Let’s look back at the first ‘Russian meddling’ report
Moments ago, we learned from President Trump’s attorney general that the Mueller report is nearing completion. For many establishment lackeys, it’s as if we are about to get a look inside The Ark of the Covenant.
NEW: Mueller probe “close to being completed” per Trump’s Acting Attorney General pic.twitter.com/m3y1ngRyaF
— TheBeat w/Ari Melber (@TheBeatWithAri) January 28, 2019
On the eve of this very special occasion (Please light your Mueller candles now)…
…let’s take a look at the very first report released back in January of 2016 by our wise Intelligence bureaucrats.
One of the first parts of the report featured the dastardly fact that Russia Today’s Youtube channel had too many views and covered the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential run. It also provided zero evidence of anything.
The following was written and posted here back in January of 2016.
One of the items sited as evidence that the Russian government meddled in the 2016 U.S. election is, seriously, the number of Youtube views of Russia Today’s channel. Okay, I guess I’ll throw our cold warrior friends a bone. Russia Today is infested with propaganda from…wait for it, the Russian government.
Full disclosure: I’ve actually been interviewed by Russia Today and featured in a video covering the Iowa caucuses way back in 2007. I was a grassroots advocate for Ron Paul—working on the media team of the Ron Paul Blimp, of all things! Here’s my initial reaction posted on Facebook.
First, let’s throw the CIA and cold warrior friends a bone. You’ll notice that they actually site the fact that Russia Today has tons of Youtube views (more than CNN and BBC) as evidence of Russian meddling. I guess you nailed it, CIA. I was interviewed by RT way back in 07 in Iowa – I was suspicious of why they featured Ron Paul so prominently when our own media would ignore him even as he won straw polls and had multiple successes. Yeah, they probably liked the fact that he was anti neo-con. To be blunt. Can you blame them? It’s good to be wary, but this is so weak…
You can scroll down (way down) to read the entire report.
Various takes…
Even the Intel Community’s friends are complaining about what an evidence-free bad joke yesterday’s report was https://t.co/66ohBhn22R pic.twitter.com/aBJhfV1ZDu
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 7, 2017
interesting interview from @reason with @nickgillespie and @ggreenwald. Certainly worth a listen. Nice job Nick. https://t.co/HG2wPVZ6D8
— Bill Bolander (@BBolander26) January 7, 2017
@emptywheel Vlad likes working with people who don’t compare him to Hitler.
— J.Hawk (@jasinskm) January 6, 2017
How many US media outlets could you say the same about? pic.twitter.com/FCKRDweU8y
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) January 6, 2017
The long-awaited DNI report provides essentially no new evidence and is mostly a screed about RT. What a joke. https://t.co/oEdcXbV9ns pic.twitter.com/kttpkS67hk
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 6, 2017
Seems like a good time to look back at Colin Powell’s statement regarding the CIA and many other agencies…
When I was through, I felt pretty good about it. I thought we had made the case, and there was pretty good reaction to it for a few weeks. And then suddenly, the CIA started to let us know that the case was falling apart — parts of the case were falling apart. It was deeply disturbing to me and to the president, to all of us, and to the Congress, because they had voted on the basis of that information. And 16 intelligence agencies had agreed to it, with footnotes. None of the footnotes took away their agreement.
Here’s the report. Pretty snazy layout:
2017.01.06 – DNI by zerohedge on Scribd