The propaganda media has talked itself into a state of hysteria over the possibility that Kash Patel, once confirmed as director of the FBI, will target mainstream journalists for retribution for their years of negative (Read: false) coverage of Donald Trump and all in his orbit.
This from justthenews.com.
The fact is, however, in recent years, the Left has often been accused of going after members of the media who challenge their party’s approved narrative.
NOTE: Journalists and authors such as former Fox reporter James Rosen and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza each came under federal scrutiny.
– Although not a journalist in the traditional sense, Julian Assange, whose WikiLeaks in 2010 posted hundreds of thousands of military and diplomatic records about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, was the target of a grand jury investigation throughout the Obama [Regime]. In June, Assange pleaded guilty to the Justice Department’s espionage charge in connection with the incident,
– The Obama [Regime] also targeted in 2012 Nakoula Nakoula, who made a crude, short video called “Innocence of Muslims,” which [the Left] and most of the media said caused spontaneous rioting in Benghazi, Libya. In reality, Benghazi, where four Americans died, was a coordinated attack scheduled for the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Nakoula used an alias, ‘Sam Bacile,’ while making the video, thus was charged with violating the terms of his probation on an unrelated bank fraud conviction. He served a year in prison for the name-change violation,
– In 2014, two years after Dinesh D’Souza released 2016: Obama’s America, a critical look at the former president, the filmmaker was indicted for donating more to a senatorial campaign than is legal. He served eight months in a detention center, with many arguing the penalty appears stiffer compared to ones others received for similar behavior,
– Gerald Molen, the co-producer of D’Souza’s movie who won a Best Picture Oscar for producing ‘Schindler’s List,’ told this reporter at the time that the Obama [Regime] was ‘criminalizing dissent through the selective enforcement of the law.’ Echoing that sentiment, Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz told this reporter in 2014 that ‘It’s a remarkably selective prosecution considering Obama raised millions of dollars under similar circumstances and donors merely faced civil fines while D’Souza is charged with felony violation of federal law.’ After D’Souza served his time and paid a $30,000 fine, Trump pardoned him,
– Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder also approved a subpoena for records from Fox News reporter James Rosen a decade earlier, creating a First Amendment stir. Rosen had been reporting on North Korea’s plan to test a nuclear weapon, and his case is particularly egregious since the affidavit described him not as journalist, but as a potential “co-conspirator” in the leaking of classified information under the Espionage Act of 1917,
– In 2017, the DOJ also seized the personal phone number and email records of Jason Foster, who was the chief investigative counsel for Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time. Last month, Foster told Just the News that lawyers for Google earlier this year informed him of the seizure of his data, while normally he’d have found out within 12 months had the DOJ not repeatedly, and successfully, under both Biden and Trump petitioned a court to keep it a secret from him,
– Conservative outlets have also speculated that Catherine Herridge’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop caused her termination at CBS News, though CBS has denied the allegation,
– In 2022, the Justice Department’s chief watchdog confirmed the [Obiden] DOJ had issued a grand jury subpoena to confirm the phone number of Stephanie Kirchgaessner, the Guardian newspaper’s investigations correspondent. The DOJ was interested in Kirchgaessner’s sources for stories about the child-separation policy under Trump, and the incident prompted new rules to prevent future rummaging through reporters’ phone records, and
– Outside of those in the media, at least a dozen members of Congress of both parties, or their staff, including Patel, a former lawyer for the House Intelligence Committee, have been notified in recent months that the DOJ spied on their activities. The House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether surveillance of congressional staffers is lawful, and Patel has filed a lawsuit claiming his civil rights were violated.
Beyond the left’s hypocrisy—or tactic—of accusing the right of what itself has been doing, the second part of the equation is Patel’s intentions.
Eleven months ago during an interview with former Trump political adviser Steve Bannon, Patel said he:
[W]ill go out and find the conspirators not just in government but in the media.
Patel said about the 2020 election in which Biden stole Trump’s reelection:
We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.
We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.
Patel has called the news media:
[T]he most powerful enemy the United States has ever seen [and vowed to] prosecute anyone that broke the law, and end the weaponized, two-tier system of justice.
