President Trump often pointed his finger at the phalanx of reporters and recorders in that back of the room and called them “fake news.” The pompous patricians of the Fourth estate took great umbrage. Trump was more right than wrong, however.
We have seen yet another media-gone-bad shocker.
You will recall the months upon months that the media accused Trump of using … nay, misusing … the American military to clear Lafayette Square so he could have a photo op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church – “The Church of the Presidents” – that rioters had set on fire the evening before.
As the narrative went, Trump ordered the military to clear the Square. The result was the attacking, teargassing and pepper spraying of “peaceful demonstrators” so that he could walk across the Square to St. John’s for that photo op. According to the press, Trump was violating the protestors constitutional rights.
The media narrative became one of those evergreen criticisms that they would regurgitate over and over … and over. The media’s mission was to keep their premeditatedly crafted badness of Trump before the public at every opportunity and in every way.
There is only one problem with that awful narrative. It turns out to be TOTALLY untrue … a lie … propaganda … fake news. After almost a year of investigation, the Park District Inspector General issued a report that TOTALLY repudiates the negative news accounts against Trump.
That’s right. All the “facts” presented by the media … all the mendacious analyses – all the editorial criticism … were unwarranted and untrue. They were not at all fact-based. They rose out of a journalism cesspool of irrational Trump hatred.
What the Inspector General’s report established is that the decision to clear the Square was made – and commenced – BEFORE Trump decided to take his walk. The decision was made in order to construct a barrier fence on the far side of the Square from the White House.
The principal force in clearing the Square was NOT the U.S. military.
It was the National Park Police – with assists from the local D.C. police and even Bureau of Prison guards.
The media accused Trump of using tear gas and pepper spray on a peaceful gathering. The Inspector General report stated that it was the D.C. police that used the teargas. And it was the prison guards who used the pepper spray. The federal forces – that would be under Trump’s authority – did not use those nonlethal crowd control devices.
And as far as the “peaceful demonstrators” reports, this was the same crowd that were in violent revolt the night before engaging in vandalism – including the attempt to burn St. John’s to the ground. More than 40 Park District officers had been injured in the melee. If the rioters were not the product of the political left, the media might well have called them “insurrectionists.”
It was because of the previous night’s violence – and the reasonable fear of a repeat the next nightfall – that the folks heading the Park District police decided to block off the Square as a buffer zone between the rioters and the White House.
The Report contained some criticism for the manner in which the Square was cleared – most significantly that not all the demonstrators could hear the broadcast warnings. (I have been involved in a number of demonstrations. When the police start to move the crowd, it is impossible not to know they want you to move away – to break it up. Just saying.)
But this is not the first time that we have seen these fake news stories against Trump – and also Republicans and conservatives.
The elitist national news media is awash in false political narratives.
We should never forget how the elitist anti-Trump media spent two years reporting – as fact – that Trump and his campaign had conspired with Russian agents during the campaign. Believing the Democrats false narrative, California Congressman Adam Schiff even declared that he had seen – in secret session – absolute proof of the conspiracy.
Apparently, Schiff believed that his unconscionable lie would be given cover by the Mueller Report. Au contraire. Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that no such conspiracy existed – blowing away two years of malicious misreporting.
Mueller made no prosecutorial determination regarding Obstruction of Justice by Trump. He left that determination to his bosses at the Department of Justice. After a review of the charges by the Department’s office of professional integrity and others, it was determined that there was insufficient evidence to prove the charges. Attorney General William Barr then announced that COLLECTIVE decision. Contrary to the false media reports that Barr had singularly made the decision.
We may see more of that dishonest hyperbolic reporting in conjunction with the riot on Capitol Hill. While Democrats and their media cronies keep calling it insurrection and sedition, they may again be ahead of their skis. The bipartisan Senate Committee report on the events of January 6th did not include the word “insurrection” or “sedition.”
More importantly, of the hundreds of indictments against rioters, none have yet been accused of insurrection or sedition.
If it really was the “armed insurrection” as proffered by the Democrats and the left-wing media personalities, we would have seen more guns, more bloody violence and more indictments for … insurrection or sedition.
It is one thing to create false narratives in the court-of-public-opinion. But it is quite another to file charges in a court-of-law where the law and legal precedent hold sway. It seems the all-important judicial agencies are dealing with the facts as if it was a riot. Something I believed from day-one.
The real question is how all those so-called journalists could not have learned what we now see in the Inspector General’s report regarding the clearing of Lafayette Square. The real facts should have been easily obtained by asking a few questions. The answers provided in the Inspector General’s report were known at the time. It is such a dereliction of duty that one can only surmise that the misreporting was intentional. Once again, the media selected an outcome based on a biased agenda. Then they just reported the fiction – the fake news.
The real tragedy is that the Fourth Estate operates outside of any concept of accountability. There are no effective fact-checkers on the fact-checkers of the Fourth Estate. And even when more objective news outlets challenge the false narratives of the politically biased press, the former are accused of bias for not bending to the purpose and the product of the corrupted left-wing reporting.
The currently corrupt east coast liberal news media is fast becoming one of the more serious dangers to our democratic Republic.
So, there ‘tis.