President Donald Trump speaks with reporters on the South Lawn of The White House on June 22, 2019. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

You Are Watching the Last Days of the Fake News Media

Commentary

I can’t think of a single major mainstream media outlet that has admitted to its audience that it has examined how it ended up presenting the Trump–Russia collusion hoax as real news for more than two years, figured out what went wrong, and made the necessary corrections to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

Isn’t that a telling sign? They can’t bring themselves to admit it was all a hoax, because that would mean exposing the role they themselves played in creating and sustaining it for more than two years, as they relentlessly gaslighted the entire country.

They should be confessing what they did, admitting it was a huge mistake, and promising their audience they have made the prerequisite changes to ensure that there’s never a repeat. Instead, I’m watching all of these fake news outlets double down on their false narratives.

They appear to be fully determined to keep up the illusion that the Trump–Russia collusion hoax is still alive, and that President Donald Trump must have obstructed the Mueller investigation in some way to hide that. No retractions, no recriminations, no nothing. And so here we are.

We are living in the last days of the fake news media. When Trump declassifies all the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) documents, and when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz releases his FISA court abuse report, these fake news outlets literally won’t be able to cope with it. I believe the massive fallout will destroy many of them.

Trump knows what he knows. He’s seen what he’s seen. He knows what’s coming and that the fake news outlets doubling down on this Trump–Russia obstruction fantasy has left them no avenue of retreat.

The editors and political activists—disguised as reporters and editors at these fake news media outlets—went “all in” on this fake narrative several years ago. At the time, it looked like a safe call to make. The consensus was that Trump wasn’t going to last very long in the White House.

Since Trump was supposedly doomed to a short, ignoble presidency marred by countless scandals and corruption, many top activists at these fake news outlets eagerly put themselves at the disposal of the “Get Trump” #Resistance machine inside the federal agencies.

These political partisans were consciously working hand-in-hand with corrupt federal officials in both law enforcement and intelligence agencies to launch fake scandals that would cripple and sabotage the incoming Trump administration, assuring that Trump’s time in power would be very brief.

I’ve talked in the past about the practice of “strategic leaking,” how corrupt federal officials target a person for investigation and make anonymous leaks to media allies to place the target under suspicion.

This is exactly how they went after Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, Trump national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn, and others. Leak incomplete, slanted, or fake information to the mainstream media to drum up media cries for the target to be investigated, then move to answer the cries you created with your own leak.

Nowhere has this practice of strategic leaking and wrap-up smear been so clearly exposed as in the Flynn case. Somebody high up leaked the transcript of phone calls Flynn had with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, which led to media cries for Flynn to be investigated for “collusion” and a possible Logan Act violation.

The leak of the Flynn phone calls appeared in the Post on Jan. 12, 2017. That placed Flynn under suspicion of having tried to do some kind of secret deal with the Russians under the table. It was surmised he somehow must be undermining President Barack Obama’s new sanctions and somebody should look into it quickly.

So after about a week and a half of letting the hue and cry build in the fake news media of “Somebody needs to investigate that Flynn guy! Logan Act violation and stuff!”, the FBI actually dispatches FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joseph Pientka to interview Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017, in the White House.

Any veteran reporter who looked into the facts of the story would have immediately realized that the narrative about Flynn being sold in the fake news media from Jan. 14 to Jan. 24 had holes in it the size of a Mack truck.

Here’s what you’re supposed to believe without question in the fake news media’s narrative about the nefarious Flynn getting caught in a lie about his Kislyak phone calls by the intrepid Strzok:

A military general with more than 30 years of extensive intelligence experience “forgot” that all phone calls with top Russian officials are monitored, transcribed, and placed in intel reports. Flynn “forgot” that the FBI must have full transcripts of all his calls with Kislyak. It’s illegal for an incoming national security adviser to make contact with foreign officials to discuss the presidential transition or discuss foreign policy issues.

All three of these key points in the fake news media’s narrative about Flynn are 100 percent false.

As an experienced military intelligence officer—who previously served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency—Flynn couldn’t have forgotten that every phone call to Russian officials is monitored by the National Security Agency and others. There is simply no way Flynn wouldn’t know the FBI had the full transcripts and that Strzok and Pientka had seen them. Not only is it not illegal for the national security adviser in an incoming presidential transition team to call up foreign officials and discuss key foreign policy issues with them, but it’s his job to do so.

Isn’t it quite telling that the fake news media hasn’t done anything to correct the record? Instead, the media ignores or downplays the holes in their own Flynn narrative.

This is another sign that many in the fake news media knew all along that the Flynn narrative they were helping government officials to push out there was fake. They can’t correct the record at this point, because it would expose the fact that many of the top “journalists” involved were willing participants in this fraud perpetrated against Flynn.

Understand that it’s not just the loss of whatever small amount of credibility they still possess at this point that leads the people running these fake news media outlets to double down right now.

That could be a motivating factor, but it’s not really the main one. There will be serious legal ramifications to an admission that they helped partisan government officials target innocent people for corrupt, politically motivated investigations that significantly harmed these innocent targets.

Look at the ongoing cases of libel and slander now suddenly facing many of these fake news outlets, such as in the case of the Covington High School students, in which some media outlets refused to retract outright slander against these kids, who are private citizens.

Those cases are about news outlets that either deliberately or mistakenly took a video out of context, and slandered and libeled the kids in it. Those outlets didn’t play a hand in the event itself in Washington that day, but they did distort their “news coverage” of it to attack Trump fans.

Now compare that to what was done to people such as Trump, Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and others. In the ever-growing Spygate scandal, these selfsame media reporters were instrumental in helping to make these people targets of federal investigations. They didn’t wander into the story after the fact; they were present at the creation, so to speak.

I believe these fake news media outlets are going to be sued out of existence as a result of massive lawsuits brought by the innocent people they helped target for fraudulent and politically motivated federal investigations.

Innocent targets of witch hunts started by corrupt federal officials inside the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA, and the State Department—with the willing help of political activists disguised as reporters—will demand justice for what was done to them.

Do you think the Covington High School kids have a case against the fake news media? Then what kind of case will Flynn, Page, Papadopoulos, Svetlana Lokhova, Manafort, Roger Stone, and others targeted by these false media smears have once all the facts come out?

Do you now have a better grasp why these fake news outlets, despite everything that’s come out in the past two years, are still at this point desperately and frantically clinging to the Trump–Russia obstruction narrative like it’s a life preserver?

The fake news media is doomed. Trump knows this, which is why he confidently predicts they will be gone shortly after he leaves office in 2024. The outlets that helped target innocent people as part of the Spygate scandal are going to lose massive lawsuits.

Trump knows much of what’s going to be in the Horowitz report and he knows what’s in the FISA declassification he’s planning to do. He knows, therefore, that the fake news media, having doubled down on its false narrative, is about to be exposed to massive legal liability.

We know at this point—due to what’s been publicly released—the basic outline of the Spygate plot, and how the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee used Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS to launch the Trump–Russian election collusion hoax, as well as how corrupt federal officials assisted the Clinton camp in launching and sustaining the hoax with the direct assistance of key members of the fake news media, using leaks of selectively edited classified information.

Trump already knows many of the specifics. That’s why he’s not worried. He knows what the release of the declassified documents will do.

It’s an amazing time to be alive.

Fully enjoy the moment before the plunge.

Brian Cates is a political pundit and writer based in South Texas and the author of “Nobody Asked for My Opinion … But Here It Is Anyway!”