https://tinyurl.com/tu44spm
In the middle of Russia fever, the liberal press took a hectoring tone to any outlet that showed a glimmer of doubt. How dare any journalist not believe that President Trump is an agent of Vladimir Putin! Who would question the upstanding virtues of the FBI?
Of course, we now know that the conspiracy theories were wrong. There was no Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.
And, moreover, the inspector general report proves that the FBI trampled over civil liberties and common sense in pursuit of the case. While idle conversation during a meeting with George Papadopoulos and an Australian official may have sparked the inquiry, Crossfire Hurricane, it was only because of outlandish gossip in a Democrat-funded opposition report, the Steele dossier, that the FBI was able to land a surveillance warrant for Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Even as the agency found that Steele’s sources did not back up the dossier, that facts did not back up the dossier, they continued the red scare. When it came out that Page was an informant for the CIA, an FBI lawyer lied about it.
Every suspicion of FBI agents was leaked to the press and printed without skepticism. Few questioned their methods.
It is only now that the New York Times begrudgingly publishes an “analysis” that, oops, maybe this was “A Disturbing Peek at U.S. Surveillance.”
Forgive us, then, for the sense of déjà vu when it comes to the impeachment hearings. This time, the press is near united in arguing that you shall not question the narrative of how this whole thing got started. Don’t you dare name the whistleblower. Don’t ask how Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) might have helped him write his complaint. Or even that Schiff is lying when he says he doesn’t know who the whistleblower is. Or why Schiff is subpoenaing the phone records of his colleagues.
This is the same Schiff, by the way, who in 2018 said that the Department of Justice’s warrants for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISAs, met “the rigor, transparency and evidentiary basis needed.”
Schiff had the same information as Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who found the exact opposite. So we know Schiff is a liar.
Two years from now, will we find out the real story? It may not change either side’s view of impeachment, but isn’t that what the press does — try to find the truth?
The whistleblower is most likely CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella.