Mark Levin To CNN Mega-Choad Brian Stelter: You Are Thoroughly Dishonest

The unhinged left is in full damage control mode over the Obama wiretap scandal. We already know that the propagandists at CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, and their tentacle brethren across the MSM spectrum take marching orders from the left, so it comes as no surprise that the New York Times and CNN are madly scurrying to frame the wiretapping scandal as a “Conspiracy Theory.”

An aside: Did you know that the CIA invented the term in 1967 to discredit information outside the scope of the government’s carefully crafted narratives? It’s a form of propaganda – quite literally (as revealed in a 1976 FOIA request):

To employ propaganda assets to and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories

Today’s propaganda is brought to you, once again, by the letters C.N.N. after radio host (and former Chief of Staff to Reagan’s Attorney General) Mark Levin laid out an exceedingly compelling argument that Obama employed “police state tactics” against Trump, which he expounded on in an interview with Fox News:

In propagandistic response, CNN’s deep state dick rider Brian Stelter penned a lame response, attempting to frame the whole thing as a conspiracy theory – and specifically calling out Mark Levin:

An incendiary idea first put forward by right-wing radio host Mark Levin is now burning across Washington, fanned by President Trump’s tweets and a huge number of supportive commentators and websites — even though the facts don’t back up the conclusion. –MegaChoad

In response, Levin roasts the shit out of Stelter:

OPEN LETTER TO CNN’S BRIAN STELTER, YOU ARE THOROUGHLY DISHONEST.

I simply put together the stories that YOUR profession reported, on the public record.  Do you deny there were two FISA applications?  Do you deny the first was turned down?  Do you deny the second was approved?  It’s called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.  It is about surveillance.  The fact that we cannot discern all the details because of the secrecy, except for what the media have revealed and selective leaks by the government, should cause you to want to know more, not to trash those who point it out.

(full text here)

Stelter – in response, issued a pithy tweet:

Levin emailed me, "Do you deny there were two FISA applications?" I replied: "I don't know. You don't know. The reporting is very murky." https://t.co/uSyUgooRl0

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) March 6, 2017

Let’s review who we’re dealing with:

Mark Levin:

Mark Reed Levin (/ləˈvɪn/; born September 21, 1957) is an American lawyer, author, and the host of syndicated radio show The Mark Levin Show. Levin worked in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese. He is president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, has authored six books, and contributes commentary to various media outlets such as National Review Online. On September 1, 2015, Levin was named Editor-in-Chief of Conservative Review.

Brian Stelter:

Brian Stelter (born September 3, 1985) is the senior media correspondent for CNN and the host of Reliable Sources. Previously he was a media reporter for The New York Times and the editor of TVNewser. Also a Gigantic choad.

Shall we review Mark Levin’s argument?

1. June 2016: FISA request. The Obama administration files a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several advisers. The request, uncharacteristically, is denied.

2. July: Russia joke. Wikileaks releases emails from the Democratic National Committee that show an effort to prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) from winning the presidential nomination. In a press conference, Donald Trump refers to Hillary Clinton’s own missing emails, joking: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.” That remark becomes the basis for accusations by Clinton and the media that Trump invited further hacking.

3. October: Podesta emails. In October, Wikileaks releases the emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, rolling out batches every day until the election, creating new mini-scandals. The Clinton campaign blames Trump and the Russians.

4. October: FISA request. The Obama administration submits a new, narrow request to the FISA court, now focused on a computer server in Trump Tower suspected of links to Russian banks. No evidence is found — but the wiretaps continue, ostensibly for national security reasons, Andrew McCarthy at National Review later notes. The Obama administration is now monitoring an opposing presidential campaign using the high-tech surveillance powers of the federal intelligence services.

5. January 2017: Buzzfeed/CNN dossier. Buzzfeed releases, and CNN reports, a supposed intelligence “dossier” compiled by a foreign former spy. It purports to show continuous contact between Russia and the Trump campaign, and says that the Russians have compromising information about Trump. None of the allegations can be verified and some are proven false. Several media outlets claim that they had been aware of the dossier for months and that it had been circulating in Washington.

6. January: Obama expands NSA sharing. As Michael Walsh later notes, and as the New York Times reports, the outgoing Obama administration “expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.” The new powers, and reduced protections, could make it easier for intelligence on private citizens to be circulated improperly or leaked.

7. January: Times report. The New York Times reports, on the eve of Inauguration Day, that several agencies — the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Treasury Department are monitoring several associates of the Trump campaign suspected of Russian ties. Other news outlets also report the exisentence of “a multiagency working group to coordinate investigations across the government,” though it is unclear how they found out, since the investigations would have been secret and involved classified information.

8. February: Mike Flynn scandal. Reports emerge that the FBI intercepted a conversation in 2016 between future National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — then a private citizen — and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The intercept supposedly was part of routine spying on the ambassador, not monitoring of the Trump campaign. The FBI transcripts reportedly show the two discussing Obama’s newly-imposed sanctions on Russia, though Flynn earlier denied discussing them. Sally Yates, whom Trump would later fire as acting Attorney General for insubordination, is involved in the investigation. In the end, Flynn resigns over having misled Vice President Mike Pence (perhaps inadvertently) about the content of the conversation.

9. February: Times claims extensive Russian contacts. The New York Times cites “four current and former American officials” in reporting that the Trump campaign had “repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials. The Trump campaign denies the claims — and the Times admits that there is “no evidence” of coordination between the campaign and the Russians. The White House and some congressional Republicans begin to raise questions about illegal intelligence leaks.

10. March: the Washington Post targets Jeff Sessions. The Washington Post reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had contact twice with the Russian ambassador during the campaign — once at a Heritage Foundation event and once at a meeting in Sessions’s Senate office. The Post suggests that the two meetings contradict Sessions’s testimony at his confirmation hearings that he had no contacts with the Russians, though in context (not presented by the Post) it was clear he meant in his capacity as a campaign surrogate, and that he was responding to claims in the “dossier” of ongoing contacts. The New York Times, in covering the story, adds that the Obama White House “rushed to preserve” intelligence related to alleged Russian links with the Trump campaign. By “preserve” it really means “disseminate”: officials spread evidence throughout other government agencies “to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators” and perhaps the media as well.

Stelter’s piece is pissant yellow journalism, while Levin lays out a comprehensive timeline and a case for police state tactics. Can you spot the difference?

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