Historic Assange Trial to Hinge on Trump’s Political Motivations
Ellen Milligan and Jonathan Browning
,Bloomberg•February 21, 2020
https://news.yahoo.com/historic-assange-trial-hinge-trump-150007379.html
Russia denies backing Trump's re-election as critics blast reported interference
U.S. intelligence officials told members of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee in a classified briefing last week that Russia was again interfering in American politics ahead of November’s election, a person familiar with the discussion told Reuters.
U.S. officials have long warned that Russia and other countries would seek to interfere in the Nov. 3 presidential election, following Russia’s meddling in the 2016 campaign that ended with Trump’s surprise victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
The U.S. intelligence community concluded that the Kremlin used fake news reports, cyber attacks and other methods in its 2016 operation in an effort to boost Trump, an allegation that Russia denies. Trump has also repeatedly questioned the finding.
On Friday, the Kremlin said the latest allegations were false.
“These are more paranoid announcements which, to our regret, will multiply as we get closer to the (U.S.) election,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “They have nothing to do with the truth.”
Russia’s alleged interference sparked a two-year-long U.S. investigation headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Mueller found no conclusive evidence of coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. He also pointed at 10 instances in which Trump may have attempted to obstruct his investigation, as Democrats alleged, but left any finding of obstruction to Congress.
Trump is seeking a second term in office.
Last July, he called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate one of his potential Democratic rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, sparking his impeachment in the Democratic-controlled House.
Trump, who was later acquitted by the Republican-led U.S. Senate, has also publicly called on China to probe Biden.
Last week’s classified congressional briefing sparked a sharp response by Trump, who rebuked acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire for allowing his staff to brief the lawmakers, including Democratic panel Chairman Adam Schiff, who led the impeachment inquiry, the New York Times reported, quoting five people familiar with the matter.
Trump then dismissed Maguire, abruptly announcing this week that Richard Grenell, a Trump loyalist, would be the acting intelligence chief, even as he continues serving as U.S. ambassador to Germany. His appointment drew sharp rebukes from Democrats and other critics who said Grenell lacked intelligence experience.
“American voters should decide American elections — not Vladimir Putin,” U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a post on Twitter late on Thursday, referring to Russia’s president. She called on lawmakers to condemn Trump’s “reported efforts to dismiss threats to the integrity of our democracy & to politicize our intel community.”
“If reports are true and the president is interfering with that, he is again jeopardizing our efforts to stop foreign meddling. Exactly as we warned he would do,” Schiff said Thursday night.
Trump’s last full-time director of national intelligence, former Republican Senator Dan Coats, resigned last year after his differences with the president over Russia’s role in the 2016 election became public.
Trump has repeatedly called the U.S. Russia probe and the impeachment inquiry a “witch hunt.” His fellow Republicans at last week’s briefing questioned the information, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. Republican members of the panel did not respond to a request for comment.
https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKBN20F1EY
Study Insists Journalists Aren't Swayed by Leftist Bias
The vast majority are extreme leftists, but researchers claim it doesn't affect their journalism.
A recent research paper published by the University of Virginia dubiously concludes, “There is No Liberal Media Bias in the News Political Journalists Choose to Cover.” While the researchers did find that the vast majority of mainstream journalists lean hard to the left — to the left of even socialist Bernie Sanders — they still maintained that this reality doesn’t skew their reporting.
Of course, if this were genuinely the case, the political leanings of mainstream-media journalists would be a mystery to us — at least insofar as their reporting is concerned.
“The funny thing about this study is that it purports to show that even though journalists are overwhelmingly liberal, their political bias doesn’t affect the stories they choose to cover or not cover,” observes Power Line’s John Hinderaker. “Which is why the press paid a hundred times as much attention to the biggest political scandal in US history, the coordinated effort by the CIA, the FBI and the Department of Justice to swing the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton, or, failing that, to disable the Trump presidency, as to the entirely fabricated, implausible and politically paid-for fantasy that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. Right?”
The fact of the matter is, an individual’s political bias is both inescapable and influential — and journalists aren’t somehow magically exempt from human nature. This bias can only be mitigated if it is recognized, acknowledged, and balanced with competing ideological perspectives. If mainstream-media journalists continue to maintain the fiction that their reporting is impervious to their personal bias, they’ll continue to earn the enmity and deep distrust of the American people. And rightly so.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/68732-study-insists-journalists-arent-swayed-by-leftist-bias-2020-02-21
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ifmpw7fr7w9p8q6/HHM_Media_Bias_Science_Submission.pdf
Historical dig Ted Kennedy/Russia:
Ted Kennedy Secretly Asked The Soviets To Intervene In The 1984 Elections
https://thefederalist.com/2015/03/10/ted-kennedy-secretly-asked-the-soviets-to-intervene-in-the-1984-elections/
Letter Details Kennedy Offer To USSR
https://archive.ph/QIVgg