WSJ: Musk's Twitter files shows real "disinformation" threat is America's former intelligence leaders

Hotair ^ | 12/05/2022 | Ed Morrissey

[SeekAndFind]

Point of order: Didn’t we learn that in 2013 when James Clapper perjured himself before Congress? And didn’t we learn that the American media enthusiastically facilitated that disinformation potential by hiring Clapper and former FBI executive Andrew McCabe after getting fired for lying to investigators? Among dozens of others?

We did indeed, but the editors of the Wall Street Journal want to underscore that point in the release of Twitter’s files on the Hunter Biden laptop story. They also note the media’s complicity in promoting this “disinformation,” even in the face of independent corroboration:

Recall that former Democratic intelligence officials James Clapper and John Brennan led the spooks in issuing a public statement suggesting that the laptop may have been hacked and its content was Russian disinformation. On Oct. 16, 2020, Mr. Clapper told CNN that “to me, this is just classic textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work.” On Oct. 19, 51 former spooks released their statement claiming that the arrival of the emails “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” (The statement and signers are published nearby.)

We now know that the Clapper-Brennan claims were themselves disinformation and that the laptop was genuine and not part of a Russian operation. CBS News recently waddled in two years later with a forensic analysis of its own and concluded it is real.

But the claims by the spies gave an excuse for the media to ignore the Hunter Biden story and even to dismiss Hunter’s former business partner, Tony Bobulinski, who went on the record before the election to confirm much of the content on the laptop with documentation in the form of voluminous text messages.

We examined those messages ourselves at the time, and our Kimberley Strassel spoke with Mr. Bobulinski and put it all on the record before the election. We also wrote an editorial. But nearly all of the rest of the press ignored or trashed the story.

One could almost forgive such a snap judgment in the moment, except for the fact — as the WSJ’s editors point out — that independent corroboration was available at the same time. Bobulinski spoke out repeatedly to verify the e-mails about Hunter’s business transactions were genuine. and the photos and videos spoke for themselves. Yet it took eighteen months for the New York Times to grudgingly report that the laptop and its materials were not “Russian disinformation,” and weeks after that for other media outlets to follow suit.

Here’s a thought: perhaps news orgs should rethink the idea of hiring ex-intel leaders as “analysts.” Especially those who have already demonstrated a predilection for lying, either in public or during investigations. If media outlets are interested in actual news and analysis rather than sef-serving spin, that is.

Clearly, they have something else in mind.

The real disinformation threat didn’t turn out to be the laptop or the Russians. Strictly speaking, it’s not even the political hacks who left the intel community to peddle their manipulative crankery on television. It’s the media outlets themselves who hired perjurers as analysts and then pushed their perjury as truth through one national election and almost through another.

[No name given]

I take it these are the folks who accused Donald Trump of colluding with the Russians.

[texas booster]

And what was the punishment that Clapper received for lying to Congress, under oath?

I believe that it was a promotion and increased federal pension.

[pollywog]

bump

[joshua c]

obama never fired anyone for lying

cuz they were doing his bidding

[Basket_of_Deplorables]

The corrupt FBI interfered in the Presidential Election. Threw it to Biden.

Read that again, slowly.

THAT’S the take away!!!

The FBI interfered in the election, period.

Bigger scandal than the entire Russia Collusion lie ops. And that was the biggest ever, in America’s history.

The FBI threw the election to Biden!!!!!

They read Rudy’s emails (illegally), found out he gave the Hunter laptop info to Miranda Devine (NY Post), read her emails, knew exactly when the story would drop. Right before, the FBI told twitter, FB, etc., to be on the lookout for a hacked Russian October surprise.

And they shut it down completely. Tanked the story. Banned people who shared it.

Then the FBI and IC did the “53 former IC hotshots sign the letter, laptop is Russian disinfo!” scam, the second phase in this treasonous ops.

The FBI and IC threw the elcetion to Biden, period. And got caught!!!!

And everyone is starting to realize it.

[Delta 21]

Nothing gets past these guys!

[sauropod]

Don’t forget about Schiff.

[Travis McGee]

I built this up face by face during 2017.

This is the April 2018 version. Note James Baker at bottom.

None of these coup plotters has spent a day in jail.

So let's face reality. We have a fake democratic process. All of the power is in the hands of the same deep state actors, no matter who occupies the White House. Biden was a perfect empty vessel for these actors, who can control and misrule the country for their own benefit without leaving any fingerprints.

Our sham elections are just a "red vs. blue" scrimmage our bosses let us play to maintain the fiction that we are still a free country.

[Clutch Martin]

In the Intel ‘parlance’ disformation is not called conspiracy theory. However they are experts at conspiracy theories by using disinformation as that tool.

Between the intelligence agencies and their components in the military there are a lot of intelligence analysts and former intel analysts out there.

I’ve always thought that when reading conspiratorial theories on blogs a number of the plausible originated from Intel workers retired or otherwise who enjoyed the activity and continue to practice it in public forum.

It was just a thought I had at one point when reading a lot of material and opinion that was very technical and demonstrated signs and markers of Intel experience. Or that an actual governmental disinformation office was in existence.

[bdfromlv]

congress gave themselves immunity from prosecution for libel and slander while in office

[Liz]

Obama / Govt in Exile——Ran Covert Operations:

<><>recall that Biden family corruption was the worst kept secret in Washington,
<><>this threatened to derail Biden’s third try
<><>aggressive steps halted media coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop from hell
<><>whose shady extensive overseas business arrangements profited the family.

<><>Biden deputy campaign mnger Kate Bedingfield, currently WH comm/director sprung to life,
<><>in 22019 she blasted the NYT’s quasi-critical piece WRT Hunter’s multimillion dollar paycheck from Burisma
<><> and his vp father’s try to stop the Ukrainian govt’s inquiry into corruption, calling it a “baseless conspiracy theory.”
<><>In a scorching memo to the media in Jan 2020, Bedingfield and Antony Blinken instructed reporters about how to cover Trump’s (correct) allegations regarding VP Biden’s successful demand in 2015 to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma.
<><>“[To] artificially prop-up these egregious lies based on the ‘principle’ that if partisans make accusations, they have to be treated as legitimate regardless of the facts, is to make you an enabler of misinformation,”
<><>Bedingfield and Blinken warned, Reporters who did not follow their demands were guilty of “malpractice.”

[Liz]

Keep in mind

“Lunchbox Joe”” is not the grinning hapless everyman he shows to us peons but he isse
(1) a devious, calculated shyster who will do any thing to win with
(2) his obsessive fixation on manipulation of facts
to hide his ne’er do well family from public scrutiny.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

All of them were fools, Russian dupes or stooges, incompetents or fascist/marxist traitors. Remember, three of Steele’s sources were Russians, and I don’t mean in a hurry.

No Russian who becomes a source to a known top British M16 counter-intelligence is making contact just by chance. Steele should have known this.

Comey, Clapper, McCabe, Strzok/Page, Sussmann, Weissman etc should be charged with treason or at least Sedition. They are traitors and must be punished as such, along with their agency accomplices.