While the media feeding frenzy is hitting a fever pitch over published allegations that President Donald Trump leaked classified information to the Russians, an embarrassing headline from 2016 shows the Obama administration also offered “enhanced information sharing” to Russia to target terrorists in Syria.
The June 30, 2016 story in the Washington Post quoted then-Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, who said at the time that if Russia would “do the right thing in Syria…as in all cases with Russia, we’re willing to work with them.”
This comes as a handful of Capitol Hill Democrats are already talking about impeachment when Trump has been on the job barely four months. But being rid of the maverick president as soon as possible has grown into an obsession with some people inside the Beltway who just can’t get over Hillary Clinton’s defeat in November.
Despite official denials by people who were in the room when the leak of classified information allegedly happened, the press is clinging to the story. But ten months ago, there did not seem to be any kind of similar wolf pack approach by the media when the Washington Post story regarding the Obama administration offer was published.
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The offered deal was contingent upon Moscow stopping the bombing of civilians and opposition fighters in Syria, according to the newspaper. The Obama administration also wanted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to cease bombings as well.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that the classified intelligence allegedly shared by Trump with Russian officials last week apparently came from Israel.
There is another issue. When former President Bill Clinton met with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the tarmac, the press did not create anywhere near the current firestorm about possible obstruction of justice. Why not? There was much speculation – most of it ignored by the mainstream media – that the “fix was in” for Hillary Clinton in the email scandal.
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece on the Trump allegations in which the newspaper observed: “The state of the Trump Presidency has been perpetual turbulence, which seems to be how the principal likes it.”
Or is this how the media likes it? Since before Trump took office, there has been a steady stream of stories either about chaos in his administration, or that contributed to (if not created) chaos in his administration.
Thursday’s Daily Mail reported that Betfair bookies are betting that Trump will leave office before January 2021.
As Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, “The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent.”
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