The US corporate press was abuzz with front page, top stories today about the disagreement between incoming president Trump and some figures from the CIA and other intelligence agencies regarding the leaking of facts about Hillary Clinton, which some in the US speculate caused her to lose the election.

Some US establishment figures claim the information was stolen and released by Russia. Wikileaks and other have denied this, and Trump has expressed agreement with Wikileaks and has indicated claims of Russian involvement are baseless.

London’s The Independent today also reported on a discrepancy between the US president and the CIA. However, this one was from 2003 and was between the CIA and the Bush regime. In this case, a CIA team had obtained information that Saddam Hussein did not possess Weapons of Mass Destruction. (Hussein’s supposed possession of WMD was the pretext for the illegal US invasion of Iraq, which ended up killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.)

The Bush regime thus refused to be debriefed by this CIA team until 2008, causing disgust among CIA agents.

The 2003 disagreement between a president and an intelligence agency appears to have been far less publicized by the US corporate press and establishment than the one between Trump and intelligence figures today. It was not plastered across front pages.

One of the biggest differences between the two disagreements seems to be that widely publicizing the one from 2003 would have undermined the hostile and aggressive atmosphere that was being promoted in the US (in that case towards Iraq), whereas widely publicizing the disagreement today promotes hostility and aggression towards Russia.

Julian Assange and others have pointed out that the corporate press today has barely even made mention of the counter-arguments to the claims that Russia released the facts about Hillary Clinton that are said to have caused her to lose the election. Instead, it continues to say Russia ‘hacked the election’, causing many who identify as Democrats to believe Russia hacked into voting machines and changed the outcome, which officials are not saying occurred.

Robert J. Barsocchini is an independent researcher and reporter who focuses on global force dynamics and has served as a cross-cultural intermediary for the film and Television industry. His work has been cited, published, or followed by numerous professors, economists, lawyers, military and intelligence veterans, and journalists. Updates on Twitter.