By Reginald Johnson
In the latest journalism travesty, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Glenn Greenwald has been forced out of the publication he co-founded because editors there were censoring his stories about possible corruption by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Greenwald, who started The Intercept in 2014 after he broke stories about unlawful surveillance of the American people by the National Security Agency, resigned from The Intercept after editors said they would not run any of his stories unless he removed all material critical of Joe Biden.
The Intercept --- along with almost all of the mainstream and left media --- have blacked out all the revelations in stories done by the New York Post concerning apparent influence peddling and possible criminal wrongdoing in connection with payments by foreign nationals to Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son. Also blacked out has been a statement by a Hunter Biden business associate that contradicted claims by Joe Biden that he knew nothing of his son’s business ventures in countries including Ukraine and China.
The FBI is reportedly investigating Hunter Biden for money laundering.
Biden, who served as Vice President from 2009-2017 in the administration of Barack Obama, was in charge of foreign policy concerning Ukraine and China, when his son went into business in Ukraine.
Biden, who is facing Donald Trump in Tuesday’s presidential election, has denied any wrongdoing related to his son’s business dealings and said the stories were part of a Republican “smear campaign.”
That denial has satisfied most of the media, the same media who acted like sharks smelling blood every time a report surfaced in the past about possible nepotism or nefarious activities by Trump family members.
Biden supporters and many in the media have instead labeled the Post stories as “Russian disinformation” --- based on statements by former CIA Director John Brennan and former NSA Directors James Clapper and Michael Hayden.
In an interview on FOX with Tucker Carlson, Greenwald said he was shocked to see even The Intercept ran a story referencing the claims by the former intelligence chiefs about Russian disinformation, even though the officials admitted in their full statement they had no hard evidence of a Russian link.
Greenwald said The Intercept was founded on the idea that the media must be skeptical about the claims of the intelligence community, in light of the revelations about illegal mass surveillance by the NSA brought forth by whistleblower Edward Snowden and reported by Greenwald.
The investigative journalist said that in recent years an "unholy union" has come about between the media, the intelligence community, neo-cons, Silicon Valley (tech companies such as Google and Facebook). Democrats and Wall Street to advance a certain point of view and rule out independent voices.
Part of the reason for that joining of forces is that the left, which used to criticize the CIA, now likes the intelligence community because the CIA and FBI promoted the Russia-Trump collusion investigation, which nearly drove Trump from office, Greenwald said. The collusion narrative fell on its face however, when Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation found no conspiracy had taken place between the Trump campaign and Russia in influencing the 2016 election.
That "union of power," Greenwald contended, fully backs the Democratic Party which is likely to take over the Senate and possibly the presidency on Tuesday.
"That is a very alarming proposition because they are authoritarian, they believe in censorship, they believe in suppression of information that exposes them in any kind of critical light," Greenwald said.
The media has behaved very unprofessionally in refusing to probe the Biden allegations. That failure, together with the mistakes the press made in not covering the Russia-collusion controversy more critically, has left the media as an institution in tatters.
That has grave implications for our democracy, since a vigorous and objective press is vital for our system to work well.
Glenn Greenwald has not sold out. In my book, he's a hero.
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