Timothy Birdnow

Here is an informative work at The Federalist about the journalists who have been bought to push the Russian collusion meme. The supposedly conservative Wall Street Journal is at the heart of this fake news.

Below is a brief excerpt:

Court filings released last monthby the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence suggest growing evidence of a pay-to-publish scandal that may shake large parts of the Washington press corps.

At the center of the controversy is the Washington DC-based communications shop Fusion GPS, which assembled and distributed the so-called "Steele dossier.” It’s named after former British spy Christopher Steele, who is believed to have authored the document alleging that Donald Trump and members of his campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. Steele acknowledges that some of the dossier’s information is sourced to Russian officials, including a "top-level intelligence officer.”

In its other Russia-related work, Fusion GPS engaged in a media campaign opposing a law targeting foreign nationals across the globe for human rights abuses. In its advocacy against the Global Magnitsky Act, a worldwideextension of the U.S. legislation imposing sanctions on Russian officials and other figures associated with the Russian government for their involvement in the detention and death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Fusion GPS mirrored Kremlin talking points.

Now the court filing from the U.S. district court for DC shows that Fusion GPS paid several journalists, including three who reported on "Russia issues relevant to [the committee’s] investigation,” the House Intelligence Committee said in a court filing.

The story starts at the Wall Street Journal, which is taking fire from the rest of the profession, plunging the paper into what some have described as a civil war between its traditionally right-wing editorial page and left-leaning news desk.

"I don’t know a single WSJ alum who’s not agog at where that edit page is heading,” tweeted former Wall Street Journal reporter Neil King, reacting to a Journaleditorial calling for the firing of Robert Mueller. "WSJ edit page has gone full bats–t, now hosting an op-ed suggesting Trump pardon everyone, including himself,” tweeted former high-ranking Wall Street Journal editor Bill Grueskin, now a professor at the Columbia School of Journalism.

When the Journal’s Kimberley Strassel wrote on the editorial page that plenty of bombshells are to come in the Trump-Russia narrative—about the FBI, the Democratic National Committee, and Fusion GPS—Journal alums told Politicoreporter Jason Schwartz that was all crazy talk. The real story, they suggested, was that News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch had whispered in Journal editor Gerard Baker’s ear that the paper better support Trump or else.

The Journal took the unusual step of responding to the Politicoarticle, chastising the publication for omitting key details—like the fact that King is now employed by Fusion GPS. "Mr. Schwartz,” the editorial continued, "also failed to point out that Mr. King’s wife, Shailagh Murray, also a former Journal reporter, worked in the Obama White House. Perhaps Mr. Schwartz understands that this kind of political incestuousness is so routine in Washington that even to mention it would get him drummed out of the club.”

That is, the Journal suggested the Politico writer was in on a game whose major players include Fusion GPS and Democratic operatives like Murray, in which the press’s role is to credential the fruits of Fusion GPS’s oppo research as legitimate news stories.

"Our reporting on Fusion GPS is unrelated to where its employees used to work,” Wall Street Journaleditorial page editor Paul Gigot wrote me in an email. "We think the story of Russian meddling in the 2016 election is important, and where we differ with the rest of the press corps is that we think the story of Fusion’s ties to Russia and the Steele dossier, as well as the dossier’s influence on the FBI, are also important to investigate. Let’s get the full Russia story.”

Keep reading...

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:07 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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