Lowlight of the Transition

A limited command of the English language is helpful to trump's political career. With minimal ability to express himself definitively and a tendency to limit his remarks to 140 characters, it is hard to pin trump down on his promises or intentions. When he blasted the reports of his alleged hidden dealings with Russia as "fake news," it landed like a foul ball outside the chalked lines of consensus on the meaning of the phrase. That's alright though. trump can have his "fake news." I'll revert to using the term "propaganda" despite the cold war overtones. In this case, neither term applies.

The thirty-five page dossier detailing instances of trump's miscreancy, with implications of treason, was not from an open news source, but from covert intelligence sources. It wasn't made up by news organizations, it was obtained under much higher stakes than typical investigative journalism demands. The fact that the lead private investigator, former MI6 Russia desk chief, Christopher Steele was compelled to go into hiding as attribution became public implies that there was no prearranged public release date (otherwise Steele would have been long gone before yesterday). Buzzfeed apparently took it on themselves to publish the dossier, though, after the FBI put it into the hands of various news organizations, it was just a matter of time before someone did.

"The King's Bedroom" by ClaraDon

The story of how this hot potato was passed around has all the hallmarks of a John LeCarre novel. Who needs RT's fantastic tales to make news interesting? The Guardian has a great synopsis of the opening chapters of what could well become the political scandal of the century. If you want to explore some of the nuances and possible motivations involved, FAIR covers it nicely.