Impeachment Trial: The Democrat-Media Leak Playbook Exposed

The front page of a newspaper with the headline "Fake News" which illustrates the current phenomena. Front section of newspaper is on top of loosely stacked remainder of newspaper. All visible text is authored by the photographer. Photographed in a studio setting on a white background with a slight wide angle lens.

Leak, allege, spin, repeat. Milk every false allegation for maximum political benefit, then discard after it is disproven. The Democrats and their operatives in the legacy media and Deep State use this tactic all the time, especially in matters that they consider to be of prime political importance to them. That tactic is in play in spades during the Senate impeachment trial, as we shall see. But first, a little background.

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Remember the Kavanaugh hearings? Nearly every day there was a salacious allegation lodged against Judge Kavanaugh. They dribbled out one after the other, especially as it became clear that Christine Blasey-Ford’s claims of “sexual harassment” by the judge could not be proved or even confirmed by contemporary witnesses at the time of the alleged actions by Kavanaugh. Besides Blasey-Ford’s unsubstantiated claims, here are a few of the other allegations that did not pan out for the Democrats, all of which were from the 1980s:

  • Kavanaugh exposed himself to Deborah Ramirez, a classmate at Yale
  • Kavanaugh’s Yale classmate Max Stier witnessed acts of sexual harassment
  • Julie Swetnick’s allegations of Kavanaugh and friend Mark Judge getting girls drunk so that they could be gang-raped [Note: her attorney was Michael Avenatti!]
  • The fabricated Judy Munro-Leighton letter containing a rape allegation – which she later admitted was a fake and intended to “garner attention” (she was referred to DoJ for prosecution, but at the time, it served the purpose of advancing the false narrative against Kavanaugh)

Mollie Hemingway, with Carrie Severino, exposed the Democrats’ smear campaign in her book, Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court. She provides historical context by reviewing Democrat smear campaigns against Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Here is a very telling comment she made during an interview with Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass:

“What I think is most telling is that the moment that he was confirmed all these stories just kind of evaporated,” Hemingway said. “And if you were a real journalist who really believed that these were credible allegations against a man who might become a Supreme Court Justice, it would be even more newsworthy to pursue these allegations if the man was a Supreme Court justice.

“But the stories all kind of disappeared,” Hemingway told me. “Yes, you have some of the reporters who were involved in the anti-Kavanaugh battle putting out books. And maybe they’ll put some new stuff in there. But that frenzy that you saw last fall? If it were genuine there would have been no reason for it to abate even slightly.”

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And that’s exactly what happened, didn’t it? Down the memory hole it goes after having been milked for whatever political benefit can be gained for Democrats. This happens every time after a given unsourced, breathless allegation cannot be substantiated or is debunked outright when the truth comes out. None of the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh were substantiated. None of them. And yet the Democrats insisted that he not be confirmed merely due to the seriousness of the allegations!

Does that ring a bell with respect to the ongoing attempts by the Democrat-media complex to take out President Trump? How many leaked stories have there been about the Russia hoax and the fake Steele dossier that they asserted were real and warranted impeachment of the President? How many people were celebrated and feted by the Democrats and media over the past couple of years because of their anti-Trump allegations? Avenatti, Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, McCabe, Strzok, Comey, Clapper, Brennan, and, of course, the execrable Adam Schiff. How does the credibility of those people look in retrospect? They’ve all been discredited and outed as bald-faced liars. Some of them are facing serious legal consequences for their actions. What does that say about the character of the Democrats and legacy media who willingly propagated their lies and false allegations?

Yet, we are supposed to swallow the hook on the latest Democrat-media complex Ukraine impeachment gambit and their efforts to orchestrate Senate votes in favor of new witnesses and documents. Here are the latest orchestrated stories along those lines that are somehow just being disclosed at this particularly moment in time (there are NO coincidences in politics!):

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  • The CBS News retribution story. Yet another unsourced claim, in this case, that the President supposedly threatened to put “heads on a pike” of any Republican senator who votes against his wishes. Schiiff even mentioned that in his closing remarks on Friday in order to put psychological pressure on Republican senators.
  • The Parnas audio tapes and the plot to remove Marie Yovanovitch. Never mind that a president can fire any/all ambassadors at any time, as they all serve at his pleasure. A nothing-burger being spun by Democrats as direct evidence of “abuse of power.”
  • And now the Bolton book transcript. The NY Times claims that the President told Bolton in August that he wanted to freeze Ukraine aid until the Ukrainians investigated the Bidens. Yet, we are now just learning that the NY Times haven’t even seen the book transcript and are relying exclusively on the usual “unnamed sources.”

The fact that the Bolton story is already disintegrating doesn’t matter because it will still have legs for a few more days. It doesn’t matter whether the allegations are true or not; the goal is to put pressure on Republican senators to vote for new witnesses and documents. And right on cue, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stepped up to the mike on Monday morning to read from a prepared statement:

If there was EVER a shred of logic left to not hear witnesses and documents, Mr. Bolton’s book just erased it. The President ordered everyone with firsthand knowledge of his actions not to testify in the impeachment inquiry. We’re all staring a White House cover-up in the face.

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That same message, as well as the unsourced NY times article, was propagated throughout the legacy media on Monday. For example, here is the breathless headline from Bloomberg News: “Here We Have It. The Trump Impeachment Smoking Gun.” The Democrat goal has always been to keep the pressure on Republican senators, including those like Mitt Romney (RINO-UT) who are predisposed against President Trump. And the legacy media are willing accomplices as always.

Fortunately, some of the Republicans have not only figured out this tactic but are actually countering it in public statements. Here is a statement on Monday morning from Senator John Barrasso (R-WY):

… So, as I said last Friday, I think there is going to be something new coming out every day just like what we saw in the Kavanaugh trial. New information, old information told in a different way to inflame emotions and influence the outcome. Take a breath. Let’s listen to the President’s lawyers today and the case that they present….

Not so fast with that “impeachment smoking gun,” Democrats. The Bolton transcript story continued to unravel, as DoJ pushed back by saying that Bolton did not inform Attorney General Barr about the Trump-Zelensky call, contrary to what NY Times claimed the book manuscript said:

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And the lawyer for White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney released this statement further debunking the NY Times story:

Statement from Bob Driscoll, attorney for Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney: The latest story from the New York Time s, coordinated with a book launch, has more to do with publicity than the truth.  John Bolton never informed Mick Mulvaney of any concerns surrounding Bolton’s purported August conversation with the President.  Nor did Mr. Mulvaney ever have a conversation with the president or anyone else indicating that Ukrainian military aid was withheld in exchange for a Ukrainian investigation of Burisma, the Bidens, or the 2016 election.  Furthermore, Mr. Mulvaney has no recollection of any conversation with Mr. Giuliani resembling that reportedly described in Mr. Bolton’s manuscript…  It was Mr. Mulvaney’s practice to excuse himself from conservations between the President and his personal counsel to preserve any attorney-client privilege.

Hmmm. First, we learn that nobody at the NY Times has seen the manuscript, and that their story was based on unknown sources. Next, DoJ disputes what the NY Times claimed was in the manuscript about Bolton informing AG Barr after the phone call. And finally, WH Chief of Staff Mulvaney disputes another claim made in that article.

When will we see the NY Times issue a “correction of the record”? Not until after the Senate votes on the subject of witnesses, after which point the story will have reached its expiration date from a political benefit-to-Democrats point of view.

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This is the way the Democrat-media complex rolls: leak, allege, spin, endlessly echo, milk it, repeat. Stand by for more before the week is done.

The end.

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