Much like his father, Donald Trump Jr. is up to his eyebrows in the Russia scandal, so he feels a need to try and deflect from that fact by tweeting out baseless claims he thinks will change the topic. Instead, they only make him look desperate, guilty, and moronic.
Junior’s latest attempt at diversion is a suggestion that originated with WikiLeaks and alleges that The New York Times “colluded” with Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State in the Obama administration. Don Jr. tweeted out this:
The double standard never ends. Every day @realDonaldTrump’s win is that much more impressive when you realize all he was actually up against. WikiLeaks Drops Proof That NYTimes Colluded With Hillary Clinton | Daily Wire https://t.co/acbdDbmH3e
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 1, 2018
Be sure and note the link to the far right news site Daily Wire, which is known to be completely unreliable and a shill for the Trump administration.
The author of the Times report referred to by Junior and the Daily Wire is Scott Shane, and he quickly poured cold water on Junior’s specious claims:
.1) Not sure who's writing this stuff for @WikiLeaks, but they need to talk to those who actually worked on the diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks, NYT and the other media partners (Guardian, Le Monde et al) all agreed on a plan to inform State Dept which cables were being published.
— Scott Shane (@ScottShaneNYT) December 31, 2017
.2) We had all agreed to redact the names of, say, Chinese professors and Russian dissidents who had spoken confidentially with US diplomats to prevent their being imprisoned or worse. But we wanted to make sure we understood all the potential dangers.
— Scott Shane (@ScottShaneNYT) December 31, 2017
.3) Totally standard journalistic practice. In one memorable instance, I had not taken out the name of Qaddafi's protocol chief, who in a cable preceding a visit to NYC had explained that the aging Qaddafi should not be asked to climb too many stairs, etc.
— Scott Shane (@ScottShaneNYT) December 31, 2017
.4) I told the State Dept we planned to use that cable. Their Libya specialists got on the phone with me and told me they feared that if we published the protocol chief's name, the great leader might take it as an insult and order his execution. We took the name out.
— Scott Shane (@ScottShaneNYT) December 31, 2017
.5) For that collaborative project, WikiLeaks' helpers created a very cool redaction template so that the different media outlets could see what they had redacted and what others had redacted to avoid mistakes. So @WikiLeaksin that instance followed legit journalistic principles.
— Scott Shane (@ScottShaneNYT) December 31, 2017
.This is nonsense. Check with the WikiLeaks volunteers who worked on this project. You'll learn WL created an online redaction engine so we could take out names of those who might be imprisoned or worse from cables we published. WL agreed on the consultation with State Dept.
— Scott Shane (@ScottShaneNYT) December 31, 2017
When it comes to WikiLeaks, it should be noted that Don Jr. has dirty hands. He exchanged messages with them during the 2016 election. Oh, and let’s not forget that WikiLeaks has extensive ties to Russian intelligence. A U.S. intelligence report from 2017 said the:
“Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet RT (formerly Russia Today) has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks.”
Hmm…another connection between a member of the Trump family and Russian president/terrorist/mass murderer Vladimir Putin. Image that!
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