After even Sally Yates conceded that she wouldn’t have signed off on his surveillance if she had all the facts, I thought a trip down memory lane was in order.
You’ll recall that, once upon a time, we were told that Carter Page was actively colluding with the Russians because the FISA court and the FBI told us so.
All of those assertions have fallen to pieces, so I’m assuming we can get a follow up from @SpeakerPelosi?
Maybe @RepAdamSchiff, the chief architect of the Russian collusion fable, can provide us with an update?
Do you still believe that “the FBI acted lawfully and appropriately” even after the head of DOJ at the time said the opposite today under oath?
Any follow up about that memo, Congressman? Are you sure that the “FBI didn’t lie” and that it is a “false claim” to say that the “FISA process was abused”? Because former director Yates certainly doesn’t.
Really waiting with baited breath on @tedlieu because he was a clerk, you see.
@RepSwalwell is hot on the trail of stupid yet again.
And it wasn’t just the lower House. I have a feeling @SenJeffMerkley would like this one back.
And we’ve got bipartisan bullshit! Here’s @marcorubio who may wish he had this take back.
And our intellectual and moral betters in the media weighed in. Here’s @CillizzaCNN and @CNN, who may want to update what the “most important takeaway from the FISA release” is.
@MSNBC brought on myriad experts to explain why everything that has happened in the last two years related to FISA and Carter Page wouldn’t happen.
And it wouldn’t be a left-wing conspiracy theory if @JoyAnnReid wasn’t onboard.
And it wouldn’t be a Russian related conspiracy if @DavidCornDC weren’t involved.
I am as surprised as you are that @jonathanchait, who alleged that Trump has been a Russian asset since 1987, wanted in on this one, too.
Of course, the usual galaxy brain twitter power users weighed in, including Twitter’s most consistently wrong foulmouth @therickwilson.
He’s got me blocked so I hope someone can share this with him.
You’ve got to be almost impressed with @therickwilson’s propensity for predictive failure.
It wouldn’t be a thread if @JRubinBlogger didn’t find her way onto it.
Ditto for @SethAbramson, who also manages to shoehorn in the fabled Steele Dossier, which bears the distinction of having been even more fabricated than the FISA application against Page.
Speaking of, I would like to nominate this tweet by @funder for the Louvre.
I remain mistified at the testimony of my elders that, once upon a time, @tribelaw was taken seriously.
From the “the walls are closing in!” school of thought comes these tweets by @Amy_Siskind, who no longer seems so enamored with or interested in the story of Carter Page.
Curious.
Any follow up to the assertion that “there is still no reason to believe the FISA application for Carter Page was improper” @EvanMcMullin?
The people are wondering.
@JuddLegum, care to follow up on the notion that “there is no evidence anything was misused in the FISA court” related to Page?
Or, @NicolleDWallace, perhaps the reason @realDonaldTrump was at war with the FISA courts was that - stay with me here - they deserved the war?
The lesson here (as ever, with the Russian collusion narrative) is that maybe, just maybe, it’s worth a touch of caution, incredulity or reflection before jumping to the worst of conclusions, or taking a secretive, ill-intentioned process at face value.
Maybe next time.
I’ve done a few threads & I’ve got a few more coming but one thing is clear:
The ability of elected officials/those on the left & in the media to push a radical conspiracy theory, then have that conspiracy implode without any consequences or apologies, should terrify you.
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The biggest media story of Biden’s time in office is how the press covered up his cognitive decline…right up until he became a disastrous political liability for Democrats.
Wanna know why people don’t trust the corporate press? Look at these side by sides ⤵️
It’s stunning the pace with which the media narrative shifted.
In 3 weeks time, @washingtonpost went from blaming “cheapfake” videos misleading audiences as the cause of concern around Biden to a headline that even foreign officials were alarmed by Biden’s “accelerating” aging.
Where was the @washingtonpost for those three weeks between ‘four Pinocchios for this lie, we all know Biden doesn’t dance!’ to “Biden has slowed considerably over the last several months.”
The gov’t finally released pictures of Biden with his son Hunter’s business partners.
You may remember the corporate press alleging for years that there’s no evidence Biden had any contact with Hunter’s shady businesses.
I think some corrections are in order. ⤵️
For years, the corporate press ran cover for claims that President Biden wasn’t involved in Hunter’s unsavory business dealings, particularly with foreign governments.
That was all a sham.
I think @nytimes should correct the record now that we know their reporting is false.
If this story is worth reporting on — and it appears that @washingtonpost thought it was, at least when the narrative helped Democrats — then it should be worth following up when we get new information that makes clear the Post reported in error.
Biden’s pardoning of his son Hunter says an enormous amount about the president’s views of justice.
But it also says a lot about the willingness of the mainstream media—the nation’s noble fact checking corps—to repeat bogus claims that suit Democrats.
Remember? ⤵️
For starters, let’s revisit the coverage of how Biden wouldn’t do what he just did.
Biden said he wouldn’t pardon his son, no way. He would trust our legal system.
The media repeated it at every turn, without a shred of incredulity.
Here’s @washingtonpost
Seemingly every outlet did the same. @CNN had a couple of my favorites.
Look at the lede in on this first one.
The media’s job isn’t to simply repeat what politicians tell them. Whatever happened to “defenders of our democracy” and all that?
The news that MSNBC may soon have a new owner (and that it might be a certain X power user) compelled me to finally open my “MSNBC conspiracy theories” screenshot folder and, woo boy, there are a lot.
If you’d like to revisit them, buckle up, and follow along. ⤵️
There’s nowhere better to start than with Russiagate.
Do you remember the promotion from @chrislhayes, @MalcolmNance, @maddow and others at @MSNBC that perhaps Donald Trump was a Russian agent?
I, for one, will not be forgetting.
But there was plenty of other insanity from the gang at MSNBC about Russiagate.
Here are just a couple.
The first seems apropos with Trump again picking a cabinet.
Whatever happened to Harris and Biden’s “strongest economy ever” that the media spent so much time hyping up in the lead up to the election?
I revisit the claims, and explain why they were off the mark about the economy all along, in my latest @AmerCompass.
Quick🧵thread🧵⤵️
It can be easy, in the wake of an election, to forget just how dominant a media narrative was.
One that’s already fading from view was how “great” the economy was, and why it would benefit Harris on Election Day. americancompass.org/its-still-the-…
As a refresher, check out this headline from @axios about the data.
@YahooFinance upgraded Biden’s economic grade to an A. That captures the press sentiment at the time quite well.
In recent days, the mainstream media has taken nakedly ridiculous claims about the tattoos of @PeteHegseth, Trump’s SecDef nominee, to spin up a story alleging he’s an extremist.
It’s an egregious example of politically driven “journalism.” I unpack why. ⤵️
The story really started with @AP, who ran an article claiming that two tattoos that @PeteHegseth has have ties to extremism, citing an extremely thin (and downright suspect) report.
They used that to label him a potential “insider threat” in their headline.
It wasn’t until 3 paragraphs in that a reader was told what that claim rested on: a tattoo of a Latin phrase. They’d go on to mention “concerns” about a cross tattoo as well.