Some journalists on the left like Aaron Mate and Dan Lazare tell me that the charges of Russian interference in U.S. politics are a “hoax” or “don’t really matter.” While I share their opposition to a new Cold War with Russia, that does not require averting one’s eyes from the record of Yevgeny Prigozhin, international...
Category: Articles
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Intelligence Findings on COVID19 Origins: Not Man-Made or Genetically Modified
“I will tell you, more and more, we’re hearing the story [that the new coronavirus emerged from a Wuhan lab,” President Trump said last April. On April 30, Trump said he had a “high degree of confidence” the new coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China. Trump said he was “not allowed” to revealed his sources,...
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Bill Barr’s CIA Resume: Cover-Ups, Covert Operations, and Pardons
“I started off in Washington at the Central Intelligence Agency and went to law school at night while I was working at CIA,” recalled William Barr in a 2001 oral history for the University of Virginia. The new Attorney General, approved by the Senate on Thursday, has what Trump might call “deep state” credentials. Barr...
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A Right-Wing Bubble Bursts: Durham Talks and Brennan Walks
The soft sobbing sounds you hear come right-wing media scribes who are crying in their beer. For months, the faithful tribunes of Trumpism have been hyperventilating about the Justice Department’s investigation of the FBI and CIA’s decision to investigate the Trump-Russia contacts in 2016. On the scarcest of evidence these partisans have hyped the possibilty...
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Haspel Hangs on at CIA, With Little Support from White House or Democrats
From the reliable James Risen and Matthew Cole at The Intercept. CIA director Gina Haspel confided to a former colleague that she wouldn’t be surprised if Trump replaced her by September. Haspel has tried to placate the president and hindered her own agency in the process. Haspel’s efforts to appease Trump while shielding the CIA...