The headline-making “golden showers” opposition research dossier — which Washington Post editor Bob Woodward of Watergate fame subsequently called a “garbage document” in the clip below — about Donald Trump provides an example of how the pro-Hillary Clinton Central Intelligence Agency and perhaps related U.S. government organizations want to delegitimize or marginalize Donald Trump and undercut democracy even before Trump is sworn in as president on January 20.
That is the conclusion of progressive former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald of Edward Snowden fame , who now writes for The Intercept , an investigative journalism site that he co-founded.
Greenwald is no Trump fan by any means but claimed that the unelected so-called “deep state” overlords in certain federal agencies, sometimes known as the military-industrial complex, peddled what he called a tawdry, unverified, unvetted document to the media to damage the president-elect, with outlets such as BuzzFeed and CNN and the Democrats quickly jumping aboard the anti-Trump train.
“The serious dangers posed by a Trump presidency are numerous and manifest…But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive,” Greenwald wrote in an Intercept piece, suggesting that because the media cries wolf too often, no one may pay attention to “actual Trump corruption and criminality,” if or when it occurs.
U.S. policy in Syria is part of the motivation for the CIA’s attempt to dump Trump, Greenwald claimed, because the former New York real estate mogul generally takes a non-interventionist approach to foreign policy.
“CIA, with unprecedented clarity, overtly threw its weight behind Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and sought to defeat Donald Trump…It is not hard to understand why the CIA preferred Clinton over Trump. Clinton was critical of Obama for restraining the CIA’s proxy war in Syria and was eager to expand that war, while Trump denounced it. Clinton clearly wanted a harder line than Obama took against the CIA’s long-standing foes in Moscow, while Trump wanted improved relations and greater cooperation. In general, Clinton defended and intended to extend the decades long international military order on which the CIA and Pentagon’s preeminence depends, while Trump — through a still-uncertain mix of instability and extremist conviction — posed a threat to it.”
Greenwald supports a full and public investigation of Russia’s interference in the U.S. election, “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.”
Rather than trying to use what might amount to fake news or “Cold War dirty tactics” to destroy Trump’s presidency, Greenwald suggested that the opposition to the Trump administration should use legitimate tactics rather than “craving Deep State rule.”
“Whatever those solutions are, venerating the intelligence community, begging for its intervention, and equating its dark and dirty assertions as Truth are most certainly not among them,” he added.
Read the entire Glenn Greenwald essay and draw your own conclusions.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson on FNC, the Rio de Janeiro-based journalist reaffirmed his belief that a form of open warfare exists between the CIA and Donald Trump.
“You see Democrats…even liberals, more or less openly calling for and cheering for the intervention of the CIA, the intelligence community, the overall ‘deep state’ hoping that — because they failed to do so – that this unelected faction in Washington will undermine and subvert and destroy the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s presidency before he’s even inaugurated…what you are seeing is actually quite dangerous…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcYvTrWy0Iw
Whether you are for or against Trump, and accept — as most do — the conclusion of the spy agencies that Russia was behind the DNC and John Podesta email hacks, it is hardly unprecedented that intelligence information be put through a political filter. Given the controversy in the last few months, it’s also interesting to recall how President Obama mocked 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for warning about Russia’s intentions.
In a lengthy investigative report, Politico claims that Ukraine government officials intervened to help Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.
“Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country. Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
In a separate Intercept article earlier this month about how the Washington Post had to essentially retract two stories about the Russian threat, Glenn Greenwald noted that despite his progressive resume and bona fides, “in my 10-plus years of writing about politics on an endless number of polarizing issues — including the Snowden reporting — nothing remotely compares to the smear campaign that has been launched as a result of the work I’ve done questioning and challenging claims about Russian hacking and the threat posed by that country generally.”
Back in August, Glenn Greenwald insisted that U.S. media was lined up about 100 percent against then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. He also correctly predicted more or less that news organizations here, in dismissing Trump’s chances to win the White House, were also making the same mistake as that of their European counterparts in underestimating the pro-Brexit vote, which prevailed in the EU referendum.
Added: While on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum from Glenn Greenwald, Conservative Treehouse writer “Sundance” similarly contends that, with an assist from CNN and the Washington Post , “Over the past two months the agenda for Deep State has been to undermine the legitimacy of an incoming president whose goals and objectives are adverse to the Deep State interests. President Donald Trump represents an existential threat to all of the various elements within Deep State.”
[Featured Image by Matthias Schrader/AP Images]