Posted on 03/25/2019 7:00:51 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
With the conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe now known to a significant degree, it seems apologies are in order.
However, judging by the recent past, apologies are not likely forthcoming from the responsible parties.
In this context, it matters not whether one is a supporter or a critic of President Trump.
Whatever his supposed flaws, the rampant accusations and speculation that shrouded Trump’s presidency, even before it began, ultimately have proven unfounded. Just as Trump said all along.
Yet, each time President Trump said so, some of us in the media lampooned him. We treated any words he spoke in his own defense as if they were automatically to be disbelieved because he had uttered them. Some even declared his words to be “lies,” although they had no evidence to back up their claims.
We in the media allowed unproven charges and false accusations to dominate the news landscape for more than two years, in a way that was wildly unbalanced and disproportionate to the evidence.
We did a poor job of tracking down leaks of false information. We failed to reasonably weigh the motives of anonymous sources and those claiming to have secret, special evidence of Trump’s “treason.”
As such, we reported a tremendous amount of false information, always to Trump’s detriment.
And when we corrected our mistakes, we often doubled down more than we apologized. We may have been technically wrong on that tiny point, we would acknowledge. But, in the same breath, we would insist that Trump was so obviously guilty of being Russian President Vladimir Putin’s puppet that the technical details hardly mattered.
So, a round of apologies seem in order.
Apologies to President Trump on behalf of those in the U.S. intelligence community, including the Department of Justice and the FBI, which allowed the weaponization of sensitive, intrusive intelligence tools against innocent citizens such as Carter Page, an adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign.
Apologies also to Page himself, to Jerome Corsi, Donald Trump, Jr., and other citizens whose rights were violated or who were unfairly caught up in surveillance or the heated pursuit of charges based on little more than false, unproven opposition research paid for by Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Apologies for the stress on their jobs and to their families, the damage to their reputations, the money they had to spend to hire legal representation and defend themselves from charges for crimes they did not commit.
Apologies on behalf of those in the intelligence community who leaked true information out of context to make Trump look guilty, and who sometimes leaked false information to try to implicate or frame him.
Apologies from those in the chain of command at the FBI and the Department of Justice who were supposed to make sure all information presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) is verified but did not do so.
Apologies from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court judges who are supposed to serve as one of the few checks and balances to prevent the FBI from wiretapping innocent Americans. Whether because of blind trust in the FBI, or out of ignorance or even malfeasance, they failed at this important job.
Apologies to the American people who did not receive the full attention of their government while political points were being scored; who were not told about some important world events because they were crowded out of the news by the persistent insistence that Trump was working for Russia.
Apologies all the way around.
And now, with those apologies handled — are more than apologies due?
Should we try to learn more about those supposed Russian sources who provided false “intel” contained in the “dossier” against Trump, Page and others? Should we learn how these sources came to the attention of ex-British spy Christopher Steele, who built the dossier and claimed that some of the sources were close to Putin?
When and where did Steele meet with these high-level Russian sources who provided the apparently false information?
Are these the people who actually took proven, concrete steps to interfere in the 2016 election and sabotage Trump’s presidency, beginning in its earliest days?
Just who conspired to put the “dossier” into the hands of the FBI? Who, within our intel community, dropped the ball on verifying the information and, instead, leaked it to the press and presented it to the FISA Court as if legitimate? Will anyone be held accountable?
Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) is an Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist, author of The New York Times best-sellers “The Smear” and “Stonewalled,” and host of Sinclair’s Sunday TV program, “Full Measure.”
Although this is heartfelt, it is misguided. This was a deliberate attempt to spread falsehoods and slanders in an attempt to nullify an election. It needs to be treated as such.
You realize next time is only 2 years away. These people could defraud their way into controlling the US presidency with a couple of idiot sock puppets like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Done 10 yrs ago right after obammy slunk into office.
Point being, apology is not enough.
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Exactly right. Its time for Trump to initiate a counter attack against this treasonous cabal and their allies in the media. He needs to DEMAND it.
If not now, then when?
Folks, cancel your cable subscriptions. Get a good antenna and stream your content.
Did 2 years ago. Why do people pay cable fees when EVERYTHING is on the internet available for streaming. Everything news,everything sports, Everything movies, and more.
We deserve to know WHY. From a foreign national this should have been a HUGE red flag. So was this a US plot or an international plot, and why this enormous elaborate scheme?
To me, Steele has always been the key.
Exactly who hired him? Exactly who did he talk to to write the dossier? Exactly who did he give the dossier to?
Steele knows everything. Steele is the key.
“We shall find out if Bill Barr is up to that task in short order.”
The IG report will be the determining factor on who gets indicted. If we get nothing more than Hillary is guilty for her role in her email server, and she is brought up on charges, I’ll be happy. After that it becomes who will she rat out.
And what next from these “ desperate” people? Do people with this much power go gently into the night?
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They are desperate to regain power. Its all about control, and to achieve it they will stop at nothing. That is why they must be exposed and harshly punished. That is the only way to have any hope of deterring future plotters.
biden and harris: Perversion and Whoredom.
It would be nice to get someone to confess exactly how much songbird had to do with this. It would be good for the “saint” image to meet the truth.
The daugher of McStain must know? Is it possible that she does not?
She wont shut up makes me think she may not know what her father did.
Freegards
“WHO are the individuals and groups who pushed this narrative?”
All started with Hillary, her water boy Mook and Podesta.
Christopher Steele testified in the UK, it was about giving her an attack position in case she lost the election.
You haven’t even heard that much in the media. Yet.
It’s coming and so much more.
My dream:
Trump holds a press conference and states he has already ordered a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of the lies that were presented against him and prosecute to the fullest all that were involved.
And why is it so personal with Steele?
Is he actually running a major cartel of intel spooks, past and present, who know how to manipulate compromised politicos, financiers , media types and other opinion makers.
The media was involved in creating this Russian narrative so they're not going to investigate their own lies.
I hope investigations are taking place behind the scenes and I hope when Trump has all the proof he needs he opens the flood gates on the media and everyone involved in the attempted coup.
It’s too easy to pin it on McCain and say it’s over. I want LIVE people frog marched. McCain is a piece of garbage but I want living and breathing people marched to jail.
Bookmark dat
Good question.
WHY was STEELE heavily invested in keeping Trump from becoming President?
Was this personal and if so why?
Was he in reality a front for a larger syndicate?
Christopher Steele IS THE KEY.
Uh, one of them is a dead American ‘hero’ who can’t be criticized...
I respect the lady but this is a boilerplate cowardly attempt at avoiding criticism. Is there someone without flaws? How about spelling out what bothers you as an individual instead of implying that there are a universally accepted group of flaws.
That phrase irritates me almost as much as the geniuses who say "Trump needs to...".
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