For the better part of a year, the New York Times – along with a number of other media venues, has tried to convince the public that there was some kind of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign to steal last year’s election from Hillary Clinton.
To this moment no actual evidence of collusion has been found – a fact that would have killed this “story” a long time ago…if The Times were not functioning as an organization of Democrat hatchet-men instead of a neutral news venue.
In the course of pursuing this non-story, The Times, and other similarly intended “neutral” media, have had to backtrack on a number of claims. Most recently, The Times had to retract the lie that 17 intelligence agencies concluded Russian hacking took place – a lie that was told relentlessly for months and indelibly etched in the public’s minds before a retraction was made.
That is the essence of yellow journalism.
And now, today, desperate to retrieve its reputation, and desperate to do so in a way that makes its shameful behavior of the past months look more credible, we have this – excerpted from Jo Becker, Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman’s article:
Two weeks after Donald J. Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination last year, his eldest son arranged a meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan with a Russian lawyer who has connections to the Kremlin, according to confidential government records described to The New York Times.
The previously unreported meeting was also attended by Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, as well as the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to interviews and the documents, which were outlined by people familiar with them.
While President Trump has been dogged by revelations of undisclosed meetings between his associates and Russians, this episode at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, is the first confirmed private meeting between a Russian national and members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle during the campaign. It is also the first time that his son Donald Trump Jr. is known to have been involved in such a meeting.
Representatives of Donald Trump Jr. and Mr. Kushner confirmed the meeting after The Times approached them with information about it. In a statement, Donald Jr. described the meeting as primarily about an adoption program. The statement did not address whether the presidential campaign was discussed.
American intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian hackers and propagandists worked to tip the election toward Mr. Trump…
Take a good look at what you just read. Read it again. Note the effort to insinuate something ominous happened there. Then tell me what it is.
You can’t, can you? The only thing this says is that there was a meeting between Donald Trump’s son – NOT Donald Trump himself – that Trump made no effort to hide when asked about (don’t you try to hide what you don’t want other people to know about), and said the meeting had to do with Russia’s adoption policy.
And I love that “American intelligence agencies have concluded” line. Now, instead of the bogus, debunked claim that 7 agencies made the conclusion, it’s just some unspecified number.
In reality, the “conclusion” was an OPINION, rendered by several Obama appointees. No evidence/proof of any kind was offered. But – surprise, surprise – no mention of that fact in the Times article.
So what are we to make of this article? Does it have any meaning at all? After all, there was a meeting.
Before you answer, please read this excerpt from Sara A. Carter and John Solomon’s article at circa.com:
Shortly before his father was formally nominated for president last summer, Donald Trump Jr. was approached by a Russian lawyer who set up a meeting to discuss a Russian policy, according to interviews with Trump family lawyers.
President Trump’s eldest son briefly gathered others for the meeting, including his brother-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as then-presidential campaign manager Paul Manafort for the meeting at Trump Tower in New York City with the lawyer, identified by Trump family lawyers as Natalia Veselnitskaya.
Veselnitskaya used the meeting in June 2016 to have a conversation about a U.S. law called the Magnitsky Act that Russia leader Vladimir Putin reviles and has retaliated against by blocking U.S. adoptions of Russian children.
The encounter was short and the Trump team had no further contact with the woman or the policy issue, lawyers said.
The meeting was recently disclosed to congressional investigators by one of the attendees, according to sources directly familiar with the disclosure.
President Trump was not aware of the meeting and did not attend it, according to the lawyers. A translator and an American businessman working for a pro-Russian business lobby also attended the meeting, which lasted about 20 minutes, according to the interviews.
President Trump was not aware of the meeting and did not attend it, according to the lawyers. A translator and an American businessman working for a pro-Russian business lobby also attended the meeting, which lasted about 20 minutes, according to the interviews.
If this is true, then the Times’ big scoop, its attempt at constructing a smoking gun, is based entirely on information that was already out there, because it was given to investigators by one of the attendees. Not hidden. Not obscured. But given. Is that what you do when you’re trying to hide something?
And, if the Trump people’s suspicions are correct, the meeting itself was set up as what amounts to a dirty trick by the Clinton campaign.
A dirty trick by the Clinton campaign? By people like Hillary Clinton? John Podesta? Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Who would ever think such a thing could happen?
If today’s New York Times is trying to prove something, it has succeeded. The Times has proven that, as low as it has sunk in an effort to torpedo Donald Trump’s presidency, it is perfectly willing to go lower.
Congratulations, guys. I was skeptical that could be accomplished, but you proved me wrong.
This is rich.
The statement did not address whether the presidential campaign was discussed.
Two sentences before that one they say.
Representatives of Donald Trump Jr. and Mr. Kushner confirmed the meeting after The Times approached them with information about it.
So why didn’t they ask them about “whether the presidential campaign was discussed” when they approached them???
according to confidential government records described to The New York Times.
So again we have a new’s story based on confidential documents described to the paper. They didn’t even see the documents. I guess that protects them from the embarrassment of what happened to Dan Rather using forged documents for proof. If they don’t have the “documents” they don’t have to show them.