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I want to be very helpful to aspiring and ambitious members of the Fourth Estate by listing some aspects of Russiagate that are poorly plumed:

See that-I don’t just criticize you folks I also offer you the opportunity to do better-and offer some breadcrumbs for that next Pulitzer.

Then there’s all the Comeygate stuff.

UPDATE:

Today is Friday, February 22, and the IG still hasn’t released its report on the leaks of the rogue anti Clinton pro Trump agents and the no Democrat in Congress I’m aware of have called on the IG to do so.

The House Democrats should also ask him some very tough questions about the issues I bring up in the Comyegate part of the book: What was the probable cause of the investigation in the first place, why did it take so long to conclude it, what’s this about a fake Russian document being used as a pretext for the very careless press conference? Or did you actually believe the document was authentic at the time? It’s not clear which scenario is worse-that he knew it was false and yet used it as a pretext for his rogue press conference or that he really was fooled by the Russians.

Doesn’t this just say it all-that the FBI Director at a time when the Bureau was starting to investigate Russian interference in the election was himself conned by Russian active measures?

 

Roger Stone and Corsi’s role-explain how Guiliani and Lara Trump knew about the Comey letter in advance.

If you’re an aspiring young member of the MSM one way you can make a name for yourself is to plume ground that you’re brethren and sisthren fear to-they’re a very timid lot. Yes when the topic’s not Hillary Clinton. For the MSM there’s safety in numbers-because the entire MSM was wrong about Clinton for 25 years they felt safe.

Scott Stedman is an excellent young reporter but he’s clearly chosen to take on the habits of the club-and more power to him as he does great work. But maybe you’re someone who wants to make a name for yourself and am a little less timid than the MSM norm-you’re still tiimid but just a little less. Then why not pursue some of these leads in journalistic purgatory? Find out if in fact Cohen went to Prague-or another Eastern European former Soviet satellite-or not. Focus all your time and resources on this one question. But not just in a legalistic way but with an eye to the underlying premise behind it-did Cohen fill the same role in terms of paying off the Russian hackers he did paying off women? Did he represent the Trump campaign to the Russians?

 

It’s a vitally important question:

“Did Trump lawyer Michael Cohen secretly visit Prague to meet with Russians in 2016? The future of Donald Trump’s presidency could hinge on whether the answer to that question is yes.”

Here’s what’s at stake beyond quibbling about it in a legalistic way:

Note that Mueller may-or may not-already know the answer

Then someone else could look at another great unsolved mystery of Russia Collusion-did Manafort meet with Assange? Again it might require you to be a little less timid as these are leads the MSM has ruled out of hand so you’re sort of challenging its preconceptions-the MSM is always partial to stories that seem to salve rather than challenge their preconceptions-like that Bill and Hillary were guilty of something which morphed after 25 years into desperation that they been shown guilty of anything. 

Another story is the CNN report that Papadopoulos told a Chicago bar patron in March of 2018 that he did tell Jeff Sessions about the emails. 

This story hasn’t been pursued at all despite how vociferous Papadoulos has become in claiming he was entrapped and it was all a hoax. The very much glorified Coffee Boy continues to claim that he never told the Trump campaign about the emails. Note that the substance of what he perjured himself to the FBI about was what he told the Trump campaign.

I lay some of them out here:

OK so a lot of water under the bridge since I wrote this chapter-way back on March, 15, 2018. Cohen would withdraw his lawsuit just a month later-very soon after McClatchy reported that Mueller did in fact have evidence Cohen was in Prague as I discussed in Chapter A. 

To be sure at this point almost a year later this is one of those stories that live in a strange kind of netherworld-neither confirmed or denied by other outlets-like CNN’s story in July, 2018 that Cohen had stated he had seen Donald Jr tell his father about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians with his own eyes. CNN’s reporting hasn’t been confirmed-or falsified-by other outlets and it has stood by its reporting. Or the Guardian reporting that Manafort had visited Assange three times prior to the 2016 election-in 2013, 2014 and then March of 2016.

Now in the case of this story the MSM has decided that this Guardian story is FAKE NEWS-despite being from a reputable reporter-and this has led them to dismiss any stories that link Manafort and Assange-even though the NY Times itself had a story that Manafort was in Ecuador in 2017-I think it’s safe to presume on behalf of the Trump Russia House-for a deal that would bring Julian Assange to the US.

Buzzfeed’s recent story that Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to perjure himself regarding how far into the campaign they pursued the Trump Tower Moscow deal has met a similar fate-the MSM has declared it FAKE NEWS because Mueller’s office said it was false without indicating which aspect of it. It’s clear I don’t think like a MSM journalist-it seems obvious to me that what’s really suspicioius is why the SCO pushed back on a story at all-they’d never done so before; even more suspicious after it was reported that someone in Rod Rosenstein’s office spoke to SCO about the Buzzfeed story and then on the Sunday shows Rudy Giuliani intimated that either he or someone else in TrumpWorld had been on the phone to SCO.

The question of politics behind what stories the MSM abandons is no doubt a subject of important study and research in itself-a whole book no doubt could be on that. In the case of the Clinton Foundation the NYTimes had no problem putting out a very shoddy piece of junk in September, 2016 that proved nothing yet had a very incriminating sounding headline-for more see Chapter A.

Again, when the subject isn’t Hillary Clinton, the MSM is very timid in terms of making inferences and connecting the dots.I mean I tend to infer that the McClatchy story is true as Cohen withdrew his lawsuit vs. Buzzfeed so soon after the story broke. Coincidence? Uh-they take a lot of planning. If this book is about anything it’s about the idea you should be pretty skeptical of so many ‘coincidences’-investigators don’t believe in them as much as the MSM does.

Beyond that, the He went to Prague allegation of the dossier remains in a similar kind of netherworld-neither confirmed nor denied with the MSM presuming that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. And as documented in Chapter B Lanny Davis himself had intimated in an interview with Maddow that Cohen did go to Prague and knew something central to the question of collusion and later totally walked it back insisting categorically he never went to Prague.

But claim I never went to Prague has already been falsified as Cohen did go in 2002-true that was a long time ago but it falsifies I never went to Prague. 

As also noted in Chapter A Patriobotics continues to be skeptical of Cohen’s denials. In any case, simply presuming it’s not true because Muelller didn’t mention it in Cohen’s sentencing memo is yet again presuming absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Why does the media presume that Mueller is divulging everything he knows in these memos-I presume the opposite.

UPDATE: Did Cohen have a role in trying to keep the lid on the Hollywood Access tape? with  his clear pattern in these other cases, it makes sense to look if he had a role in trying to keep the lid on Hollywood Access as well as what communications he had with so called ‘President Trump’ regarding it.

UPDATE 2.0:

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/12/17230498/donald-trump-national-enquirer-child-30000-doorman-joe-mika-payoff-hush-money-scandal-housekeeper

UPDATE 3.0 It still remains to be explained what Cohen advised Sean Hannity about as discussed in Chapter A. 

UPDATE 4.0: even now you wonder to EmptyWheel’s question above-what else Cohen and Hannity discussed? In all seriousness the way Hannity-essentially the Commisar of Trump’s version of Kremlin State TV-coordinated with Trump on fomenting the disgusting Seth Rich conspiracy theory deserves to be investigated in its own right.

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