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Here’s the thing about Glenn @ggreenwald: he’s been wrong over and over about Russia. Does he ever apologize, retract, adopt a posture of epistemic modesty? No, he just moves the goalposts and continues obfuscating, to the delight of Fox. Exhibit A: 1/ https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/757918989586722820?s=20
That was Greenwald casting doubt on the idea that Russia was behind the 2016 hack of DNC emails. People who claimed Russian involvement there, said Greenwald, were “using baseless speculation & invalid reasoning.” 2/ https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/757929296975495168?s=20
We now know, of course, that Russia *was* involved. The Senate Intelligence Committee Report is clear: “Vladmir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton.” 3/
Meanwhile, “WikiLeaks actively sought, and played, a key role in the Russian influence campaign and very likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort.” 4/
In this context, it’s worth pointing out that Greenwald is now calling for Julian Assange to be pardoned. On Fox News, of course. 5/ https://twitter.com/BMarchetich/status/1304614069844893696?s=20
It’s not just that Greenwald mocked the idea that Russia had something to do with the hacks. He even mocked the idea that Putin wanted Trump to win! 6/
Russia did want Trump to win, and did interfere. But according to Greenwald—talking to Tucker Carlson, on Fox News—“it was really an election-year political theme that the Democrats manufactured out of whole cloth, that the Russians… are our enemy.” 7/ https://tinyurl.com/y3j6ocdo
Really? Not our enemy… at all? Not even the least bit? 8/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-21/barr-says-russia-likely-to-blame-for-massive-cyber-attack
When the Mueller Report came out, Greenwald was quick to swallow Barr’s account of it—an account we now know to have been seriously misleading. 9/ https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/even-a-gop-appointed-judge-thinks-barr-misled-on-mueller-report
Here’s Greenwald falsely claiming Bill Barr did not lie about the Mueller report. 10/ https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1110734117363245056?s=20
Greenwald clearly thought it ridiculous to think that “William Barr is materially misrepresenting the Mueller report.” His evidence? The Mueller team wasn’t saying anything. 11/ https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1110735978765914112
Guess what happened a couple of months later? That’s right: Mueller said something. 12/ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/29/mueller-says-trump-was-not-exonerated-by-his-investigation
Something else worth noting here: when Mueller’s statements suited Greenwald, Greenwald cited him as evidence. When not, Mueller went back to being part of the deep state. Here’s Greenwald sarcastically calling Mueller a “brave and honorable patriot.” 13/ https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1177954682372853762?s=20
So: Russia didn’t want Trump to win.
OK, maybe they wanted him to win, but they didn’t interfere.
OK, maybe they interfered, but they didn’t collude. “No collusion!” 14/
OK, maybe they wanted him to win, but they didn’t interfere.
OK, maybe they interfered, but they didn’t collude. “No collusion!” 14/
It may be true, of course, that there was no actionable conspiracy. But we just don’t know for sure—and the reason for that is that so many in Trump’s orbit refused to cooperate, or flat out lied. 15/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/we-still-dont-know-what-happened-between-trump-and-russia/602116/
But to Greenwald, these lies are no big deal. Sure, Michael Flynn lied to the FBI about contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and even pled guilty to that charge. But who among us hasn’t done that? His prosecution is a sham! 16/ https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1331732311268843526?s=20
“Liberals… are authoritarians”! Let that sink in for a moment. Bill Barr is doing God’s work; Chuck Schumer, I guess, is an authoritarian. 17/
Again: we don’t know everything that transpired in 2016, and one of the main reasons is that people in Trump’s orbit lied or refused to testify. The reason Greenwald can so confidently say “no collusion” is because people like Flynn lied. So yes, obstruction matters. 18/
How about Trump—did he also obstruct justice? The Mueller report strongly implies as much, in spite of the absence of charges. (Mueller's stated view was that sitting presidents can’t be charged.) https://www.lawfareblog.com/obstruction-justice-mueller-report-heat-map 19/
But Greenwald, of course, knows better. "I don't think he had a corrupt motive. I think his motive was 'I think this investigation is garbage and therefore I'm very open about the fact I want to stop it.' I don't think that's obstruction of justice." 20/ https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/1119233240097787904?lang=en
“No collusion, no obstruction”: Greenwald couldn’t have run better cover for Trump if he’d tried. 21/
In fact, Greenwald went further than that, saying that the Mueller investigation was suspect, and that Bill Barr should really investigate it. He said that (where else?) on Tucker Carlson's show. 22/ https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1124108924251189250?s=20
Here Greenwald repeats Trump talking points: “You want to talk about threats to democracy? How about spying on and listening in on the calls of American citizens by convincing a FISA court that they’re Russian agents?” 23/ https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1124108924251189250
You might think Greenwald’s errors are restricted to Russiagate. But no. Here he is mocking the notion that high-level politicians, if found guilty of crimes, should be removed from office. 24/ https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1197175682146750467?s=20
As for Adam Schiff, lead prosecutor in the impeachment trial, what is he, according to Greenwald? A “pathological liar.” 25/ https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1318349147284570115?s=20
Meanwhile, Republican Senator Josh Hawley called 2019 "the first purely partisan impeachment in our history," is against gay marriage and Roe v Wade, and is for guns, wall-building, and family separation. But Greenwald can see his good side. 26/ https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1341743451948396547?s=20
And here he is getting very excited about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop. What’s fascinating here is how low his standards for evidence have suddenly become, compared to how high they were in 2016. 27/ https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1316462856821510148?s=20
“Has anyone even alleged that those emails are anything other than authentic?” Well—yes! Plenty of outlets raised doubts. There was no header information or metadata on the alleged emails, and Giuliani refused to let journalists inspect the laptop. 28/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/hunter-biden-emails-ukraine-fake-news-new-york-post-trump-rudy-giuliani-b1041498.html
Fifty former senior intelligence officials—including former Trump administration officials—signed a letter saying the incident had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” 29/ https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfo-430276
According to the NYT, even the New York Post was divided on the laptop story. Several of the Post’s own reporters refused to put their name on it. 30/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/business/media/new-york-post-hunter-biden.html
That’s not to say that Hunter Biden is innocent, that the emails are fake, or that they didn't come from a mysterious laptop. We simply don’t know yet. What we do know is that Greenwald was, once again, obfuscating when he suggested no one had doubted their authenticity. 31/
The same Greenwald who kept excoriating Democrats for believing Russiagate without sufficient evidence—this Greenwald believes possibly fake emails should be widely circulated. 32/
This is who Greenwald is. It’s really important to be clear about that. Don’t let him fool you. /
