The Washington Post has a huge story out tonight, confirmed by NBC News, that the substance of an intelligence official’s whistleblower’s complaint deemed “both credible and urgent” involves a promise by Donald Trump to a foreign leader. FoxNews.com has nothing about it on its home page.
In case you missed it, here’s the summary by The Washington Post:
Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a “promise” that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community, said [two] former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
It was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump was speaking with or what he pledged to deliver, but his direct involvement in the matter has not been previously disclosed.
All that comes as the acting director of national intelligence has refused to turn over the complaint to the House Intelligence Committee as is required by law.
Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that the complaint was credible and troubling enough to be considered a matter of “urgent concern,” a legal threshold that ordinarily requires notification of congressional oversight committees.
But acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire has refused to share details about Trump’s alleged transgression with lawmakers, touching off a legal and political dispute that has spilled into public and prompted speculation that the spy chief is improperly protecting the president.
Of course, it turns out that one of Trump’s phone calls during the period in question was with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But The Post notes that it’s quite possible Trump had been speaking with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un as well as other foreign leaders
As NBC News put it, “A whistleblower complaint by an intelligence official about a private presidential phone call would be an extraordinary development, likely without precedent in U.S. history.”
Well, it's no biggie to Fox News, apparently. The Trump Network seems to think there’s nothing to see here. The big news for them is that the "DOJ watchdog will 'assess' claims of irregularities" in James Comey's testimony.
You know what else is displayed prominently on the site? Dear Leader will be on Fox & Friends in the morning.
UPDATE: No sooner had I published this post than Fox updated its website. Here's the new top story:
UPDATE: Brian Stelter noted that Laura Ingraham's top story was "THE WAR AGAINST MEN."
(Trump caricature by DonkeyHotey via Creative Commons license)
The squeaker victory of Trump in 2016 and the resultant Pence White House should be a major pail of cold water to every sane voter in this country. The ONLY reason that Trump prevailed is because 2-3 million Dem voters across the key swing states simply did not show up to vote, and simultaneously, the deplorables who loved the bigoted GOP campaign DID show up. I had said throughout 2016 that the only way Trump could prevail was this exact equation. It had been my hope that those Dem voters would be sensible and show up – but they unfortunately chose to flake out instead. We all must work to make sure that they’ve learned their lesson and will show up next year or this situation will get much worse.
A re-elected Mike Pence and a GOP Congress will move quickly to skyrocket taxes once again on Blue States and Middle Class employees and they will fast-track the scrapping of Social Security, Medicare and any other programs they can. And they will begin the wholesale closing of multiple Cabinet departments. It’s not an accident that Pence has repeatedly appointed people to departments where the appointed Secretary actually is hostile to the very existence of the Department they are supposed to be leading. This has been an intentional way to foul those departments and trick Dems into saying that the departments (like Education, HUD, EPA, Energy, etc) aren’t getting anything done – which then sets the table for a re-elected Mike Pence to say, “You know what, you’re right! The Dept of Education doesn’t really get anything done. Let’s close it!” I do hope people are paying attention to these feints and not falling for them.
But I would also note a more basic truth. The deplorables who believe every word they hear from a Fox News pundit and refuse to listen to reason are, frankly, not that intelligent. They are also driven by an emotional need to only listen to something with which they have been conditioned to agree. Ellen is correct that they should not be dismissed, as their power to do harm to everyone is quite sobering. But I would recommend keeping an eye on them. They’ve already shown a tendency toward rage and toward a completely uninformed perspective on the world. With the rise of Mike Pence, they’ve also revealed themselves openly as bigoted deplorables. We should be extremely aware of who these people are – particularly if they try to walk their behavior back in the event of the swing state Dems showing up next November.
I believe that if liberals took Fox more seriously during the Obama era, we could have avoided Birther Boy in the White House.
Who can blame them for ignoring the whistleblower story or Lewandowski’s testimony when you can have such important stories topping your website as “Megan Fox had ‘breakdown’ after movie bombed, didn’t feel supported by feminists”. I mean poor Megan feels exploited for her sexuality and posted a picture on her Instagram account of her posing in skimpy lingerie to prove it! Sounds like self-exploitation to me but what do I know?
Or there’s the Fox News homepage story “Michael Vick recalls his meal order during first dinner with Atlanta Falcons owner”. I know you can’t wait for the answer: He ordered chicken fingers and fries.
What remains is a lot of hyper-partisan punditry links and political ‘news’ stories that sound like crap ripped directly from Rush Limbaugh’s latest radio rant. I’ve always said Fox News is a clearinghouse for right-wing hate radio but they used to filter out much of the crazy. Now not so much.
While I find this amusing there’s a very serious side. I know so many conservatives who only watch Fox News or listen to people like Rush Limbaugh. Ironically they think everyone else is ‘low information’. So this is how people like Lou Dobbs can get away within his fanboy bubble saying ‘Trump never lied’. Everyone else laughs but the misinformed wretches watching Fox News every day accept is as gospel because it’s their alternate reality ‘reality’.
