Scott
Verified User
Matt Taibbi just came out with this article:
www.racket.news
The theme of Tulsi Gabbard's efforts to further expose Russiagate has certainly been brought up before. Earl made a thread of it a few weeks ago here:
In terms of Matt Taibbi's article, you need to pay to see the whole thing, but I thought what was visible before the paywall was good enough for a post on its own. Still, I couldn't resist seeing the whole thing, so below is a bit more than what's available for free on the site. Quoting from introduction and conclusion below:
**
Aug 08, 2025
From “Gabbard overrode CIA officials’ concerns in push to release classified Russia report,” in the Washington Post this week:
[16 second video clip with Tulsi in original]
More to the point, the fact that she’s had to fight elements in the intelligence community (and others in government) just to get true material to the public is to Gabbard’s credit, not any kind of demerit. The Post, in a breathtaking spin job, simply took news Gabbard’s office is proud of, and spat it out as a negative.
“I love the Washington Post headline,” said Alexa Henning, Deputy Chief of Staff in Gabbard’s office. “Of course, the deep state is going to try to push back against us. When the CIA and others are leaking to the Post and the New York Times, that means we’re onto something.”
A source close to the original HPSCI investigation added: “Gabbard had to climb Everest to get this stuff out, and they’re giving her a hard time… Ridiculous.”
Amid this week’s media attacks, not one reporter noted the fight over Russiagate releases is ongoing, and involves material some intelligence officials are still determined to keep hidden. According to multiple people with knowledge of the probes, the “sources and methods” the CIA and other agencies are most concerned about don’t involve sensitive human assets or intelligence gathering, but bureaucratic tricks to burnish weak evidence or cover up bad practices. Burying the unclassified Steele dossier in the highest level of classification in the 2017 Assessment, pushing analysts to endorse conclusions based on unseen information, and using a “circle jerk” method of leaking to friendly media and then citing their articles in intelligence reports are among the practices at issue.
The recent press hysterics have to be understood in this context. Features decrying releases to taxpayers of documents written by public servants omit another fact: when you hear “sources and methods,” it’s a good bet the next word out of a reporter’s mouth is a lie. It’s nearly a 100% tendency:
Once, journalists denounced excessive secrecy. Until the Trump years, it was common to see editorials at papers like the New York Times railing against overclassification. In the last ten years, legacy outlets flipped the script, and reporters reveled in new roles as gatekeepers who helped national security officials hide the ball.
In the Russiagate scandal, whose long-suppressed issues are now exploding into view thanks to officials like Gabbard and FBI Director Kash Patel, the “sources and methods” line has been invoked countless times to stall public demands for disclosure. If you read these stories closely, you’ll notice that the same bylines from the same newspapers figure over and over in these whitewash jobs.
In May of 2018, when the House Intelligence Committee was on the trail of an informant who’d been deployed to spy on figures in the Trump campaign, the Washington Post cried that releasing information about the informant would “cross a red line of compromising sources and methods.” The paper even quoted Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd in saying it could lead to “severe consequences including potential loss of human lives.” Virginia Senator Mark Warner warned House colleagues it was “potentially illegal” to even try to learn the informant’s name. The man in question turned out to be Stefan Halper, a U.K.-based academic who’d been outed as a CIA operative in the pages of the New York Times in 1983.
It was all a bluff, just like the cries about “sources and methods” when investigators attempted to get hold of text messages between FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and when Patel’s team of investigators tried to get documents pertaining to the faked FISA application used to spy on onetime Trump aide Carter Page. In the latter case, Patel’s assertions about FISA abuse were proven correct by an Inspector General investigation, but then-Congressman Adam Schiff and other House Democrats bemoaned what was described as an intrusion on “sources and methods” for “no legitimate purpose.”
[snip]
“Sources and methods” was the cri de coeur after Edward Snowden told the world about illegal surveillance. It was George Tenet’s excuse in a 2002 letter to the Senate for not giving better WMD intelligence. Judith Miller dragged it out in her defense after her WMD stories blew up. It is the oldest and most pathetic trick in the media book. Now, it’s being thrust back in service, at a desperate time.
Expect new information soon not only on Russiagate, but on the underlying bad practices that made it possible. The intensity of the infighting taking place between releases gives some indication of how damaging this information is. The intelligence bureaucracy isn’t going down without a fight.
**
The Deep State is Alive and Well, Selling the Same Old Lie: "Sources and Methods"
Journalists were once eager to hear secrets. As they proved again this week, they're now primarily gatekeepers, helping corrupt officials hide the ball
www.racket.news
The theme of Tulsi Gabbard's efforts to further expose Russiagate has certainly been brought up before. Earl made a thread of it a few weeks ago here:
In terms of Matt Taibbi's article, you need to pay to see the whole thing, but I thought what was visible before the paywall was good enough for a post on its own. Still, I couldn't resist seeing the whole thing, so below is a bit more than what's available for free on the site. Quoting from introduction and conclusion below:
**
Journalists were once eager to hear secrets. As they proved again this week, they're now primarily gatekeepers, helping corrupt officials hide the ball
Aug 08, 2025
From “Gabbard overrode CIA officials’ concerns in push to release classified Russia report,” in the Washington Post this week:
For sheer chutzpah, it’s hard to match Warren Stroebel’s crude hit piece. First, it isn’t news: many of us who wrote on Gabbard’s releases already reported that these documents came out over objections from other agencies. The crucial 46-page House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) report showing how officials like former CIA Director John Brennan cooked the books to argue Russia “aspired” to help Trump was declassified only after current HPSCI chairman Rick Crawford complained about it being “held hostage” at the CIA and “Trump interceded in early July,” as I put it weeks ago. Gabbard herself hinted at struggles with a still-formidable “deep state” in a speech on July 12th:
[16 second video clip with Tulsi in original]
More to the point, the fact that she’s had to fight elements in the intelligence community (and others in government) just to get true material to the public is to Gabbard’s credit, not any kind of demerit. The Post, in a breathtaking spin job, simply took news Gabbard’s office is proud of, and spat it out as a negative.
“I love the Washington Post headline,” said Alexa Henning, Deputy Chief of Staff in Gabbard’s office. “Of course, the deep state is going to try to push back against us. When the CIA and others are leaking to the Post and the New York Times, that means we’re onto something.”
A source close to the original HPSCI investigation added: “Gabbard had to climb Everest to get this stuff out, and they’re giving her a hard time… Ridiculous.”
Amid this week’s media attacks, not one reporter noted the fight over Russiagate releases is ongoing, and involves material some intelligence officials are still determined to keep hidden. According to multiple people with knowledge of the probes, the “sources and methods” the CIA and other agencies are most concerned about don’t involve sensitive human assets or intelligence gathering, but bureaucratic tricks to burnish weak evidence or cover up bad practices. Burying the unclassified Steele dossier in the highest level of classification in the 2017 Assessment, pushing analysts to endorse conclusions based on unseen information, and using a “circle jerk” method of leaking to friendly media and then citing their articles in intelligence reports are among the practices at issue.
The recent press hysterics have to be understood in this context. Features decrying releases to taxpayers of documents written by public servants omit another fact: when you hear “sources and methods,” it’s a good bet the next word out of a reporter’s mouth is a lie. It’s nearly a 100% tendency:
Once, journalists denounced excessive secrecy. Until the Trump years, it was common to see editorials at papers like the New York Times railing against overclassification. In the last ten years, legacy outlets flipped the script, and reporters reveled in new roles as gatekeepers who helped national security officials hide the ball.
In the Russiagate scandal, whose long-suppressed issues are now exploding into view thanks to officials like Gabbard and FBI Director Kash Patel, the “sources and methods” line has been invoked countless times to stall public demands for disclosure. If you read these stories closely, you’ll notice that the same bylines from the same newspapers figure over and over in these whitewash jobs.
In May of 2018, when the House Intelligence Committee was on the trail of an informant who’d been deployed to spy on figures in the Trump campaign, the Washington Post cried that releasing information about the informant would “cross a red line of compromising sources and methods.” The paper even quoted Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd in saying it could lead to “severe consequences including potential loss of human lives.” Virginia Senator Mark Warner warned House colleagues it was “potentially illegal” to even try to learn the informant’s name. The man in question turned out to be Stefan Halper, a U.K.-based academic who’d been outed as a CIA operative in the pages of the New York Times in 1983.
It was all a bluff, just like the cries about “sources and methods” when investigators attempted to get hold of text messages between FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and when Patel’s team of investigators tried to get documents pertaining to the faked FISA application used to spy on onetime Trump aide Carter Page. In the latter case, Patel’s assertions about FISA abuse were proven correct by an Inspector General investigation, but then-Congressman Adam Schiff and other House Democrats bemoaned what was described as an intrusion on “sources and methods” for “no legitimate purpose.”
[snip]
“Sources and methods” was the cri de coeur after Edward Snowden told the world about illegal surveillance. It was George Tenet’s excuse in a 2002 letter to the Senate for not giving better WMD intelligence. Judith Miller dragged it out in her defense after her WMD stories blew up. It is the oldest and most pathetic trick in the media book. Now, it’s being thrust back in service, at a desperate time.
Expect new information soon not only on Russiagate, but on the underlying bad practices that made it possible. The intensity of the infighting taking place between releases gives some indication of how damaging this information is. The intelligence bureaucracy isn’t going down without a fight.
**
