The Deep State Goes to War with President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer Glenn Greenwald https://theintercept.com/2017/01/11...-elect-using-unverified-claims-as-dems-cheer/ short excerpt THERE IS A REAL DANGER here that this maneuver can harshly backfire, to the great benefit of Trump and to the great detriment of those who want to oppose him. If any of the significant claims in this “dossier” turn out to be provably false — such as Cohen’s trip to Prague — many people will conclude, with Trump’s encouragement, that large media outlets (CNN and BuzzFeed) and anti-Trump factions inside the government (CIA) are deploying “Fake News” to destroy him. In the eyes of many people, that will forever discredit — render impotent — future journalistic exposés that are based on actual, corroborated wrongdoing. Beyond that, the threat posed by submitting ourselves to the CIA and empowering it to reign supreme outside of the democratic process is — as Eisenhower warned — an even more severe danger. The threat of being ruled by unaccountable and unelected entities is self-evident and grave. That’s especially true when the entity behind which so many are rallying is one with a long and deliberate history of lying, propaganda, war crimes, torture, and the worst atrocities imaginable. All of the claims about Russia’s interference in U.S. elections and ties to Trump should be fully investigated by a credible body, and the evidence publicly disclosed to the fullest extent possible. As my colleague Sam Biddle argued last week after disclosure of the farcical intelligence community report on Russia hacking — one which even Putin’s foes mocked as a bad joke — the utter lack of evidence for these allegations means “we need an independent, resolute inquiry.” But until then, assertions that are unaccompanied by evidence and disseminated anonymously should be treated with the utmost skepticism — not lavished with convenience-driven gullibility. Most important of all, the legitimate and effective tactics for opposing Trump are being utterly drowned by these irrational, desperate, ad hoc crusades that have no cogent strategy and make his opponents appear increasingly devoid of reason and gravity. Right now, Trump’s opponents are behaving as media critic Adam Johnson described: as ideological jelly fish, floating around aimlessly and lost, desperately latching on to whatever barge randomly passes by. There are solutions to Trump. They involve reasoned strategizing and patient focus on issues people actually care about. Whatever those solutions are, venerating the intelligence community, begging for its intervention, and equating their dark and dirty assertions as Truth are most certainly not among them. Doing that cannot possibly achieve any good, and is already doing much harm.
If congress is so obsessed with investigating the Russian hacking, Trump should convene a blue ribbon panel to investigate the CIA. The charge that our intell community tried to discredit the president elect is so serious that it demands a thorough investigation, perhaps a grand jury to compel testimony and raise the specter of prosecution for obstruction of justice.
damn right. as a country we need to know where the line is drawn between where those corrupt democrats beholden to Obama ends and the real career patriots begin. Trump has to clean out the partisan scum. Republican ones too. all scum goes... He will probably have to just close up the IRS.
Is the CIA so compromised by lefties that it needs to be completely overhauled. or is it simply criminally incompetent? Slash its budget or weed out the dead layers. oh and mcCain is a joke.
It's the perfect pretext. Trump wants to slim down the intel agencies. They walked into a trap. Proved their own bias and political corruption. Oh. Guess what. Now we got the fuel to take them to the woodshed. See? These are lawyer tactics. Trump knows the game.