The New York Times: journalism or public relations?

 

By Reginald Johnson

 

    Commentary

 

   The last few days I’ve headed over to the news stand (there are still a few left) to pick up a New York Times.

  I don’t normally do this, as I’ve grown increasingly disappointed with the quality of the Times’ reporting, both on the domestic side and the foreign policy side.

  But the Times is still considered the standard bearer for American journalism and in the interest of fairness, I wanted to be absolutely sure that the paper was in fact not covering  --- as critics charge --- one of the biggest potential corruption scandals in recent history.

   That story centers on the allegation made by an FBI informant that President Biden, when he was serving as vice president, and his son Hunter, took a total of $10 million worth of bribes from a Ukrainian businessman to get help from the US government in stopping a criminal investigation of his oil and gas firm.

   This story broke last week after the House Oversight committee, which has been investigating wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, was finally able to get the FBI to release a statement by the informant called  a “1023” which, while partially redacted, indicated that the two Bidens had received payments.

  The story exploded further on Monday when U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, got up on the Senate floor and said that he had received information that the Ukrainian businessman had audiotapes of his discussions with the two Bidens about the bribes.

  “According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden,” Grassley said. “According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then Vice President Joe Biden,” said a report on Fox News.

  The allegations obviously are shocking and are widely deserving of coverage. Anytime a President or top official in an administration is implicated in potential bribery that is a huge story.

 Yet, except for conservative outlets like Fox News and Newsmax, the electronic media has ignored the claims. That includes CBS News NBC News, ABC News, CNN and MSNBC.

 On the print side, outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post have given the claims strong coverage.

  I wasn’t totally sure whether all the print outlets were ignoring the story, so that’s why I went to check on the Times. Surely, I thought, the Gray Lady, which throughout the decades covered governmental corruption quite well, would give some attention to these new claims, even if they haven’t been verified yet.

                                  

The New York Times building. (Photo, Wikimedia Commons)

 I mean, we’re talking about the President of the United States. What could be more important than that? Bribery is listed as one of the reasons why a President can be impeached, so certainly if a President is implicated in taking illegal payments, it’s paramount that any allegations related to that be checked out by the proper authorities in the government. But they should also be the subject of vigorous inquiry by the press.

 When mayors and governors are implicated in bribery or corruption schemes, that kind of thing is covered avidly by local papers and TV outlets, as it should be.

 Why should a President be any different?

 I must say I was disappointed after my review of the Times. I read three days of the Times, and I found not one reference to the Biden bribery claims.  

   Obviously, the last few days have been dominated by the Trump indictment and all outlets are giving this blanket coverage --- as they should be. This is a massive story --- the first time in US history that a former president has been indicted on federal charges ( he’s already been indicted on state charges in New York) so it deserves a huge amount of coverage. I have no problem with that.

  But the Biden story is big, too. Joe Biden is the current president, not former, and he’s the person who is overseeing the conduct of domestic and foreign policy affecting hundreds of millions of people and public expenditures worth trillions of dollars. If claims about criminality are made against him, that should be the subject of a laser focus by the media, and not just shunted aside.

  The fact that the New York Times --- probably the most widely known media outlet in the world and still one of the most respected --- does not give the story about the Bidens and potential bribery even a mention or a small story in the back pages, is a complete outrage. This is NOT reporting and it is NOT journalism. The Times is shirking its duties as a member of and the leader of the media.

  The press or what is known as the Fourth Estate is supposed to play a critical function in our society. The press traditionally is supposed to act as a “watchdog” against government wrongdoing. Right now, the New York Times and many other media outlets are not acting as that watchdog. Instead, they’re acting more like a guard who’s drunk on duty.

  We don’t know whether the Biden allegations are true. Maybe the informant is not to be trusted. But the point is, this needs to be checked out. The FBI has sat on this story for several years and it took a lot of cajoling and threats of a contempt citation by the House Oversight committee to finally get FBI Director Christopher Ray to release the document prepared by the informant. Then parts of it, apparently those dealing with the audiotapes, were redacted.

  So there’s been some prevarications by the FBI in terms of investigating this issue and that’s also part of the wider story. It’s not just about whether the President and his son took bribes but also whether the agency that is supposed to be ferreting out information about possible criminal misconduct is doing its job. Right now, it doesn’t look like they are.

  The New York Times and much of the rest of the media have to get back on track and report on the basics of news. When officeholders are involved in possible corruption that’s one of those basics and they must report on it. They cannot put something aside simply because somebody is a favored political person and covering that particular person in a negative way might hurt their electoral chances. I hope the Times has not been thinking like this but it kind of looks like they have been.

  If you’re a reporter or journalist with a daily news operation, you MUST cover corruption. If you’re not, you’re not a reporter and you’re not a journalist. It’s really that simple.

  The New York Times has to decide whether they’re still in the news business or whether they’re in public relations. Shame on them if it’s the latter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perversion of justice in D.C.

By Reginald Johnson 

Commentary

As everyone knows, unless you’ve been on the moon, politics have become extremely polarized in this country.

The most polarized I’ve ever seen, even more than during the Vietnam War days, which was pretty bad.

People are stuck in their positions, and by golly, they’re not gonna move. This is particularly true when it comes to the issue of one Donald Trump and all things Trump. Supporters adore him, and listen to his speeches as if in rapture. They’re not about to question anything The Donald might say, no matter how stupid it might be.

The haters, meanwhile, are hysterical and filled with rage. Trump is a demon and nothing will persuade them otherwise.

Their hate is so strong, it seems, that they’re willing to look the other way at, ahem, illegal tactics used by the Democrats to undermine Trump.

 How else do you explain the completely non-sensical “Not Guilty” verdict rendered by a Washington, D.C. jury to a lawyer who was charged with lying to the FBI when he fed false information to the bureau about Trump?

 Attorney Michael Sussman was charged with misrepresenting himself when he met with FBI Counsel James Baker in September of 2016, when Republican presidential nominee Trump was locked a tight election battle against Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton.

Sussman told Baker he wanted to meet with him to provide evidence of Trump links to Vladimir Putin and a Russian bank. He assured Baker he was not representing any client ---- he was just acting as a good citizen who had some important information.

Well, that was a bald-faced lie. Sussman was working for the Hillary Clinton campaign, and investigators found a check made out to him by the campaign.

Federal law makes it very clear --- you can’t lie to the FBI about who you are and who you’re working for.  It’s a felony.

Sussman also turned over bogus “information” about supposed  connections between a Trump Tower computer server and Russia’s Alfa Bank. It was all made up.

 As Gregg Jarrett, legal analyst for FOX News said, “The evidence of the defendant’s guilt was obvious and overwhelming. Special Counsel John Durham’s prosecutors presented incontrovertible evidence that Clinton’s campaign lawyer knowingly peddled phony Trump-Russia collusion Sussmann information to the FBI and lied about whom he was representing.”

 But no matter. The jurors, who were chosen from the overwhelmingly Democratic Party-leaning District of Columbia, came to the rescue. They quickly found the defendant not guilty.  Sussman, who should have been sent to jail and disbarred, walked free.

  Conflicts abounded on the jury. Several jurors were Clinton donors;  another has a daughter who plays on the same tennis team with Sussman’s daughter. The prosecution challenged the sitting of that juror due to the conflict, but their plea was rejected by the U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who issued a number of rulings unfavorable for Durham’s team.

 Cooper’s impartiality in the case was also questioned, since his wife, an attorney, represents Lisa Paige, the ex-FBI agent who is suing the Justice Department over the release of her phone texts with fellow agent Peter Strzok in the 2016 election year.  The texts showed both agents expressing a strong dislike for Trump. At one point, Strzok talked of having an “insurance policy” to stop him.

 But Cooper didn't recuse himself.

You can’t say for an absolute certainty that the jury rejected the government’s case simply due to bias against Trump and any efforts to exonerate him, but it sure looks  that way.

After the trial was over, the jury forewoman gave a strong indication of how the jury felt about the government’s case.

  “Personally, I don’t think it should have been prosecuted because I think we have better time or resources to use or spend to other things that affect the nation as a whole than the possible lie to the FBI. We could spend that time more wisely,” she told a reporter.

  This is astounding. Apparently this juror, and probably the others, thought this case was stupid and a waste of time. Really? Lying to a federal agent about an illegal scheme to undermine a presidential campaign is unimportant?

 It’s not the job of jurors to assess whether a government prosecution is worthwhile or not. Their task is simply to look at the facts presented and determine whether they support the charge. That’s all. It’s that simple.

 What appears to have happened here is what’s called “jury nullification.” This is when, as Jarrett explains, “The triers of fact perversely ignore the evidence and repudiate the rule of law to acquit a plainly guilty man.”

  Jarrett believes that from the start Sussman may have been banking on jury nullification as his best way to beat the charge.

 What happened in the Sussman case is very corrosive to the integrity of our judicial system. Politics cannot determine people’s guilt or innocence.

 Hopefully, Special Counsel Durham will get a fairer hearing in the coming months when he brings more indictments connected with the sordid “Trump-Russia Collusion” scandal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

FBI probing Bridgeport?

 

 By Reginald Johnson

         

            BRIDGEPORT REPORT

     BRIDGEPORT --- The FBI has investigated this city in the past, with spectacular results.

   Now it's possible federal officials are looking at Bridgeport again.

  The FBI has reportedly issued a subpoena to the city for information concerning the construction of the new ampitheater in the South End, according to Maria Pereira, a member of the Bridgeport City Council.

  Pereira, who represents part of the East Side, said she learned through a reliable source that the federal agency issued the subpoena concerning the ampitheater, which was built in 2020 with $9 million of city money.

  The facility, called The Hartford Health Care Ampitheater, opened last year in July and has hosted a number of concerts.

  A  request for comment was made to the City Attorney’s office, but a secretary said any statement would have to come from the city’s spokesperson, Rowena White.

   White said “I have never heard of that before. But then again, there’s always rumors out in the community.”

  When asked about the subpoena, a Bridgeport FBI spokesman referred this reporter to the agency’s New Haven office. No one from that office has thus far returned a call for comment.

    

The ampitheater in Bridgeport. The FBI may be investigating the construction of this facility.

  The ampitheater --- which is viewed as a key part of the city’s redevelopment efforts --- was built amid some controversy. Developer Howard Saffan initially promised local officials that the city had to invest no more than $7.5 million for the project, which was pegged to cost $15 million in total. But in 2020 Saffan came back to the City Council asking for another $4.5 million --- on top of $4.5 million the city already had put out --- saying that the construction work had run into unforeseen infrastructure problems.

  Some members of the council, including Pereira, objected and questioned the viability of the new facility. Pereira said the ampitheater would in the long run cost the city a lot more money than what was forecast.

  “The amphitheater is not an economic development project,” she said. “It is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded handout to a developer closely aligned with Mayor (Joseph) Ganim who is also a generous donor to Ganim’s political campaigns,” wrote Pereira in an opinion piece in the Connecticut Post.

  But a majority of council members approved the request for additional money with several commenting that the amphitheater would provide a major boost for the downtown area and bring the city additional revenue.

   “The ampitheater will be a big draw and reinvigorate the downtown,” said City Council President Aidee Nieves.

  The amphitheater was constructed on the site of the old Bridgeport Bluefish baseball field. The city decided in 2017 to not renew the lease for the Bluefish and head in a different direction.

 The amphitheater retains the seating from the old stadium.

 Pereira, who has been a vocal critic of the Ganim administration, also claimed last year that the FBI was investigating a $6 million payment made by the city to the University of Bridgeport for property to be used for the new Bassick High School.

 Pereira and other members of the community had claimed that the $6 million payment was illegal because it was never approved by the City Council.

  An FBI official at that time would not confirm or deny an investigation on that matter.

  The Bassick project is now underway, with the demolition of several dorms at UB.

  The City of Bridgeport is no stranger to FBI investigations. Some 22 years ago, federal officials conducted a major investigation of corruption in the city, and wound up indicting a number of officials including Mayor Ganim. Those officials were later convicted and Ganim served seven years in prison.

  Ganim resurrected his political career when he got out and was able to win back the mayoralty in 2015.

  In the late 1970s, the FBI also netted a number of officials for corruption in Bridgeport, during the administration of Mayor John C. Mandanici.

 

     

Twenty years on, 9/11 still a mystery

 

    By Reginald Johnson

 Like so many Americans, my wife and I were glued to our TV today, watching several hours of coverage of the 20^th anniversary observances of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, which caused the deaths of nearly 3,000 people.

  It was so moving to hear the readings by the survivors of workers who died at the World Trade Center in New York and the recollections about the heroic firefighters who ran into the twin towers as they were engulfed in flames to rescue people. It was also powerful to be reminded of the bravery of the passengers on Flight 93 who stopped the terrorists who were flying that plane before it could reach the Capitol, and died as the plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

  But as I saw the footage replayed of the planes crashing into the trade center and saw huge fireballs explode around the towers --- forcing people to choose between being burned alive or jumping to their death --- my old feelings of anger about this event resurfaced.

   How on earth did this all happen? Why weren’t we better prepared?

        

The World Trade Center on fire on Sept. 11, 2001

 (Photo by Wikimedia Commons).

 

How did four planes get taken over by terrorists on the same morning, with three of them reaching their destinations (New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C.), without them being stopped or shot down by our air defenses? The US has the greatest military in the world and the greatest Air Force in the world. Just how did our air defenses fail so miserably?

  Why didn’t the administration of Pres. George W. Bush have the nation better prepared for a terrorist attack? There were ample warnings in 2001 that something was imminent. In the spring, a report had come out by a bi-partisan committee headed in part by former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart that said it wasn’t a question of if there was going to be an attack on the United States, but only when.  In early August, the CIA briefed President Bush with a report that said the system was “blinking red” and a terrorist attack was imminent. Why didn’t Bush and his administration have the United States military go on high alert for a possible attack and set in motion strict security measures for airports and other key locations?

  I’ve faulted the CIA for a number of things over the years, but on this one, they got it right.

  I remember National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice calling for an emergency meeting on September 10^th to discuss possible terrorist threats. September 10th ??

  Also, how was it that three buildings at the World Trade Center collapsed so easily?  Two of the buildings were hit by planes and erupted into fire. But these buildings were monster structures composed of massive amounts of concrete and steel, 110 stories high, and it is still mystifying to me that a strike by an airplane and resulting fire would be enough to bring those structures down. There were reports by many eyewitnesses that they heard explosions in the buildings after the planes hit. Were there bombs planted in the towers to trigger an implosion? That possibility was never investigated.

     Lending credence to that theory is that Building Seven, which was not struck by a plane, collapsed later in the day. A few fires had started in the building as a result of sparks and flaming debris flying from the towers, but this hardly seems enough to bring down a huge steel and concrete building.

  If bombs were planted, it means there were accessories to the attack. People on the ground assisting the suicide bombers. Again, not investigated.

  Also puzzling about the 9/11 attacks is the performance of the FBI. The bureau had received reports from its field agents during the summer of 2001 that some of the people who later piloted the terror planes or were associated with those people, were training at flight schools in Arizona and Minnesota and acting in a very bizarre manner. Warnings were sent to higher-ups that these people should be watched closely. But apparently this was not done. This is gross incompetence.

  So there are still so many questions about Sept. 11 and it’s deeply troubling that they have never been answered.

  My wife, who is from Europe, said it best.

 “How could this have happened to the United States?” she asked.

Indeed.

We need to get to the bottom of exactly what happened on 9/11.

   

   

American Coup?

                                       

By Reginald Johnson

   Elements of the intelligence community appear to be waging a determined campaign to oust Donald Trump from the presidency and block any détente between the United States and Russia.

  Ever since Trump was elected, there has been a string of damaging leaks coming out about classified phone conversations between members of the Trump administration, and Russian officials.

  All the leaks, and the reporting on them in the media, have made it appear that Trump and his top officials are too close to Russia and that Russia ---- an “adversary” nation --- may be taking advantage of the U.S.

  While previous administrations have had to deal with classified leaks, the number that has taken place since Trump got elected has been unprecedented.

  Already the Trump administration has suffered a casualty from this campaign. National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was forced to step down after information leaked that he may have improperly discussed the lifting of sanctions against Russia with the Russian ambassador during a phone call prior to the Trump administration taking office on Jan. 20.

   Since it is the intelligence agencies --- primarily the FBI, NSA and CIA ---  that have access to the contents of intercepted phone calls between U.S. and foreign officials, the obvious conclusion is that it is intelligence officials that are doing the leaking.

 Under law, the disclosure of classified information is a felony criminal violation, no matter who is doing it.

  It’s apparent that a group of people in the intelligence community that don’t like the direction of Trump’s foreign policy due to Trump’s repeated statements about establishing better relations with Russia, want to smear him and thwart any rapprochement with Russia.

  Russia in turn has previously been discredited with a barrage of claims --- none of them substantiated --- that Russian officials somehow “hacked” the November election and helped Trump win.

  Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio told an interview on FOX Business last week that it’s clear what’s going on.

  “What’s at the core of this is an effort by some in the intelligence community to upend any positive relationship between the United States and Russia,” he said in the FOX interview, which was also reported by Cleveland.com.

 Kucinich added that war profiteering is threatened by a more peaceful relationship with Russia.

 
“And I tell you there’s marching band and Chowder Society out there. There’s gold in them there hills,” he said. “There are people trying to separate the U.S. and Russia so that this military-industrial-intel axis can cash in.” 

 He added, “What’s going on here with the intelligence community with the new president is unprecedented. They’re making every effort to upend him….This is like Deep State. It’s like some kind of spy novel. But it’s real. The American people have to understand a game is being played with the security of our country.” ( See “Ex-Rep. Dennis Kucinich says intelligence community schemed against Michael Flynn” http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/02/ex-rep_dennis_kucinich_says_in.html)

 Eli Lake, a national security columnist for Bloomberg View, in a piece entitled “The Political Assassination of Michael Flynn,” wrote that “Normally intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are among the government’s mostly tightly held secrets. This is for good reason. Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do.”

   By “permanent state” Lake was referring to the intelligence agencies whose employees, except for appointees at the top, stay in place no matter who is president. They hold sweeping powers and their activities are largely kept secret.

  The New York Times and Washington Post, which have led media outlets in giving the anonymous leaks wide play, have reported that a number of people who were part of the Trump campaign are under investigation by the FBI for their ties to Russia.

  A congressional investigation is now underway on the claims of Russian election interference, even though cyber experts and former CIA officials have debunked them.

  It is surprising that so much of the media and many members of Congress are giving the leaks and inferences of wrongdoing so much credence. After all, the contents of any intercepted phone calls with Russian officials have been known for many months going back into the Obama administration. If there was any indication of illegal activity, that information would have been given to the Attorney General (Janet Lynch) and surely a prosecution would have followed.

  But that didn’t happen. Presumably, nothing illegal was found.  So why all the fuss? Why is all this stuff being fed to the press?

  Is there something illegal about talking with a Russian official now? Are we reverting back to the McCarthy era --- people being investigated for “contacting” a Russian?  ‘Are you now or have you ever been consorting with a Russian official’?

  There is something very disturbing going on here. Members of the intelligence community are misusing their power to push this country to pursue a geopolitical agenda that they think is appropriate regardless of what the President wants.

  Kucinich made a very telling point in his interview. He said the abuse of power by the intell community has to be a concern for all Americans, Republican or Democrat.

  “Wake up America,” he said.

 Indeed.

 

 

  

 

Free Leonard Peltier

By Reginald Johnson

  

  In his remaining days in office, President Obama has the opportunity to bring some measure of justice to wrongfully-imprisoned Native-American activist Leonard Peltier.

  Peltier has been languishing in prison for over 40 years, following his conviction for murdering two FBI agents during a shootout between law enforcement officers and Lakota Indians on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1975.

   Peltier is a political prisoner --- one whose arrest, conviction and lengthy incarceration was determined not so much by the facts of the case but by Peltier’s activism in the American Indian Movement and the government’s desire to suppress a rebellion by Native Americans in the 1970s.

 The entire process by which Peltier was arrested and tried was fraught with problems.  Witness affidavits supporting Peltier’s extradition from Canada (where he fled after the shootout) prior to his arrest were gained through coercion; during the trial the government withheld key documents, such as ballistics information, that could have aided the defense; witnesses who testified for the prosecution later recanted and said the FBI had pressured them to implicate Peltier.

Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist who is asking for clemency from President Obama after 40 years in prison. (Photo courtesy of The Guardian)

   

   While Peltier was unsuccessful in an appeal of his conviction, the presiding judge in the appeals hearing, Gerald Heaney, harshly criticized the prosecution for the FBI’s “improper conduct” and “clear abuse of the investigative process,” according to a report by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

   It’s also noteworthy, that during the appeals hearing, the government admitted that they couldn’t prove who actually shot the agents. But the government still maintained that Peltier was linked to the murders and therefore was guilty.  

  The idea that someone could be convicted and sent to prison for so many years --- based on such a shaky prosecution case, rife with so many legal problems, is an outrage.

  It is not the kind of thing that is supposed to happen in a democratic republic, with a system that on paper at least provides “liberty and justice for all.”  The Peltier case is more befitting of what happens in a dictatorship.

  

    Obama has a chance to end this outrage by granting Peltier’s request for clemency.  The Native activist has gotten wide support for his plea --- from human rights groups like Amnesty International to Bishop Desmond Tutu to thousands of people signing petitions.  And just this week, Peltier got unexpected support from one of the prosecutors in the original case. Former U.S. Attorney James Reynolds told The Guardian newspaper that it was time for the government to “call it quits” and grant leniency to Peltier.

 

   In addition to the facts of the case and the wide support Peltier has received, Obama should also consider Peltier’s age and his declining health. Now 72, Peltier has suffered a stroke and battled diabetes and a heart condition.

 

  This is not the first time Peltier has sought clemency. In 2000, former President Bill Clinton weighed his request for leniency (just as Clinton was leaving office) but ultimately denied it after members of the FBI Agents Association mounted a furious opposition campaign and picketed the White House.

  The FBI group --- composed of former agents of the federal agency --- are again opposing Peltier’s petition.

  Hopefully President Obama --- who is ending his tenure in the White House on Jan. 20 --- will see the light in this case and not back down. A good sign is that Obama has recently been granting leniency for hundreds of other long-time prisoners --- offenders who were serving excessively long terms for drug convictions.

 President Obama needs to grant freedom to Leonard Peltier --- now.

(For more information on the Leonard Peltier case and to sign a petition calling for his release, go to www.amnestyusa.org. Additional information on Peltier and other political prisoners such as Puerto Rican activist Oscar Lopez Rivera and Army whistle-blower Chelsea Manning as well as NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, who is being unfairly accused of espionage, can be found at www.lawanddisorder.org, Dec. 19, 2016 show)