Posted on by Californiacontrarian

News or a Distraction?

On Jan. 25, 2018 an article appeared in the New York Times concerning President Trump’s alleged desire in June to fire special consul, Robert Mueller, who is overseeing the “Russia investigation.” This old news of alleged action by Mr. Trump was supposedly thwarted by White House consul, Donald McGahn, threatening to quit over this matter. The NYT’s sources for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity, because “they did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation”.
Now to me there are two issues with this story.
First we are again confronted with “unnamed sources.” Do these sources have some axe to grind with President Trump? Why do theses sources feel that it is okay to speak to the NYT about “a continuing investigation,” but yet it is not okay to use their names because of “a continuing investigation?” I don’t know if this story is true or “fake news” . . . but as soon as I read that it is based on anonymous sources, I usually do not attach a lot of credulity to it. Actually for a second, let’s assume that the unnamed sources are telling the truth. Again, who cares! The back and forth between somebody and his attorney goes on all of the time. Why is this news?
To me the second issue with this story is even more perplexing – or perhaps not really perplexing at all. This is late January, 2018 and Trump’s supposed wanting to fire Mueller occurred in June, 2017, eight months ago. Why report this supposed old news now? Is it possible that a paper like the NYT would sit on a potential story so that they could print it at a certain time so to distract its readers when there is a high likelihood that Mr. Trump should be getting some favorable press because of something he is doing. This “distraction technique” is one that is favored by liberals and especially the liberal press. Coincidentally President Trump was going to Davos, Switzerland to give a speech at the World Economic Forum that was being attended by many world leaders. He was to be the first sitting American President to attend this meeting in over 20 years. So did Mr. Trump get the headline that day or the next day? Of course not, as the TV news shows were leading with this eight month old story from unnamed sources. How convenient, especially in view of the fact that his speech in Davos turned out to be well received.
My postulate is that whenever our President does something good, there will be a corresponding “distraction” story, and if you think that this is just serendipity the next time it happens . . . I have a bridge to sell you!

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