Jake Tapper attends Politicon at The Pasadena Convention Center on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Invision/AP)

The sh**show that CNN has become apparently is operating without any principles or guidance beyond ‘get Trump and his supporters.’

Just over the weekend, Don Lemon hosted a cringeworthy panel composed of a New York Times opinion writer named Wajahat Ali and Evan McMullin’s award winning campaign manager and general bloviator Rick Wilson in which they mocked Trump voters as uneducated and stupid. To show the extent to which this kind of garden variety bigotry is permitted by CNN, so long as the target is an acceptable one, can you imagine them hosting a panel that mocked any other group of Americans by using fake accents?

That’s small potatoes. For over three years CNN has been pushing every possible negative story on Donald Trump, principally the Russia Hoax. Now, with the impeachment fraud about to flame out, CNN is pulling out all of the stops to try to extend the trial and keep their team from looking like incompetent jackwagons.

As Don Lemon was yukking it up, another story was breaking. John Bolton, it seems, had not only written a book but had obtained a publisher and the book was in clearance at the National Security Council. This clearance process is something you agree to as part of being granted access to classified information. If you write a book about your experiences, your agency must review the book to ensure that it is clean of classified information. This may be pro forma or detailed, depending upon what you are writing about and your level of clearance.

The book purportedly–because no one has seen an actual page from the book–contains previously unrevealed details of President Trump’s dealings with the Ukraine government. The odds of there being anything there are pretty small but the Democrats desperately need some witnesses to be called so that their slapdash effort can be made to appear plausible rather than being dismissed as ridiculous.

2.And this is an interview with John Bolton describing the president's conversations w/ the president of Ukraine as warm & cordial in Aug 2019.If he thought at the time that the president was stiff-arming the Ukrainians, he had a funny way of showing itpic.twitter.com/fXekPCD6hH — Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) January 29, 2020

Today, CNN is pimping a rather silly story that the White House is threatening John Bolton over his book.

Breaking: WH has issued a formal threat to former national security adviser John Bolton to keep him from publishing his book, "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. — Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) January 29, 2020

WH letter to Bolton warning him against publication of his book as it is right now pic.twitter.com/dsICaKQuJe — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 29, 2020

And the Washington Post tries to push the story along

Hmm, John Bolton, one of the most skilled lawyers in Washington, would write a book filled with TOP SECRET classified information? He's done this rodeo before, so that would be highly surprising if true. https://t.co/n3YK9BKIEU — Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) January 29, 2020

As I stated above, as the price of being granted access to classified information, you agree to not disclose it. That agreement extends to your post-federal employment existence and covers anything you may write, fiction or nonfiction, that pertains to your federal employment. So when Thomas Greer, who wrote under the pen name ‘Dalton Fury,’ wrote a non-fiction book about his experiences leading a Delta squadron in Tora Bora, Department of Defense had to review the manuscript. Later on when he wrote a series of action-adventure novels with a Delta Force protagonist, they all had to be cleared so as to not reveal classified information or sensitive Tactics, Techniques and Procedures. This is not new stuff.

Bolton worked in an environment that was nearly 100% classified. The National Security Council is a focal point for several agencies, primarily State, Defense, and National Intelligence, so not only is the material classified, it may be classified different ways by different agencies. Plus, when you work in that kind of a job, what is classified and what is unclassified runs together. Bolton is not the first former federal employee to have a book declared problematic during the agency review process.

What happens next is just what the letter says. Bolton will have to work with the NSC to resolve the classification issues. In some cases, he’ll be able to do that. In others, if he removes the classified information there may be nothing left. That’s the risk any author runs when writing about classified information.

Bottom line is that the CNN reports are a lie

Jake Tapper has issued a formal lie. The NSC letter contains no threats. It does, however, make clear that Bolton's book–which went live for pre-sale the day its contents were leaked to the New York Times–contains TOP SECRET classified information. https://t.co/mOnjIPACFS — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) January 29, 2020

Even were this some nefarious payback scheme there remain two salient facts. First, this does not have any effect upon the ability of this manuscript to be used during the impeachment trial. Senator Jim Lankford had proposed having it moved to a SCIF in the US Capitol and be made available their for senators to review. Second, the NSC is a hotbed of #Resistance. The ethics office, which is the office that coordinates manuscript clearances, employs the brother of the chubby little Ukraine expert LIEUTENANT COLONEL Alexander Vindman. It is from the NSC that Trump’s phone calls with foreign leaders are leaked. There is a less than zero chance that this manuscript is being improperly classified and word not leaking out. And there is also the fact that the letter was issued by the NSC on January 23, three days before the existence of Bolton’s book became general knowledge.

This is simply CNN selling more Resistance porn to a audience that is not bright enough to know it is being deliberately deceived.