Journalists are not supposed to take sides. That’s the point. They provide information to the public that we wouldn’t otherwise know so that citizens can make informed decisions about those entrusted to govern us.
What about pushing authorities to conduct a criminal investigation centered on a Presidential campaign manager? Is that ‘election interference’?
The lastest information dump by Judicial Watch is raising questions about what role the press played in trying to deep-six Trump’s inner circle.
Documents obtained by Washington watchdog Judicial Watch on Tuesday reveal Associated Press reporters met with the FBI and provided information to the bureau, including the access code to Paul Manafort’s storage locker in advance of the government’s investigation of the onetime Trump campaign chairman.
Judicial Watch obtained and posted online copies of heavily redacted FBI documents concerning an April 11, 2017, “off-the-record” meeting between Andrew Weissmann, then head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Fraud Section, the FBI and AP reporters.
The reporters “provided information on former Trump campaign director Paul Manafort, including the numeric code to Manafort’s storage locker,” Judicial Watch said.
The AP reporters told the agents that Manafort got money from Sergii Leshchenko and had documentation “showing the money was routed through a company in Belize called Neocom Systems. The money then went into a Wachovia account. This money came from the Party of Regions.”
“AP believes Manafort is in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, in that Manafort send (sic) internal U.S. documents to officials in Ukraine,” the papers show. “AP has documentation proving this, as well as Manafort, noting his understanding doing so would get him into trouble.”
Source: Clarion News
It’s just coincidence that he’s Trump-connected, right? Not motivated by personal vendettas or personal contempt at all.
Does the name Andrew Weissmann sound familiar? It should. This was APRIL of 2017, fully a month before Mueller was appointed to run his ridiculous campaign, but this was Manafort employee that was present at Hillary’s ‘victory party’ on election day. This was the same Weismann thought by some to have been the real brains of the operation in the Mueller report.
Judicial Watch said, “Under Mueller, Weissmann became known as ‘the architect of the case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort,’ which produced no evidence of collusion between Manafort, the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. It indicted Manafort on unrelated charges.”
Said the watchdog: “In an October 2017 article describing Weissmann as Mueller’s ‘Pit Bull,’ The New York Times wrote, ‘He is a top lieutenant to Robert S. Mueller III on the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible links to the Trump campaign. Significantly, Mr. Weissmann is an expert in converting defendants into collaborators — with either tactical brilliance or overzealousness, depending on one’s perspective.’ Weissman oversaw the pre-dawn home raid of Manafort in what one former federal prosecutor described as ‘textbook Weissmann terrorism.’ Weissmann reportedly also attended Hillary Clinton’s Election Night party in New York.”
Source: WND
So why, exactly, is a news source taking an active role in the investigation?
Good question. We don’t yet have a good answer.
