The Washington Post has published an article claiming that, during a meeting with the Russian foreign minister last week – a very well publicized meeting media were made fully aware of – President Trump gave away highly classified intelligence information.
The basis for this story? An “unnamed ally”.
Huh? That’s it? That’s the sum total of what this article is based on? “We can’t tell you who told us but someone did, and the sky is falling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling….”?
In case you are interested in the Trump administration’s response – which I sort of hope you are – here it is, as voiced by National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster:
“The story that came out tonight, as reported, is false….the President and the Foreign Minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation. At no time, were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.”…”I was in the room. It didn’t happen”.
So what we have here is a story, by an avidly Trump-hating newspaper, without a checkable source, that is directly denied by a member of President Trump’s staff who was in the room at the time it was supposed to have happened.
Is this a story? Yes. A he said/he said story. Very worthy of further investigation.
Is it an earth shaking “Now we gotcha” exposé, that should have us quaking in our boots? Is there anything conclusive in any way? No.
But mainstream media, today, are treating it like the single greatest security breach since Washington mentioned to the Redcoats “Gee, I think I’ll hang out at Valley Forge this winter”.
The tone of reporting by the major networks and other mainstream media seems geared to creating panic in the streets.
Here’s juyst one example: the Today Show “report” this morning.
Please use the link and see/hear White House Correspondent Peter Alexander ominously inform us that that General McMaster’s denial lasted “less than a minute”… as if specifically stating it was false, specifically outlining what was discussed and specifically stating about the transfer of classified information that “I was in the room. It didn’t happen”, somehow played second fiddle to the amount of time taken to say it.
Then, NBC cited what it apparently considered the irony of Trump lashing out at Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified emails – four years’ worth that was on a personal server anyone could have hacked (and you can bet that’s exactly what happened), which NBC and the other networks, and the Washington Post, New York Times, etc. desperately tried to downplay throughout last year’s campaign.
Yep, that was nothing. But this one report from an unnamed source? That’s the big one.
Oh, and did I mention the report also informed us that three different Republicans were troubled by this?
If that were true – i.e. if numbers of Republicans believed President Trump was giving away classified secrets and were so troubled by his behavior they were willing to go public – it truly would be a big deal.
But this is NBC “News” and the Today show. With that in mind, let’s see what the three Republicans actually said?
-Senator Lindsey Graham: “I don’t know if it’s accurate or not. If it’s accurate it would be troubling”
-Senator John McCain: “It’s disturbing, and let’s find out what the details are, whether it actually happened or not”
-Senator Bob Corker: “Obviously they’re, you know, downward spiral right now and they’ve got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that’s happening”
What is this? What did they actually say (as opposed to what the NBC report was trying to convince us they said)? We have
-Lindsey Graham saying it would be disturbing if it happened (I couldn’t agree more),
-John McCain saying the accusation is disturbing, while pointing out that we do not know if it is true (I couldn’t agree more), and
-Bob Corker talking about a downward spiral of some kind which seems to be a general comment, not at all specific to this incident, which cannot be assessed without the context of what he was referring to.
For the record, the lead-up to that quote – the part NBC didn’t show us, was Senator Corker saying “The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order. It’s got to happen.” – which suggests that Senator Corker was not talking about the claim about highly classified information being disseminated, but about the White House operating in a helter-skelter, uncontrolled manner. I couldn’t agree more.
That’s it? That’s the big deal?
Bottom line: As well all know, Donald Trump is despised by mainstream media. And he despises them right back. That means it is very difficult to take whatever the mainstream media who despise him say about Mr. Trump and his presidency at face value…
…and this farcical build-up of the Washington Post’s unreferenced accusation – which may well be a non-story -as the holy grail, is a case study in why.
