Major Papers Target AG Sessions Over Russia

by | Mar 2, 2017

On Wednesday night, the big three papers, the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall St. Journal, all ran articles attacking the Trump administration over their supposed “ties” to Russia.

Yet, in the tradition of anti-Russia hype in the American media, on close inspection, the stories end up amounting to nothing but further evidence of America’s “permanent government,” its Cold War agenda, and their attempt to overturn, or at least “hem in,” the policy decisions made by the new elected administration on the issue of U.S. relations with Russia.

The Times story says that the Obama government went to great lengths to leave so-called, yet invisible, “evidence,” of the Russian government’s supposed interference in the election – their role in the hacking of the DNC and Hillary Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s emails remains completely unproven – at different places all around the different departments so that Trump’s people would be unable to destroy it. It’s great Trumpian “arguing past the sale,” and complete with admitted unsubstantiated rumor-mongering about the Trump team’s connivance with the Russians in doing so, to boot:

“[The effort] also reflected the suspicion among many in the Obama White House that the Trump campaign might have colluded with Russia on election email hacks — a suspicion that American officials say has not been confirmed.”

The Post‘s story centers on former Senator, now Attorney General, Jeff Sessions’s supposed perjury before Senator Al Franken at his confirmation hearings when he claimed not to have spoken to any Russians as part of the Trump campaign. But the story throws cold water all over itself in paragraph number twelve, when “Justice Officials” admit,

“Sessions met with Kislyak on Sept. 8 in his capacity as a member of the armed services panel rather than in his role as a Trump campaign surrogate.”

Oh. Well then. Sessions’s spokeswoman, Sarah Isgur Flores, elaborated:

“He was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign — not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee.”

The Post continued:

“She added that Sessions last year had more than 25 conversations with foreign ambassadors as a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, including the British, Korean, Japanese, Polish, Indian, Chinese, Canadian, Australian and German ambassadors, in addition to Kislyak.”

The Wall St. Journal‘s contribution to the hit was their report that the FBI and other agencies were monitoring Sessions at the time.

“The outcome of the inquiry, and whether it is ongoing, wasn’t clear.”

House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are demanding Sessions resign or be removed from office.

Cross-posted at Antiwar.com.

About Scott Horton

Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He's the author of the 2021 book Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, the 2017 book, Fool's Errand:Time to End the War in Afghanistan, editor of the 2019 book The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004–2019 and the 2022 book Hotter Than The Sun: Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. He’s conducted more than 6,000 interviews since 2003. Scott lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Larisa Alexandrovna Horton.

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