Want to know what it's like to deal with some journalists who "cover" the Intel and NatSec communities at the highest level, but actually serve more like mouthpieces of the permanent security state?
Here's a story about how wrong they can be without consequences.
Thread...
I was serving as Deputy DNI for Strategy & Communications in 2020, so during the height of election season. I was part of then-DNI @JohnRatcliffe's small circle of advisors and part of my job was handling reporter inquiries, particularly if they dealt directly with the DNI.
Oct. 16: @RepAdamSchiff suggest the laptop might be a part of a Russian effort to "smear" Biden.
Oct. 19: @JohnRatcliffe says there's NO intel to support Schiff's lie.
The press played it like it was a "battle." History has proven who was a liar & "politicized" their position.
Oct. 19, then-@politico reporter @NatashBertrand preps a story about 50 former Intel officials claiming the Biden laptop story is Russian disinfo.
I warn her that it is NOT and point her to Ratcliffe's statements.
She writes it anyway and gives Democrats the headline they want.
Oct. 27: @JohnRatcliffe warns the country in a primetime press conference that several foreign countries were seeking to influence the 2020 election.
Among those countries was Iran, whom Ratcliffe accurately noted was seeking to “damage President Trump."
Oct. 28: @NatashBertrand calls claiming @JohnRatcliffe "went off script" with his comments about Iran, the implication being that they actually weren't trying to hurt Trump.
She had two anonymous "senior officials" as sources.
I push back hard with two main points...
1. The intelligence was clear about Iran's intention to hurt Trump. The country's top counter-intel official had even called them out publicly months before. Here's his statement from Aug. 7, 2020, relaying the Intelligence Community's assessment of what Iran was up to.
2. How could Ratcliffe go "off script" when it's his script? We were still writing his remarks in the motorcade on the way to the press conference, right up until moments before he went on stage.
The whole angle of the story made no sense.
@NatashaBertrand said didn't care.
At this point I took the rare step of asking to speak to her editor, who was @blakehounshell, before the story published.
I explained to Blake what I outlined above, and reminded him that @NatashaBertrand had also been wrong about the Biden laptop.
It got a little heated...
At some point, exasperated that the truth didn't seem to matter when @NatashaBertrand was fixated on building a narrative, I snapped and said it was "garbage reporting."
@blakehounshell replied that I was a "garbage person."
And @politico published another misleading story.
March 2021, Biden's own Office of the DNI released the Intelligence Community's Assessment of foreign threats to the 2020 election.
As I'd told @NatashaBertrand and @blakehounshell back in 2020, they assessed that Iran sought to hurt Trump.
Proven right, again.
But @CNN hired @NatashaBertrand and the @nytimes hired @blakehounshell.
None of them -- Schiff, the former Intel officials who lied about the laptop...the journalists involved -- have ever admitted they were wrong.
And these headlines remains on @politico to this day.
/end
An update to this thread that will 🤯. The latest #TwitterFiles reveal that a month BEFORE the Biden laptop fiasco, the heads of Twitter/Facebook security + some top NatSec reporters participated in a simulation ("table top") exercise. You'll love this...
In this simulation, hosted by the @AspenInstitute, docs showing H Biden's shady business drop online. The docs appear to be real, but due to suspicions that foreign actors are behind it all, major news outlets announce that they won't cover the docs' contents! But there's more...
In the simulation, DNI @JohnRatcliffe says the IC has no intel suggesting it's a Russian op. BUT, Schiff says something ain't right here! And "sources inside the Intel Community tell Facebook to be wary about the DNI's statement." Can't make it up.
...But there's more!
The simulation continues with the Biden camp decrying it all as "dirty tricks by Putin," and another news outlet has sources saying CIA and NSA refused to sign on to Ratcliffe's statement.
...So...
It was just a simulation the month BEFORE the real Biden laptop fiasco, but it bears striking similarities to reality.
This atmosphere contributed to what actually happened, including social media platforms & news outlets suppressing the truth in favor of a false narrative.
If @JohnRatcliffe had not been so forthright in the moment and told the truth -- in spite of being smeared incessantly for it -- there would have been no factual counterweight to the Schiff/Biden/Media/Former Intel Officials' lies.
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