Aaugh! A Brief List Of Official Russia Claims That Proved To Be Bogus – TK News by Matt Taibbi
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has released a much-hyped, much-cited new report on Foreign Threats to the 2020 Elections. The key conclusion:
We assess that Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, [and] undermining public confidence in the electoral process&
The report added Ukrainian legislator Andrey Derkach, described as having ties to Russia s intelligence services, and Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian influence agent (whatever that means), used prominent U.S. persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to American audiences. The narratives included misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden (note they didn t use the word false ). They added a small caveat at the end: Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact.
As Glenn Greenwald already pointed out, the launder their narratives passage was wolfed down by our intelligence services own media conduits here at home, and regurgitated as proof that the Hunter Biden laptop story came from the Kremlin, even though the report didn t mention the laptop story at all. Exactly one prominent reporter, Chris Hayes, had the decency to admit this after advancing the claim initially.
With regard to the broader assessment: how many times are we going to do this? We ve spent the last five years watching as anonymous officials make major Russia-related claims, only to have those evidence-free claims fizzle.
Matt Taibbi.