American journalists hate Donald Trump so much they have become exactly what he says they are: the purveyors of fake news.

Take for example the New York Times, a former newspaper. The Times used to pride itself on exposing and denigrating our military, intelligence and law enforcement services. The Pentagon Papers, Abu Ghraib, enhanced interrogation, search and seizure: the Times fought hard to thwart the work of our services when they were fighting against and spying on our enemies.

But now that it turns out the FBI and CIA leadership may have been subverting our political process to try to thwart Donald Trump, the Times has become a sort of megaphone for the excuses and spin of the Deep State wrong-doers.

On Thursday, with Devin Nunes relentlessly digging out the facts, and a reputedly damaging inspector general’s report on the way, the Times attempted to help anonymous Fed sources spin, play down and obscure what is now obvious to any honest observer: the Obama administration abused its power for political purposes and nowhere so badly as in the DOJ’s investigation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

On what basis did the investigation begin? Well, back in January, desperate to puncture the right-wing narrative that the Russian collusion investigation was jump-started by the Steele Dossier (Hillary Clinton’s unvetted oppo research), the Times declared that no, it was a drunken brag by minor Trump aide George Papadopoulos that put the Feds on Trump’s trail. But now that the truth is seeping out, the Times quietly buries that assertion. In the new article’s first line, we learn that the investigation was already underway when Papadopoulos’s information came to the FBI’s attention. So was it the Steele Dossier that started the hunt or not? They don’t say.

The Times has also repeatedly accused Trump of lying when he tweeted that his campaign had been wiretapped. But now, desperate to defend Obama’s fantasy legacy from his true legacy, the ex-paper tells us that in investigating the campaign:

The F.B.I. obtained phone records and other documents using national security letters — a secret type of subpoena — officials said. And at least one government informant met several times with Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos, current and former officials said.

So Trump was worse than wiretapped (though if you count the unmasking of Mike Flynn he was that too). His campaign was spied on.

And then, buried so far in the article it would take a backhoe to dredge it up, is this little titbit:

A year and a half later, no public evidence has surfaced connecting Mr. Trump’s advisers to the hacking or linking Mr. Trump himself to the Russian government’s disruptive efforts.

So a Democrat administration set federal spies and secret subpoenas on a Republican presidential campaign on the basis of — well, we’re not quite sure what — to investigate what seems to have been a comically inept Russian attempt to meddle with our elections — and then came up with nothing.

One hardly has to ask but let’s: if this had been George W. Bush spying on Barack Obama’s first campaign, would the Times be trying to soft-sell it?

And do you doubt that this act of shameful journalistic obfuscation was inspired by pure Trump hatred? Then how do you explain the misreporting of Trump’s “animal” remark? At a sit-down with California officials worried about sanctuary laws, Trump was questioned by Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims. The sheriff complained that the laws kept her from holding the vicious, brutal, murderous members of the MS-13 gang for deportation. “There could be an MS-13 member I know about — if they don’t reach a certain threshold, I cannot tell ICE about it,” the sheriff said. And the president, sympathizing and obviously referring to the gangsters, answered, “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals.”

CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the New York Times and even C-SPAN rushed to tweet this comment in such a way as to make it sound as if Trump were referring to illegal immigrants in general. “Trump lashed out at undocumented immigrants during a White House meeting, calling those trying to breach the country’s borders ‘animals.'” Well, yes, except they left out the descriptor: “But only those immigrants who beat children to death with baseball bats and cut their enemies’ hearts out and are animals.”

The last time the press destroyed a president they despised — when they managed to depose Richard Nixon for far more trivial abuses of power than Obama’s — Nixon left office with this sage advice: “Others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”

American journalists should have listened to him. Because, sure enough, their hatred of Trump is destroying whatever integrity, honesty and decency they may have once had.

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