This story from Politico is journalistic malpractice. But it's more than that: it's a foreign influence operation meant to hurt the administration and one of our most effective members.

Notice how all of the people attacking Steve are on background? That means it's two or three deep staters who are angry that Witkoff has succeeded where they've failed.

The full quote from the UK's Jonathan Powell, one of the most respected national security people in the Western World, who defended Steve vigorously from these malicious smears.

The person who wrote this garbage is @felschwartz . Aside from the failure to include on the record information directly contradicting her reporting, I wonder if she ever asked herself why these anonymous sources came to her at this moment with this particular story. They have an agenda to blow up the president's efforts to make peace, and they saw her as a useful vessel to launder garbage into the conversation, truth be damned.

There are two possible explanations: Felicia is just not very smart, and allowed herself to be used by deep state con men. Or she's in on it, and used her position to willingly participate in a literal foreign influence operation. Either way, it's disgraceful.

To set the record straight: Steve Witkoff is an invaluable member of our team. He did not mislead anyone on what the Russians told him and what the Russians conceded. (Trust me, I've seen the intel.) The fruits of his negotiations are that we have narrowed the list of open issues in the Russia-Ukraine war to a set of clearly defined issues--specifically, security guarantees and territorial concessions.

Maybe we make peace, and maybe we don't. If we do, it will be because Steve Witkoff and the President of the United States worked their tails off, in the face of outright lies from the mainstream press.

Politico's @felschwartz - Just a ran a fictional smear job on Steve Witkoff that was strictly sourced to ANONYMOUS deep staters & foreign diplomats. They found room to run countless blind quotes attacking him, but couldn't find space to include Secretary Rubio defending him.

"we have narrowed the list of open issue .. to .. territorial concessions and security guarantees."

Duh. That's been obvious from the beginning.

It's also why "narrowing" the list of issues is not enough. If they want the war to end and not just a temporary pause the administration needs to make a proposal ultimately acceptable to both parties that both will find painful and push both sides (and not just Ukraine) hard enough to make it stick.

My impression is that both Trump and Witkoff, being businessmen, are treating this as some kind of business deal where an agreement can be reached by offering enough trade or monetary inducements to make it work. This is, of course, nonsense. The war is about the Ukrainians' refusal to submit to Russian despotism and the Russians' contempt for the Ukrainians as a "lesser people" who refuse to know their place. The war is costing both sides dearly in economic terms but it continues, so it's not economic issues they are fighting over.

With Modi kissing up to Putin and Xi, it could be that the US has now greenlit Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil infrastructure, as an oil facility in Rostov I think has been just hit with ATACMS. Or, they have lost the ability to restrain Ukraine because the Ukrainians have developed more of their own long-range strike capability.

This one is easy - Witkoff answers to Trump and Trump alone.

The President pays “zero” attention to anything the media spews out.

Ergo, Witkoff remains untouchable, and the VP uses the opportunity to further discredit the seditious press.

Seems like a win-win to me. Keep spilling your guts, Mr. Anonymous Source - you’re only digging your own graves.

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