One thing that you may depend upon with respect to the Trump administration is that they project consistently. Just look at what is contended “they” usually Democrats, are doing and that is in fact what Trump and cabal is doing. Today was no exception. Collusion is the topic and Donald Trump Jr. alleges that the New York Times did it with Hillary Clinton in order to give the State Department, and Clinton, time 1. To come up with spin for problematic stories, or 2. Create a diversion, “thus overriding a damaging story with other news its friends in the mainstream media would happily cover instead,” according to conservative website Daily Wire via RawStory:
The double standard never ends. Every day @realDonaldTrump’s win is that much more impressive when you realize all he was actually up against. WikiLeaks Drops Proof That NYTimes Colluded With Hillary Clinton | Daily Wire https://t.co/acbdDbmH3e
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 1, 2018
The email released by WikiLeaks was authored by New York Times national security reporter Scott Shane. The email shows that he provided the State Department with information about when the newspaper planned to publish articles about a trove of leaked U.S. diplomatic cables.
Shane, however, dismissed the allegations as “nonsense.” In a series of tweets, he explained that the newspaper worked with the State Department to protect dissidents from hostile retailation from foreign governments.
.1) Not sure who’s writing this stuff for @WikiLeaks, but they need to talk to those who actually worked on the diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks, NYT and the other media partners (Guardian, Le Monde et al) all agreed on a plan to inform State Dept which cables were being published.
— Scott Shane (@ScottShaneNYT) December 31, 2017
.2) We had all agreed to redact the names of, say, Chinese professors and Russian dissidents who had spoken confidentially with US diplomats to prevent their being imprisoned or worse. But we wanted to make sure we understood all the potential dangers.
— Scott Shane (@ScottShaneNYT) December 31, 2017
.3) Totally standard journalistic practice. In one memorable instance, I had not taken out the name of Qaddafi’s protocol chief, who in a cable preceding a visit to NYC had explained that the aging Qaddafi should not be asked to climb too many stairs, etc.
— Scott Shane (@ScottShaneNYT) December 31, 2017
.4) I told the State Dept we planned to use that cable. Their Libya specialists got on the phone with me and told me they feared that if we published the protocol chief’s name, the great leader might take it as an insult and order his execution. We took the name out.
— Scott Shane (@ScottShaneNYT) December 31, 2017
.5) For that collaborative project, WikiLeaks’ helpers created a very cool redaction template so that the different media outlets could see what they had redacted and what others had redacted to avoid mistakes. So @WikiLeaksin that instance followed legit journalistic principles.
— Scott Shane (@ScottShaneNYT) December 31, 2017
.This is nonsense. Check with the WikiLeaks volunteers who worked on this project. You’ll learn WL created an online redaction engine so we could take out names of those who might be imprisoned or worse from cables we published. WL agreed on the consultation with State Dept.
— Scott Shane (@ScottShaneNYT) December 31, 2017
Probably the most reasonable explanation for Trump Jr.’s misleading statement is the fact that there are numerous stories that he and brother-in-law Jared Kushner are potentially next up to be indicted by the FBI Trump Russia investigation.
Here’s the PDF on file “Background To Assessing Russian Activities And Intentions In Recent US Elections,” for background on who has been colluding with whom, and for what purpose.
