Thread by @aaronjmate

New: The US media's Russiagate reckoning goes far beyond the Steele dossier. Here's a list of five Pulitzer winners from the New York Times & Washington Post that also relied on dubious sources and falsehoods to push the Trump-Russia conspiracy narrative:
realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/…

1) A Feb. 9, 2017 Washington Post article claimed that Michael Flynn had held "explicit" discussions with Russia's UN Ambassador about US sanctions.

Transcripts of the calls, released in May 2020, showed this was false. Sanctions were in fact only mentioned once, in passing.

The Flynn transcripts did show that there was a more extensive discussion about a separate action, *expulsions*.

But the Post's sources said the references to sanctions were "explicit", and that Flynn even made a "potentially illegal signal" of a future "reprieve."

In response, the Post acknowledged that the Feb. 9, 2017 story conflated "sanctions" w/ "expulsions" -- but claimed that this was "appropriate."

Except an earlier Dec. 29 2016 Post story, linked in Feb story's 2nd graf, makes a clear distinction between expulsions and sanctions.

2) A Feb. 14, 2017 Times article reported that "phone records and intercepted calls" show that Trump campaign members and associates "had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election."

Comey testified that the story was "not true." Mueller report contained no evidence of any such contacts. Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who opened Trump-Russia probe, wrote that "we are unaware of ANY Trump advisers engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials."

The Times has not only failed to retract this story but it's even claimed that subsequent claims "confirm" it. The basis for that: evidence-free, factually challenged claims of a Senate Intel report and a Treasury press release about one person, Konstantin Kilimnik.

3) On Dec. 30, 2017, the Times reported that the FBI opened the Trump-Russia probe in 2016 after hearing that a low-level campaign volunteer, George Papadopoulos, had told an Australian diplomat that Russia had "political dirt on Hillary Clinton," including "thousands of emails."

The implication was clear: the FBI got a credible tip that
the Trump campaign had specific knowledge of the alleged Russian hack of DNC and Hillary Clinton emails later published by Wikileaks. But all involved -- including the FBI's own docs -- dispute this account.

Alexander Downer, the diplomat who relayed the tip, said Papadopoulos had never mentioned "dirt" or "thousands of emails" - he "didn’t say what it was."

FBI doc that opened the Trump-Russia probe confirms Downer's vague account. Downer said Papadopoulos had "suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist." Nature of this "suggestion" was "unclear" -- no mention of dirt or emails.

4) As Pulitzer-winning media outlets relied on anonymous intelligence officials to fuel innuendo about Trump-Russia collusion, they turned to these same sources to imply that a compromised president was unwilling to confront the existential threat of "Russian interference."

"Doubting the intelligence, Trump pursues Putin and leaves a Russian threat unchecked" was the headline for a Pulitzer-winning Post story on Dec. 14, 2017.

"To Sway Vote, Russia Used Army of Fake Americans", the NYT declared in a Sept. 8 2017, also a winner of the Pulitzer.

Because "Trump continues to reject the evidence that Russia waged an assault on a pillar of [US] democracy", the Post said, he has "impaired" the "response to a national security threat." An ex-CIA chief "described the Russian interference as the political equivalent" of 9/11.

In the Times, Scott Shane described what he called "an unprecedented foreign intervention in American democracy" by "a cyberarmy of counterfeit Facebook and Twitter accounts" from Russia.

But putting aside whether it's appropriate to describe bots & hackers this way, there's a deeper problem: Shane has no idea if they're even Russian. These social media actors are only only "suspected Russian operators" that "appeared to be Russian creations," he quietly concedes.

And for all of the space they devoted to fear-mongering about Russia's 9/11-level "cyberarmy", the Post & Times have not found time to even mention countervailing evidence, e.g. Crowdstrike's CEO admitting that his firm "did not have concrete evidence" of Russian email hacking.

realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/…