EXEC SUMMARY: Scroll down for Tuesday's front page, James Comey's Fox controversy, Christopher Wray's warning, Black Rock's future, and much more...
The new Pentagon Papers
Compare/contrast these two leads:
The first paragraph of the NYT's first story about the Pentagon Papers on June 13, 1971: "A massive study of how the United States went to war in Indochina, conducted by the Pentagon three years ago, demonstrates that four administrations progressively developed a sense of commitment to a non-Communist Vietnam, a readiness to fight the North to protect the South, and an ultimate frustration with this effort — to a much greater extent than their public statements acknowledged at the time."
The lead of the Post's first story about the Afghanistan Papers: "A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable."
Monday morning's release of the Afghanistan Papers was more than three years in the making. Through FOIA requests and lawsuits in federal court, the paper obtained notes, transcripts and audio recordings of government officials being interviewed by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR.
Despite all the other news out of DC, the Post led with its Afghan investigation all day and night. Craig Whitlock's reporting is also running at the top of Tuesday's print edition, as you can see here: | | The source of these papers
"SIGAR has published seven Lessons Learned reports since 2016," but they're written in "dense bureaucratic prose" and they leave out "the harshest and most frank criticisms from the interviews," Whitlock explained in his story. So obtaining the interview records and some other materials -- like "hundreds of confidential memos by former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld" -- was a real public service.
>> Key quote: SIGAR chief John Sopko told Whitlock in an interview that "the American people have constantly been lied to."
>> Along with the main story, the Post published Whitlock's full on-camera interview with Sopko; a 17-minute documentary; multiple sidebars; responses from people featured in the papers; a documents database; a visual timeline; a podcast episode; and more...
A team effort
Here's what WaPo exec editor Marty Baron told me about the scope of this investigation: "The war in Afghanistan has gone on for 18 years at an enormous cost in lives, injuries and money, and the public is entitled to know whether officials were straight with them about the war effort. Through three years of persistence by Craig Whitlock and our lawyers, the public now knows that truth was a casualty of the war from the very beginning. This project ultimately drew on the impressive talents of dozens of newsroom staffers. We're immensely proud of what they accomplished in presenting the truth to the public. We will continue our legal fight to obtain information that is still being withheld by the government."
Daniel Ellsberg's reaction
People have been making comparisons between the Afghan papers and Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers all day. So I called Daniel Ellsberg, the analyst who had worked on the RAND study of the Vietnam War and decided to leak it to the NYT and then the Post. He wholeheartedly agreed with the analogy.
"What these documents show are the similarities in situations," he said.
Ellsberg told me he plans to read all of the raw material that the Post has published online. "A couple thousand pages? I'll read them all," he said, "even though it means reliving the terrible experience of Vietnam. It affirms my warnings that the situations were the same."
Ellsberg, an outspoken anti-war activist, said: "Eighteen years ago, I was saying, when we got into Afghanistan, that Afghanistan is Vietnam. From the point of view of foreign invaders, it's the same situation. In fact, I said that when the Russians went in more than twenty years earlier -- that it was going to be their Vietnam."
Ellsberg said lying is a theme in both sets of documents: In both wars, "the presidents and the generals had a pretty realistic view of what they were up against, which they did not want to admit to the American people."
He said he is glad that so many officials involved in the Afghan war spoke frankly to SIGAR, but asserted they should have been just as forthright in public: "Ask yourself, would it have made a difference if we had those statements ten years ago? Five years ago?"
In our phone interview, Ellsberg expressed his regret about not speaking out sooner during Vietnam. And he said he hopes the Post investigation will "factor into people saying, we really don't have a right to be killing more Afghans from the air, from the ground, however. Let Trump get out of Afghanistan, which he seems to want to do. Let him take the responsibility for that. Better yet, let Congress take the responsibility."
>> Read more: WaPo's Gillian Brockell notes that "the Pentagon Papers had more missing pieces than the Afghanistan Papers..."
Why today?
Hats off to the Post for this historic scoop, but I can't help but wonder why the editors decided to roll it out Monday at 6am ET, right before a key impeachment hearing and the release of the IG report into the start of the Russia probe. Staffers in competing newsrooms told me they were scratching their heads at the timing. The response from a Post spokeswoman was simple: "We publish when the story is ready." I'm still not sure I understand. No other news outlets were about to publish anything similar, so why not wait just a day?
The BIG picture
The NYT's Peter Baker stitched all of the day's biggest developments together for this Page One piece: "There are days in Washington lately when it feels like the truth itself is on trial. Monday was one of those days." His examples: An impeachment hearing on Capitol Hill presented radically competing versions of reality. An F.B.I. inspector general report punctured longstanding conspiracy theories even as it provided ammunition for others. And a trove of documents exposed years of government deception about the war in Afghanistan." Read...
BREAKING
Democrats expected to lay out articles of impeachment Tuesday
☝️ That's the top headline on CNN.com right now. An announcement is expected around 9am ET Tuesday. Here's the latest...
About the I.G. report...
There are dozens of "takes" to read. I don't have one yet. But I'll sleep on it and weigh in on CNN's "New Day" – I'm booked in the 6am hour. Here are nine POV's:
-- CNN's Jeffrey Toobin: "Let's be clear about what happened today. For years and years, Donald Trump has said the FBI and the deep state was involved in an illegal conspiracy... and now after years of investigation, the inspector general said, 'Not true. Didn't happen.'"
-- CNN's Anderson Cooper: The report is a "stunning rebuttal of virtually everything that President Donald Trump has said again and again for years about what he calls the Russia hoax..."
-- NYT's Tuesday morning all-caps headline: "REPORT DEBUNKS ANTI-TRUMP PLOT IN RUSSIA INQUIRY"
-- "Everything we have been reporting for years was dead-on accurate," Sean Hannity claimed Monday night. "We were right every step of the way." Oh?!
-- Mark Mazzetti's summary of how this world works: Yet another battle lost in the war to prove a "Deep State" conspiracy, but the president and his allies have already moved on to the next fight..."
-- Lawfare managing editor Quinta Jurecic tweeted: "There's a weird sense of futility here. Trump and his supporters will move on to the next defense/flat-out lie about what the report says. The real report — the TRUE exoneration of Trump, or the true exoneration of the investigators — is always just around the corner..."
-- Don Lemon hit on this on Monday night too: "Nothing happens, and they just move on to the next conspiracy theory. It is never going to end. And guess what? People who want to believe that B.S. are going to believe it. It just keeps going on and on and on, no matter how many facts you present..."
-- And Hannity proved that point earlier in the evening: He kept talking about a "preview of coming attractions," referring to John Durham's probe...
-- When Chris Cuomo asked what POTUS should know, former FBI general counsel Jim Baker said: "We were trying to protect the country from Russia. This was always all about Russia. As shown by the Mueller report and the indictments, the Russians are trying to hurt the country."
Do not underestimate...
Even though the IG's report "says there was no political conspiracy to undermine Trump's 2016 campaign," Trump claimed Monday that "this was an overthrow of government, this was an attempted overthrow — and a lot of people were in on it." Vox's Aaron Rupar concluded that Trump's "conspiracy theories are impervious to fact-checking."
CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer added: "As we have seen at many stages in his presidency, this is an aggressive disinformation campaign pure and simple. Reporters should not underestimate the intentionality of what POTUS is doing: flood the zone with as many false stories as possible to crowd out damaging revelations."
Comey v. Fox
Oliver Darcy emails: James Comey turned to Twitter on Monday to assert that he was booked on "Fox & Friends," but that the show canceled on him after the IG report found the opening of the FBI's Russia probe was legally justified and unbiased. "They booked me for tomorrow at 8 am. They just cancelled. Must have read the report," he said. But Fox quickly disputed Comey's claim, saying he "was not booked and was never confirmed to appear on Fox & Friends." So what happened? Reading between the lines, it seems like Comey was "soft booked" or tentatively scheduled to appear on the show. BUT, perhaps a producer hadn't "hard booked" him for an appearance...
>> On Monday night, Sean Hannity challenged Comey to come on HIS show and offered him the "full hour tomorrow night..."
Wray's warning about misleading media sources
"We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election," FBI director Christopher Wray told ABC News' Pierre Thomas in this sit-down on Monday.
When Thomas brought up the "Ukraine interfered" nonsense that's being spread by Trump and his supporters, Wray said, "Well, look, there's all kinds of people saying all kinds of things out there. I think it's important for the American people to be thoughtful consumers of information, to think about the sources of it and to think about the support and predication for what they hear. And I think part of us being well protected against malign foreign influence is to build together an American public that's resilient, that has appropriate media literacy and that takes its information with a grain of salt."
Just to reiterate: This is Trump's FBI director talking! Incredible... | |
TUESDAY PLANNER
UBS's tech, media and telecom conference continues in NYC...
"Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos" by Peter Bergen hits bookshelves...
WSJ's Newsmakers continues with Mick Mulvaney, Bill Barr and more...
Pelosi and Lara Trump will speak at Politico's Women Rule Summit...
Trump will hold an evening rally in Hershey, PA...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Amanda Marcotte says Monday's hearing "previewed the GOP strategy going into the Senate trial: Lean hard into tribalist hatred of Democrats to distract from Trump's crimes..." (Salon)
-- Tony Romm's latest: "Facebook users have been bombarded with misleading ads about medication meant to prevent the transmission of HIV, according to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocates, who say the tech giant's refusal to remove the content has created a public-health crisis..." (WaPo)
-- Here are Twitter's top trends of 2019... (CNET)
OANN's wild report on Ukraine trip with Giuliani
Oliver Darcy emails: Remember OANN's trip to Europe with Rudy Giuliani? Well, the far-right network's correspondent who did the interviews for the docu-series delivered quite the report on how things transpired when the team was in Ukraine. Chanel Rion claimed that when she and Giuliani arrived in Ukraine, 1,000 troops started "patrolling" Kiev. She said security told them to exit the country, so they chartered a "midnight jet to Vienna" and "sped to the airport." Upon arriving at the airport, Rion said they were greeted by a group of black SUVs in which two people claimed they saw George Soros.
But as Christopher Miller, who covers eastern Europe for several publications, tweeted, "None of what @ChanelRion claims is true." Miller explained there was "no increased police presence in Kiev until a Sunday" demonstration and that the black cars at the Zhuliany airport are normal because it "has a [business] terminal."
27 senators call on W.H. to fire Stephen Miller
Oliver Darcy emails: Kamala Harris and 26 other Democratic US senators on Monday sent a letter to the White House calling for Stephen Miller to be fired from his position as a senior adviser. The letter cited recently leaked emails Miller sent years ago to Breitbart staffers. Those emails revealed Miller privately promoted stories from white nationalist and fringe media organizations.
The 27 senators argued in their letter that the emails proved "what is driving" Miller is "not national security, it's white supremacy—something that has no place in our country, federal government, and especially not the White House." It added that Miller is "unfit to serve in any capacity at the White House, let alone as a senior policy adviser." HuffPost's Christopher Mathias has more...
Bill Hemmer succeeds Shep Smith
Fox's 3pm ET hour will become "Bill Hemmer Reports" on January 20. Hemmer is a veteran journalist and broadcaster who joined Fox from CNN in 2005. As Oliver Darcy and I wrote here, his style is significantly different than Smith's. Maybe that's part of the point. Hemmer isn't known for aggressively fact-checking political falsehoods or challenging Trump's misinformation the way that Smith did. But Smith's truth-telling also ticked off Fox's base. Hemmer is significantly less confrontational on "America's Newsroom." Time will tell what his 3pm hour is like -- I don't think anyone should jump to conclusions. Here's our full story...
>> Hemmer will also "lead all breaking news coverage," Fox said, which includes traveling to the scene of major news events...
Constrained by the audience?
I don't know if Hemmer feels this way. But other staffers at Fox, speaking on condition of anonymity, have told me about the difficult balancing act they experience in the Trump age. In some cases, they say, they want to challenge guests and call out Trump for lying, but they feel constrained by their audience, believing that Fox's pro-Trump viewers will turn on them...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
By Kerry Flynn:
-- Aya Kanai is the new EIC of Marie Claire. Anne Fulenwider is stepping down at the end of the year to launch a women's health startup... (WWD)
-- Deanna Ting has a look at how publishers like Group Nine, Condé Nast and Highsnobiety have leveraged Instagram Shopping... (Digiday)
-- Bloomberg's annual Jealousy List is out! (Bloomberg)
-- And TikTok is out with its Top 100 list for 2019. Shoutout to one of my personal favorite memes: #WalkAMile. The Ringer's Alyssa Bereznak is out with a new piece chronicling TikTok's rise this year...
Comcast keeps Starz through Dec. 31
Chauncey Alcorn writes: Comcast Xfinity confirmed on Monday that it will include Starz channels in its premium cable lineup through the end of the year while the two parties try to strike a new carriage deal to keep the network's stations in Xfinity packages in major urban markets across the U.S. Comcast's contract with Starz officially expires on December 31. The deal was going to expire as soon as Tuesday, but Comcast hit pause on Monday. The Philadelphia Inquirer has details here...
Sports Illustrated's POY
Kerry Flynn emails: Sports Illustrated has named its 2019 Sportsperson of the Year: Megan Rapinoe. As Jenny Vrentas writes, Rapinoe was awarded "not because of her newfound fame but because of how she's handled it. She owned the biggest moment of her life and silenced all the doubts."
And speaking of SI, its owner Maven CEO Jim Heckman announced on Monday that Avi Zimak is joining his company as chief revenue and strategy officer. Zimak was most recently CRO and publisher at New York mag...
Want to buy Black Rock?
Black Rock has been the New York headquarters of CBS since 1964. But maybe not for much longer. At the UBS summit on Monday, ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish said the newly combined company is looking to divest the HQ, THR's Alex Weprin reports. "Black Rock is not an asset we need to own and we believe that money would be put to better use elsewhere," Bakish said...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- The latest from Lagos: "The Nigerian government is facing immense criticism over the re-arrest and detention of investigative journalist and activist Omoyele Sowore on treason charges..." (CNN)
-- Vivian Schiller is joining the Aspen Institute in a "new role leading newly combined media and technology programs..." (Aspen)
-- Read Jon Caramanica on Juice WRLD "and the tragic end of the SoundCloud rap era..." (NYT)
Warner Bros. defends "Richard Jewell"
Kerry Flynn emails: Variety's Brent Lang reports that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is stepping up its criticism of Clint Eastwood's forthcoming film "Richard Jewell."
In a letter, the paper says "we hereby demand that you immediately issue a statement publicly acknowledging that some events were imagined for dramatic purposes and artistic license and dramatization were used in the film's portrayal of events and characters. We further demand that you add a prominent disclaimer to the film to that effect." At issue, Lang writes: The film shows an AJC reporter, Kathy Scruggs, "sleeping with an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) to get the story. Scruggs died in 2001 at the age of 42. The paper has maintained that there is no evidence that Scruggs slept with anyone involved in the Jewell investigation."
As Bloomberg's Sarah Frier tweeted, "It's infuriating that movies and shows so often depict fictional female journalists sleeping with sources to get their stories. In this movie, they're portraying a REAL REPORTER doing so, with no evidence, and she's not alive to defend herself."
But the studio behind the film, CNN's sibling Warner Bros., fired back Monday evening: "The film is based on a wide range of highly credible source material.... The AJC's claims are baseless and we will vigorously defend against them." Here is the full statement...
| | "Bombshell" reviews are in
Brian Lowry writes: "Bombshell" might feel a little late, as this look at the inner workings of Fox News under Roger Ailes comes after "The Loudest Voice," a Showtime miniseries devoted to the same topic. But Jay Roach's film -- despite feeling better suited to follow in the footsteps of his HBO movies, as opposed to a theatrical piece -- works quite well viewed in tandem with the earlier project, approaching the topic from the perspective of the women at the network. It's a particularly strong showcase for Charlize Theron in a sensational performance that unerringly captures Megyn Kelly, the one drawback being that the former Fox News anchor plays an oversized role in the drama. Keep reading...
>> And for more, here's the Rotten Tomatoes page for the film...
The Globe noms are here...
From Lisa Respers France: Here's who is up for a statue...
Brian Lowry writes: There were a multitude of stories around this morning's Golden Globe nominations -- more, frankly, than the organization behind them, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, deserves. It's hard to ignore, however, that Netflix snagged four of the 10 slots for best drama or musical/comedy movie, as the streaming service pushes to gain the acceptance in that space that it has earned in TV, overcoming the misgivings of movie academy members who don¹t see its pitstop-on-the-way-to-TV distribution approach as worthy of such recognition.
It was also a day that marked a new phase of the streaming wars, with Apple TV+'s "The Morning Show" earning bids as best drama and for stars Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, the latter reflecting the Globes' historic appetite for nominating movie stars when they venture into the realm of TV. Read on...
>> More from Lisa: The powerful Netflix drama "When They See Us" was shut out from the Globe noms, and people are not happy...
ICYMI:
Three ways to catch up on Sunday's "Reliable Sources"
Listen to the episode via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite app... Watch the video clips on CNN.com... Or watch the full episode via CNNgo or VOD...
| | | Thank you for reading! Email me here. I'll be back tomorrow... | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment