activity with the Trump legal team, requesting The Daily Beast email him instead. He did not respond to an email.

Bobb’s cozy relationship with the president’s legal team may be the most brazen example of the cozy relationship Trump and his campaign have maintained with members of conservative media. But it’s hardly the first.

As The Daily Beast reported in 2018, the president has regularly consulted with Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs, who would call in to private Oval Office meetings and advise the White House informally on various policies. The president also regularly canvases his friends in conservative media about administration policy and messaging, phoning Fox News stars like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, and hosting Fox personality Laura Ingraham at the White House to advocate for the use of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19.

### Trump Campaign Disavows Its Own Election-Conspiracy Lawyer

NO LONGER OURS

Lachlan Markay

Other news networks have allowed their personalities to dip their toes into partisan political activity, though to varying degrees. During the 2020 election, CNN contributor Ana Navarro hosted a virtual fundraiser for Biden, a move that the network said did not violate their policies because she was not paid. High-profile on-air personality Van Jones also advised Jared Kushner on the police-reform executive order signed by Trump earlier this year.

To avoid conflicts of interest, news networks generally do not allow their on-air contributors to endorse or run for office or work on political campaigns or political action committees while appearing as a paid analyst. Over the past month, since Joe Biden’s election, MSNBC has cut ties with at least four contributors who have taken advisory roles in the president-elect’s transition effort.

But OAN stands out in its on-air fealty to Trump, even when compared to the standards observed by its competitors in pro-MAGA right-wing media.

Two days before Election Day, The Daily Beast asked OAN president Charles Herring if the network would call the election for Trump if the president, as he had planned to do, declared victory preemptively. Herring responded by messaging a lengthy statement that included, “OAN is a subscriber to the Associated Press’ Votecast data and Votecount elections results technology," and that for "Winner Projections," the network "will be utilizing primarily Associated Press’ Votecast data and Votecount." (The statement also references the “expert analysis” provided by “Christina Bobb, host of Weekly Briefing.”)

In propping up an alternate media universe in which Trump didn’t lose, OAN is ignoring its own system of data collection. The AP has long since called the 2020 presidential election for Biden.]]]

---

aha nb look at who on right grabs title: peter slimer schwizer, jok....

ggl srch 11/18

right conservative investigative journal

2015 wfb

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/03/washington-free-beacon-conservative-investigative-media/

619

Investigating the investigative reporters: Bad news from Down Under

Michael J. Socolow, University of Maine

An American media scholar studying in Australia looks at the protections offered by the two countries for investigative reporting, raising crucial questions about journalism's role in democracy.

House hearing to shine spotlight on Clinton Foundation

Posted By -NO AUTHOR- On 11/22/2018 @ 3:45 pm In APP Frontpage,Politics,U.S. | No Comments

Hillary Clinton at the American Federation of Teachers Union on July 13, 2018 (Video screenshot)

As they prepare to hand over the leadership of committees to the Democrats, House Republicans will hold a hearing into the Justice Department’s investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Hill.TV on Wednesday that U.S. Attorney John Huber, who has been working with the DOJ and the FBI on the the probe, will testify before the House Oversight Committee Dec. 5,the Daily Caller reported.

Meadows said Huber was tasked in part with investigating possible “improper activity” by the Clinton Foundation.

The allegations center on “pay for play” donations to the charity while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.

Critics, including investigative journalistPeter Schweizer, have presented evidence Clintons exchanged political favors for donations and pushed favorable policies to receive donations.

The New York Times reported Trump told his White House counsel earlier this year he wanted the DOJ to prosecute Clinton.

In March, Attorney General Jeff Sessions decided a special prosecutor was not needed to investigate Hillary Clinton regarding allegations the sale of Uranium One to a Russian state-owned company while she was secretary of state was related to donations made to the Clinton Foundation.

Sessions said Huber also was reviewing the allegations of Republican lawmakers that the FBI used the unsubstantiated anti-Trump dossier to obtain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign in 2016.

Meadows said in a Twitter message at the time that Sessions’ decision not to appoint a special counsel was “disappointing.”

“So the Obama DOJ can open a legally questionable investigation into the Trump campaign — allegedly based on a campaign volunteer mouthing off at a London bar — but this DOJ can’t appoint a second special counsel after all the troubling documents we’ve seen? Disappointing,” he wrote.

Schweizer, the author of “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” was the first to report nine foreign investors in the Uranium One deal gave $145 million to the Clinton Foundation. The New York Times confirmed in an April 2015 story Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation. The Times found that the Clintons, however, did not publicly disclose the contributions, despite an agreement Hillary Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors.

In addition, Bill Clinton received a $500,000 speaking fee from a Russian bank tied to the Kremlin in 2010, when Hillary Clinton opposed sanctions on Moscow. She reversed her position the following year.

Article printed from WND: http://www.wnd.com

URL to article: http://www.wnd.com/2018/11/house-hearing-to-shine-spotlight-on-clinton-foundation/

---

redemption?

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/17/60-minutes-trump-says-not-denying-climate-change

Davies, Climate Investigations Center. Originally posted on Climate Investigations Center.

Climate change is coming at Trump even as he tries like hell to avoid the subject. Record-setting hurricanes, Florence and Michael, have caused devastation across the southeast United States. Meanwhile, the grim UN IPCC “1.5 degree” report pushed climate scientists into the headlines last week while Trump was out and about, apparently unleashed, talking to media.

LStahl of 60 Minutes, got the first big sit down interview and went at climate change right off the bat.Pivoting off Hurricane Michael and the IPCC report, Stahl pressed Trump to answer straight questions about climate change.

This is the most Trump has been forced to say on the subject of global warming since his Rose Garden celebration announcing that the U.S. would exit the Paris climate agreement, where he managed to barely mention climate change.

Overall, Trump responds to Stahl’s questions with the typical denier tropes, which he likely learned from Rush Limbaugh, Myron Ebell, Marc Morano, and the Heartland Institute:

“Somethings changing and it’ll change back again.”

“And you don’t know whether or not that would have happened with or without man. You don’t know.”

“We have scientists that disagree with that [anthropogenic climate change].”

“But it [climate change] could very well go back.”

“But I don’t know that it’s [climate change] manmade.”

“They say that we had hurricanes that were far worse than what we just had with Michael.”

“You’d have to show me the scientists because they have a very big political agenda, Lesley.”

Trump also deployed a empty economic argument against taking action, one commonly used by deniers:

“I will say this. I don’t wanna give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t wanna lose millions and millions of jobs. I don’t wanna be put at a disadvantage.”

Read the full 60 Minutes interview transcript.

Deniers Would Rather Trump Said Nothing

Trump said a couple of things the deniers don’t really want him to say, including:

“I don’t think it’s a hoax” and “I’m not denying climate change.”

Joe Bast, former CEO of the Heartland Institute, and his climate denier kin are happiest when the President doesn’t talk about it at all. A year ago, Bast provided his reason for applauding the President’s silence, quoted and memorialized in the video below:

“The President has done a great job by not talking about global warming. The less the President talks about it, the less often it appears in news stories and on TV, the less often its going to be an issue. So, this is how big issues disappear.' Trump Questioned on Climate by Reporters in Georgia While Touring Hurricane Damage

Predictions for Hurricane Michael went from a predicted Category 1 on October 7 to making landfall at just below Category 5 three days later, surprising meteorologists and foiling predictive computer models.

While touring areas damaged by the massive storm in Georgia on Monday,reporters continued to press Trump on climate change and he continued trying to change the subject and inform us that he has “the cleanest air on the planet.”

...

---

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/heres-why-right-wing-attacks-real-journalism-are-so-dangerous-country

conasan defense

Karen Savage, an award-winning investigative reporter, did not expect to be arrested as she covered Energy Transfer Partners’ controversial construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline through Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin, a river swamp bigger than the Florida Everglades.

“We were on land that the pipeline company doesn’t even claim to have,” she said, adding that she had permission in writing from the property owner to be there. “I didn’t think there was really any risk at all.”

Savage, a freelance reporter who teaches at the City University of New York’s graduate school of journalism, has previously covered the BP oil spill and environmental justice issues. Truthout describes her as “embedded” with L’eau Est La Vie protest camp, which opposes the pipeline.

She now faces “critical infrastructure” trespass charges, as do over half a dozen others recently arrested near Bayou Bridge construction. These felony charges come under a newly minted Louisiana law modeled after “critical infrastructure” laws in other states, which have been criticized as efforts to criminalize oil and gas pipeline protests.

Louisiana’s first felony trespass arrests came on August 9, when three people kayaking through waters adjoining Bayou Bridge construction were charged under the new law, according to pipeline opponents who said the kayakers were paddling in public waterways. And three more people were arrested the same day as Savage, according to Truthout.

Early Monday morning, a Bayou Bridge activist who identifies as a “water protector” was tased and arrested after being forced from a “skypod,” a device similar to the tripods sometimes used in civil disobedience campaigns. That person was charged and held on $10,000 bail, according to a statement put out by local activists.

Like many who opposed Energy Transfer Partners’ Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota, Bayou Bridge opponents identify themselves as water protectors. Some of those opposed to Bayou Bridge have engaged in tree-sits as a form of civil disobedience.

Trespassing Near 'Critical Infrastructure'

Traditionally, trespass charges are relatively low-level crimes often punishable by little more than a fine.

The law turning trespassing — if it’s near “critical infrastructure” or construction sites for critical infrastructure — into a felony carrying a sentence of up to five years went into effect on August 1. It specifically amended the Louisiana criminal code to include oil and gas pipelines under the definition of “critical infrastructure,” and included “conspiracy” charges to enter or damage these sites with harsh penalties both in terms of prison time and fines.

Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the Bayou Bridge pipeline, supported the bill elevating “critical infrastructure” trespassing to a felony, a local ABC News affiliate reported in April.

Another ALEC Bill Now Law

The Louisiana law is similar to a bill pushed nationwide by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate-funded bill mill whose members include oil and gas companies like Chesapeake Energy and Continental Resources. Energy Transfer Partners has twice supported ALEC’s annual conferences, according to Sourcewatch.

Part of the reason that trespass charges are rarely serious is that it can be a complex legal issue to sift out who exactly owns a piece of land, especially if ownership is disputed. The owners of land where Bayou Bridge construction is currently underway have said that the company never obtained an easement or seized their property through eminent domain, meaning that they believe the construction is illegal.

Bayou Bridge opponents predicted that the bill would be used to target their campaigns — particularly if there’s a risk of being arrested for a felony even when you reasonably believe you are not trespassing.

“Clearly the purpose is to chill lawful dissent,” New Orleans-based environmental activist Meg Logue told The Advocatein April.

Other reports of police misconduct and the blurring of the lines between public officials and private security at Bayou Bridge sites drew a warning from lawyers from three prominent civil liberties organizations in late July.

Police stood by while company “[c]onstruction workers [used] chainsaws on the very trees these individuals are sitting in,” William P. Quigley, law professor and director of the Loyola Law Clinic; Pam Spees, senior staff attorney at Center for Constitutional Rights; and Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center wrote in a July 28 letter to Louisiana’s governor. “We also have reports that various state employees from the Department of Public Safety, Corrections, and Probation and Parole are working as private security in this matter.”

DeSmog has previously reported that legislatures in at least three other states have begun considering laws similar to ALEC’s model bill. So far this year, “critical infrastructure” bills have passed either the state House or Senate in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. Similar bills have also been introduced in states including Virginia, New York, Ohio, and Minnesota, and Colorado and Washington state have also considered related measures.

1970, Seymour Hersh won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on how the U.S. slaughtered more than 500 Vietnamese women, children and old men in the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. The event became known as the My Lai massacre. We speak with Seymour Hersh in New York City.

:{:{}:

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/20/remembering_the_my_lai_massacre_seymour

speechwriter for eugene mccarthy? pal of izzy stone

https://www.c-span.org/video/?438024-2/secrecy-world

wilbur paradise bank cyprus?

crypto: NB gop oppo research like james o'keefe style themsevles as investigators, and other buy it eg gop pol who sez shd get pulitzer (on acorn?)

killer whale motorcycle gangs are violating the truce, repost of cda post

http://www.realclearinvestigations.com/links/2017/06/21/alaska_killer_whales_are_shaking_down_fishing_boats_103533.html

in age of trump needed more than ever:

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/shocking-expose-reveals-trump-associates-isis-linked-vigilantes-are-attempting

AU koch http://www.american.edu/soc/news/20130715-Student-Journalists-Crack-Koch-Code.cfm

colbert interview last man standing; frontline long version (not accident ATI)

greenwald talk kpfa 7/22/13 10 am jane m says ir at "standstill" b/c of AP whistelblower; socialism 2013 conf mitch

great resource:http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/

The Investigative Reporting Workshop compiled a database of more than 4,000 entries to track the commonalities among people who work in the Koch ecosystem. We saw people move across multiple organizations that the Kochs donate to and discovered the same people serving on many of the boards of directors. For instance, Nicole Kurokawa Neily began as a Koch Summer Fellow, worked for the Cato Institute and FreedomWorks, wrote papers for Americans for Prosperity’s Illinois chapter and eventually became executive director of the Independent Women’s Forum. Until 2008, the forum was run by Nancy Pfotenhauer, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries.

---

Historical context:

Mark Feldstein in Poisoning the Press points out that early newspapers were party organs, often subsidized by printing fed docs p9 Thomas Jefferson partisans leaked sex scandal on Hamilton which led to Burr duel and others came back w/ Sally (page 9). Eventually press became commercial entities and journalism eventually professionalized, but Richard Nixon (with the help of Roger Ailes) adept at using press for propaganda, and Feldman claims deregulation began as a sop to get media to back off (they also pioneered the liberal press myth (Agnew "nattering nabobs of negativism," the "silent majority" is on our side) ITT telecomm.

Feldman: Jack Anderson had 70 million audience in his syndicated column, TV, radio, books and speeches p 5 In part because he was a victim of JEH's FBI using the tactics against him, he used eavesdropping, going through trash cans, some suicide b/c of his exposes;

Nixon and he also had a longstanding vendetta that stretched over decades, each perhaps driving the other to more extreme methods, with occasional truces borne of exhaustion, according to Feldstein. Began with Nixon stories on red bait 40's (a bit odd since Anderson was pals with McCarthy), exposed and drive WH scandals; Anderson had freedom b/c of syndicated column, and did not worry about bias p7 Anderson used bugging close to bribe and extortion p8

Nearly all of Nixon's setbacks could be linked to Anderson,

Checkers Speech 1952 slush fund

Howard Hughes $205,000 loan to brother never repaid.

psychotherapy, met with Elvis

1972 ITT $400,000, memo proved Nixon had intervened in an anti-trust action (mojo rev)

so Jack Anderson targeted for assassination by Nixon Admin. Colson recruited Liddy, so he and Hunt spoke with doctor who consulted on Castro hit; discussed LSD on steering wheel, in aspirin, finally Liddy decided on a fake mugging to stab him to death, called off by Colson (diverted to Watergate?) Colson never admitted, even when Anderson was on deathbed, and Anderson had offered to lend Colson money before the want to jail and subsequently had religious conversion). bush2 FBI tried to grab 200 boxes after Jack A death, prevented by family and public outrage on the left and right.

Bernstein and Woodward's heroic reporting on Watergate made modern investigative reporting iconic, but we had illustrious precedent in Ida Tarbell's book length expose on Standard Oil and Upton Sinclair's Jungle that helped establish the FDA. (ironically Uppie taken out by Nixon's Campaigns Inc, which later have us Kuwaiti incubators). [also Segretti and rat-fucking].

Though journalism effective and professionalized

However, the institutional support began to erode:

Investigative Journalism Center Saved from Eviction

Walker also vetoed a provision that would have evicted the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism from its offices at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and barred collaboration with university staff.

The Center receives no state funding, but has been housed at the university's journalism school because it offers students valuable training in investigative journalism -- and its hard-hitting investigative pieces have apparently raised the ire of Republican lawmakers. The last-minute eviction notice was slipped into the budget by an unnamed lawmaker, which many described as an attack on journalistic independence and may have been payback for bringing important stories to light, such as reports of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser choking fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. Even right-wing talker Charlie Sykes criticized the budget provision.

cf bigthink on gary webb

In honor of Hastings, here’s a quote from another truth crusader,Gary Webb. The Pulitzer prize-winning journalist lost his career and eventually committed suicide when his editors at the San Jose Mercury News refused to stand by his 1996 investigation proving that the CIA ran a crack-cocaine business. The Reagan administration essentially sold drugs to raise money for the CIA-backed Contras in Nicaragua. The classified program was responsible for an epidemic of addiction and had targeted poor racial communities in America. Webb’s fearless reporting was eventually vindicated by government investigations and other journalists, after his death.

Here’s what that experience of persecution taught Webb—a conviction that Hastings lived by:

If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me ... I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests. So how could I possibly agree with people like Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian, who were claiming the system didn't work, that it was steered by powerful special interests and corporations, and existed to protect the power elite? And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I'd enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn't been, as I'd assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job ... The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress...

---

rfk2:

fox fla jane akre and steve wilson 9 mos 83 drafts on bgh; fired, sued 425K damges

whistleblow overtuned b/c rule created by judges not legis/ 182 5 networks amicus

briefs, makes it ok to lie; jeb judge will rule? on whether reports must pay 1.7m

in legal fees!? 182

---

outsourced to online cooperatives

http://cironline.org/

---

crytpo: The Heritage Foundation, through its Center for Media and Public Policy, is hiring an Investigative Journalist to conduct original reporting on policy issues.

---

monanto killed fox bgh akre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JL1pKlnhvg0

---

bitter seeds