Do.Not.Trust.the.Intercept


A warning heard increasingly fervently among many alternative journalists and bloggers.

First: ‘Whom Not To Trust – U.S. Government Indicts Another Intercept Source;  Another source that provided government secrets to The Intercept has been uncovered and indicted by the U.S. government, May 9, 2019, moonofalabama.org

“Another [beyond Reality Winner whom he’d featured earlier] source that provided government secrets to The Intercept has been uncovered and indicted by the U.S. government.

The Intercept was created to privatize the National Security Agency documents leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The online magazine is financed by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of Ebay, who’s is known for many shady connection to Obama administration and for promoting various regime change efforts.” [snip]

“Our mistrust towards The Intercept got reinforced by the arrest of another of The Intercept’s sources.

Today the Justice Department arrested and charged a former U.S. Airforce soldier, Daniel Everette Hale, 31, of Nashville, Tennessee, who had worked at the National Security Agency (NSA), as an intelligence analyst in Afghanistan, and at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGIA). The Justice Department alleges that Hale leaked several secret and top secret powerpoint presentations and papers to an online outlet:

According to allegations in the indictment, beginning in April 2013, while enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and assigned to the NSA, Hale began communicating with a reporter. Hale met with the reporter in person on multiple occasions, and, at times, communicated with the reporter via an encrypted messaging platform. Then, in February 2014, while working as a cleared defense contractor at NGA, Hale printed six classified documents unrelated to his work at NGA and soon after exchanged a series of messages with the reporter. Each of the six documents printed were later published by the reporter’s news outlet.

According to allegations in the indictment: while employed as a cleared defense contractor for NGA, Hale printed from his Top Secret computer 36 documents, including 23 documents unrelated to his work at NGA. Of the 23 documents unrelated to his work at NGA, Hale provided at least 17 to the reporter and/or the reporter’s online news outlet, which published the documents in whole or in part. Eleven of the published documents were classified as Top Secret or Secret and marked as such.”

bernhard continues to match the indictment’s dates, publications, and meetings with Intercept reporter Jeremy Scahill, as well as a Reuters piece that similarly had done.

“The indictment does not say how the government found out that Hale provided the documents to Scahill. But the two seem to have at times communicated openly via phone, email and through text messages. That should have been a no-no. The government recovered at least parts of those communications. Hale attended several of Scahill’s book tour events. Beyond that Hale openly communicated with ‘a confident’ [confidante] about his contacts with Scahill. Later Scahill and Hale used the encrypted chat tool Jabber. Hale also used Tails, a software package The Intercept recommends for leaking documents to it.”

He then posits that the DOJ could file charges against Scahill in the same manner as the charges that Assange had allegdly actively helped Chelsea Manning to escape scrutiny by using her access to secret documents under a different account than her own.

“While it is not known how the government found out that Hale leaked the documents in questions, its knowledge of phone and text contacts show that all open communication with any Intercept reporter will likely be intercepted by the relevant agencies.”

“That R.L. Winner went to jail because an Intercept reporter, who was known to not be trustworthy, ‘mishandled’ the leak is terrible. That a second source is now under arrest after lengthy open communication with another Intercept writer only reinforces our recommendation:

Do not trust The Intercept.

If you’d read the comments on b’s thread, you may have noticed Margaret Kimberly (BAR) saying ‘and don’t forget Terry Albury’, Whitney Webb has not forgotten him. But first, this is the first coverage I’d seen:

Ex-US intelligence analyst charged with leaking top-secret drone war docs’, 9 May, RT.com, May 9, 2019

“Daniel Everette Hale was arrested and charged under the Espionage Act on Thursday for illegally disclosing top-secret and secret documents to the media, according to the indictment.”

There are Tweets from both Webb and Mark Ames, and I’d laughed when I’d seen his atop Webb’s:

@MarkAmesExiled   “The Intercept is getting whistleblowers pinched & jailed—just as it quietly shut down *our* Snowden docs. Warned ya years ago nothing good would come from a tech billionaire with deep ties to the US military-intel world, but this is worse than I imagined”

That made me laugh, as it mirrored so well the detractors who’d called the publication of the Snowden docs ‘a limited hang-out’.  Webb’s notes: “Another whistleblower to The Intercept about to go prison. ALL WHISTLEBLOWERS CHARGED UNDER TRUMP HAVE BEEN INTERCEPT SOURCES. See thread below for proof of Intercepts involvement @TimothyS @MarkAmesExiled

 ‘Another Whistleblower Bites the Dust as The Intercept Adds a Third Notch to Its Burn Belt; The Intercept, which has long been associated with the documents shared by whistleblower Edward Snowden, has yet to fire any of the reporters responsible for these breaches that have seen two whistleblowers already imprisoned and third, Daniel Hale, likely to be imprisoned’, Whitney Webb, mintpressnews.com, May 10, 2019

It’s necessarily long, but while discussing Hale, she mentions other possibilities to the timing lag:

The indictment does not specify what led federal investigators to Hale several years after the events in question took place. Indeed, the indictment deals exclusively with events that took place between 2013 and 2015, and Hale’s house had been raided in August 2014, from which some of the evidence cited in the indictment was likely acquired. However, the Obama administration never pressed charges and it is unclear why the Trump administration has waited until now to do so, or if investigators acquired new information on Hale’s whistleblowing activities relatively recently. Hale, who appeared in the 2016 documentary National Bird about drone whistleblowers, had stated in that film that he anticipated being indicted at some point in time.”

This is  the trailer; apparently you can find the entire documentary on youtube as well, and watch if you…pay to watch.

National Bird Official Trailer 1 (2016) – Documentary

Now this gets interesting as to ‘other plausible theories’:

“While the indictment suggests that the lack of secure communication with Scahill was a likely factor, there are other possibilities, such as the “friend” of Hale, noted in the indictment, with whom he discussed his relationship with Scahill.

Another possibility is that someone else at the Intercept other than Scahill was made aware of Hale’s identity, a point raised years ago by CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou and recently pointed out by independent journalist Caitlin Johnstone. After it was revealed that the Intercept had obtained information from a whistleblower on drone warfare, which turned out to be Daniel Hale, in 2015, Kiriakou tweeted: “New drone whistleblower at The Intercept. For God’s sake don’t let Matthew Cole learn his identity.

Cole, as will be noted later on in this report, has been accused by Kiriakou for outing him as a journalistic source to the federal government and, two years after Kiriakou’s tweet, was believed to have helped lead federal investigators to Intercept source Reality Winner in 2017. Thus, it is possible that Cole or another employee of the online publication had learned of Hale’s identity from Scahill and then passed it along, either intentionally or inadvertently, to the government.”

Webb then quotes Jessely Raddack, Hale’s attorney’s recent Tweet: “unsophisticated whistleblowers” like Hale, now 31 years old but who was only 23 when he met Scahill, should not have borne the burden of keeping his identity safe.” All of which had led to John Kiriakou Tweeting this question:

@JohnKiriakou  “Serious question for The Intercept: Do you secretly work for the FBI? David Hale, Reality Winner and Terry Albury are all in prison because of you. Is it incompetence or are you compromised? You owe a lot of people an explanation. And an apology.”

From the Intercept’s page on Matthew Cole:

“Matthew Cole is an investigative journalist with The Intercept, specializing in national security and intelligence issues. Most recently, Cole worked as a television producer at ABC News’ investigative unit. There, he garnered two Emmy nominations in 2011 for his coverage of the CIA and an al Qaeda terrorist plot.” Hmmmm; is that CV a tell? But back to Miz Whitney:

Terry Albury


MintPress reported on the acts by the online publication and noted that the Intercept made two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in March 2016 for documents that the publication had already received from Albury — so the requests were an effort to “launder” or obfuscate the fact that the classified documents had been obtained from a whistleblower. Yet, both FOIA requests contained specific information identifying the names of the documents that were not publicly available, an error that led the FBI to link references contained in the requests to Albury’s activity on FBI information systems. The FBI subsequently found that documents that Albury had accessed had been later published by the Intercept.

Albury, a father of two young children, is currently serving a four-year sentence for bringing important information about the FBI’s abuse of power in relation to its counter-terrorism activities and surveillance of journalists to the public. To date, no one at the Intercept was fired in connection with Albury’s prosecution, despite the role of the FOIA requests made by the Intercept in his arrest.”

“Furthermore, journalist Barrett Brown — who served a lengthy 63-month prison sentence for linking to hacked material — has recently stated that Intercept journalist Sam Biddle played a role in his imprisonment, further worsening the optics of the publication’s track record. Brown originally faced a combined sentence of over 100 years in prison before negotiating a plea deal.”

Webb then wonders if Pierre Omidyar’s can keep Scahill out of hot water.  She links to two exposés on Pierre, both by Alexander Rubenstein and Max Blumenthal:

Pierre Omidyar’s Funding of Pro-Regime-Change Networks and Partnerships with CIA Cutouts’;  To [Omidyar] it’s … about … integrating things together to give technocrats, business executives and government officials a God’s-eye view of the world — to manage and control society more efficiently.” — Yasha Levine, author of “Surveillance Valley: The Military History of the Internet’, Feb. 20, 2019

and

How One of America’s Premier Data Monarchs is Funding a Global Information War and Shaping the Media Landscape’, Through his purchase of influence over the daily flow of information to American media consumers, a dizzying array of connections to the national security state, and a media empire that shields him from critical scrutiny, Pierre Omidyar has become one of the world’s most politically sophisticated data monarchs.’, Feb. 18, 2019

I will note that in my own files (one such messy compilation from 2018), Sibel Edmonds had covered a lot of the same ground earlier.

The ‘Justice’ Department’s May 9 indictment of Daniel Everett Hale is here.  Back to Whitney Webb:

What did Hale’s whistleblowing reveal?

Briefly, that Obama’s expanded use of drone programs with no oversight, leading to untold numbers of civilian deaths abroad… which Trump has since significantly expanded — including the fact that U.S. drones killed innocent people 90 percent of the time, victims who were subsequently labeled “enemy combatants” regardless of their actual status’.  You may remember that if the families of ‘bug splat’ victims could prove that their loved ones were NOT terr’ists, they could be awarded some Blood Money by ISAF or whatever coalitions.  ‘Never walk in a tactical fashion, even while tending your family’s goats’ became the byword during the ‘Liberation’ of Afghanistan.

Now there are boatloads of reasons why I personally don’t trust the Intercept, but I’ll name just a few for now:

One is that at last count there were 99 fearless investigative journalists at Pierre’s Place, why are they there save for Intercepting the News and Controlling it?

Among those fearless journalists they have smeared Julian Assange at least four times, although one was a more subtle two-fer by Greenwald and Klein.  Micah Lee’s may have been the worst:

In February of (then) last year, Lee called Assange a “rapist, liar & ally to fascists” in a tweet — despite the fact that Assange was never charged with rape, his alleged accusers have also claimed that Assange had not sexually assaulted them, and there is abundant evidence suggesting that the rape investigation was a means of ensnaring Assange to ensure his extradition to the United States. Based on Lee’s other tweets, the “ally to fascists” charge ostensibly refers to Lee’s belief that Wikileaks’ publications of emails from the DNC and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta was done explicitly, with Assange’s blessing, to aid the Trump campaign.

The place has paid extraordinary homage to the White Helmets… (click for larger)

and engaged in other anti-Assadist rhetoric, and had teamed up with (atlantic council partner bellingcat in a 3-day workshop.  Remember the bana alabed syrian child in Aleppo psyop? Eva Bartlett:


“The child’s [Twitter] account, which now has 369,000 followers, continues to vilify the Syrian and Russian governments and hobnobs with world leaders and global celebrities. Time magazine lauded Bana as among the most 25 influential people on the internet. On June 30, the Bana account tweeted the announcement of her memoirs, published by Simon & Schuster.”

Having recalled some discussions as to the veracity v. extreme bias of TI’s James Risen, I dug out his page noting that he’s the Intercept’s Senior National Security Correspondent; this is his oeuvre. (Sprawling Russian Spy Game, Trump’s Cozy Relationship with Vlad, etc.)

But as for Pierre himself and GG having recently closed down the Snowden Archives, given Omidyar’s deep connection and financing of the Maidan  putsch in Ukraine and other regime change operations via USAID, etc., one does tend to wonder if the 95% or so remaining unpublished docs might have, yanno, put Pierre in a compromising position. (graphic from the exiled, ames and levine)

I may bring more in the comments, as you may, but this is long enough already. Should I award prizes for those who finish?  ; )

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wendy davis's picture

on twitter with a link to the WaPo:

and her opinion on the new charges against julian assange, fwiw:

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EdMass's picture

tl;dr...

I know you have a RL but this is just too much and too many tangents in one reading for me.

Break it up, maybe?

Regardless. Thank you for your work.

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Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!

Firesign Theater

Stop the War!

wendy davis's picture

@EdMass

but i cannae do it. sorry it's so long, but: 'needs must brook no delay, but better late than never', as the hobbits were wont to say. ; )

on edit: ping! you could read it over two or three days, i reckon. unlike me, you might even remember what you'd read earlier. ; ) not to mention, how would i break it up?

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edg's picture

I don't get a prize. I only made it 2/3rds of the way through. Great job, Wendy. I've always had mixed feelings about The Intercept. It often seems like they try to play on both sides of the fence. Some of their Russiagate reporting was exceptional, some of it was atrocious regurgitation of Hillary Clinton talking points.

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wendy davis's picture

@edg

the prize, edg, for reading 2/3 of it.

hope you can manage to read the rest. ; )

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I rely a lot on the Intercept for factual information. If not them, then who?

Some of the case laid out against them is by people I find credible.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

@dkmich

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

wendy davis's picture

@dkmich

that familiarity makes it all easier to grasp; that place has just toasted my cookies since the beginning. i know i've said it before, but i hashed up a lot my coverage of the place, and wish i'd met whitney webb back in the day. but from yasha levine and mark ames to ken silverstein's critiques that snoopy dawg had turned me onto recently, moon of alabama, tarzie, j p sotllie, i forget who all... good on 'em.

the pieces i was pretty much forced to read for exposés made me see that the readership is way down, and commenters would call rubbish on a lot of their dreckiest dreck. and a quarter of a billion dollars later, the place is asking for contributions, lol.

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wendy davis's picture

@dkmich

that readers should decide, esp. if readers find other authors more credible than Pierre's Palace.

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Is it cocktail time?

PS... thanks for all your work, and I did read the whole thing, which means I get a cherry in my bourbon!

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

wendy davis's picture

@Fishtroller 02

how 'bout a bottle of russian novichock vodka as a prize?

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@wendy davis even before I saw the prize.

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wendy davis's picture

@FuturePassed

earlier. good on ya; dunno what prize i have to offer, really. ideas? of course, it was a 'maybe i should' thang. ; ) i know; i'll dedicate tonight's closing lullaby to you, okay?

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@wendy davis

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

wendy davis's picture

@Fishtroller 02

it's got all that novichok in it! (my guess is that they're just kinda collectors items, but what do i now?), as in: not for human consumption.

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@wendy davis

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

wendy davis's picture

i know that most here love caitlin johnstone well. here are two of her exposés of the interceptus:

The Intercept Is Transitioning From Guard Dog To Attack Dog For The Establishment’, feb. 15, 2018

The Intercept’ Tries To Conflate Opposition To US Syria Intervention With Neo-Nazism’, sept. 8, 2017

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Anja Geitz's picture

can conclude from this latest piece of news that there no longer remains an outlet safe for whistleblowers.

As intended. Onward to Plan B then? A string and two cans, perhaps?

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

can still submit to wikileaks safely. they never reveal their sources, but have to validate leaks (in the public interest) before publication.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@wendy davis

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

amiga. but i did get to remembering that when trevor timm announced after the fact to julian that wikileaks was being ejected from the FPF started by (as it turns out) assange, ratner, john perry barlow, and assange attorney jennifer robinson.

quoting assange at pastebin:

"Oh, yeah, he says, 'since WikiLeaks began publishing the largest CIA leaks in history, Vault 7 and Vault 8, he and his organization have come under even more pressure from the CIA, and expressly by director Mike Pompeo, and that The U.S. grand jury against WikiLeaks has been expanded to include their CIA publications. We’ve all been treated to Pompeo’s threats and pontifications against WikiLeaks, of course'.

trevor timm responds to julian on pastebin:

“Much had changed since the foundation was formed. Today it has a $1.5 million annual budget and a staff of 15. Taking donations for WikiLeaks and other groups has become only a tiny part of the foundation’s work. In 2013, for example, the foundation took over development of SecureDrop, an open-source tool designed to make it safer for whistleblowers to submit information to reporters. Under the foundation’s stewardship, SecureDrop today is running in dozens of newsrooms, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, and Bloomberg.”

ya can't make this shit up if ya try. ; )

so...maybe that's Plan C?

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wendy davis's picture

Everyone else must take my place’: Assange in letter from British prison', today

In a handwritten letter from Belmarsh prison, WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange says he is being denied a chance to defend himself and that elements in the US that “hate truth, liberty and justice” want him extradited and dead.

The letter was sent to independent British journalist Gordon Dimmack. It was dated May 13 – ten days before the US announced 17 additional charges under the Espionage Act against the jailed whistleblower.

In light of the new indictment, Dimmack read out the letter in a YouTube video. A photo of the handwritten note was soon posted online as well.

“I have been isolated from all ability to prepare to defend myself: no laptop, no internet, ever, no computer, no library, so far, but even if I get access it will just be for a half an hour, with everyone else, once a week,” Assange wrote. “The other side? A superpower that has been preparing for 9 years, with hundreds of people and untold millions spent on the case.”

I am defenseless.

“I am unbroken, albeit literally surrounded by murderers, but, the days where I could read and speak and organize to defend myself, my ideals, and my people are over until I am free! Everyone else must take my place,” Assange wrote in the letter.

The US government, or rather, those regrettable elements in it that hate truth, liberty and justice, want to cheat their way into my extradition and death, rather than letting the public hear the truth, for which I have won the highest awards in journalism and have been nominated 7 times for the Nobel Peace Prize,” Assange wrote.

Truth, ultimately, is all we have.

i'd embed the dude's video, but it pretty much sucks.

but this is one of the reasons i/m so irate at the intercept 'journalists' hitting him when he was down, then saying' Love him or Hate him: Press Freedom!' you likely know that they kicked wikileaks of the freedom on the press that anonymized contributions, yes? yet he, michael ratner of CCR justice (may he rest in power), and one other good soul started it.

so they started accepting donations in bitcoin, whatever that is. greenwald had claimed not to know that pierre's paypal had refused to accept contributions for wikileaks even before he created 'the intercept' and hired poitras, scahill and greenwald.

ever since the aukland town hall w/ kin dotcom, for snowden and GG, julian was 'the bad whistleblower, they were the good uns', cuz they let the intel agencies redact docs that might hurt the US war efforts...before publication. such as the case of the NSA using intel to help site in bombs in afghanistan. there was one that might have helped end the war on syria, but i've forgotten what it was. maybe it's in one of caitlin's exposés; i hadn't taken time to more than scan.

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snoopydawg's picture

@wendy davis

It's good to see how many so called journalists have come out against Trump's actions. Even Rachel said that it's wrong. She said that Trump has started his war on journalists with someone most people don't like, but... I too am tired of seeing people quantifying their comments about Assange with, "no matter how you feel about him".

I haven't trusted the intercept since I read who Omar.. was. And it was too convenient that he created the site just so the Snowdon files had somewhere to do. Ed made a mistake giving them to just Greenwald and a few others and not keeping copies for himself in case they sat on them.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

mega-billionaires for true journalism! but add this shite to your list of virtue-signalers:

“Assange is a bad actor who has harmed U.S. national security — and he should be held accountable,” Warren said in a statement. “But Trump should not be using this case as a pretext to wage war on the First Amendment and go after the free press who hold the powerful accountable everyday.”

the other two were 'all about trump', and sanders has never uttered a peep in julian's offense before, but then they seem to have been asked for comment by TI.

did they read the msnbc poll wikileaks had tweeted? 89% of USians believe assange should not be prosecuted?

'I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb.

And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead,
Then space began to toll

As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.

And then a plank in reason, broke,
And I dropped down and down--
And hit a world at every plunge,
And finished knowing--then--'

~ emily dickenson

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wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

a bit more fully at the bottom, okay? too much to paste in here about omidyar and his intercept journalists.

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Big Al's picture

Some people say, beware!, don't trust!, sheepdog, CFR, gatekeeper, establishment!, etc., before it even happens (i.e., Obama getting elected, Pierre Omidyar, Trump, Maddow, you name it, and now, Gabbard, Sanders, democratic party, etc.), then later, when it becomes clear, other people say oh, how they've changed, from guard dog to attack dog, the money got to them, what happened!!

Heh, politics is funny. Ya, now you funny too.

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

post-psychics? or just accidental or willful cluelessness from the get-go? ; )

now you may get a boot out of this as we'd been having a bit of sport on amy goodman's behalf the other day, but as i was doing some bingling on risen and daniel hale, i'd come up this at DN!: Trump Steps up War on Whistleblowers: Air Force Vet Daniel Hale Arrested For Leaking Drone War Info, in which she interviews james risen of the intercept about daniel hale’s indictment (although i hadn’t known that scahill wrote The Book), shows DN! scahill clips from 2015, and yes, it's good story-telling, and both seem to empathize with hale, but i'm starting the video at about 19 minutes, cuz of the hilarity of goodman's Q twice: do you think they're targeting the Intercept to shut it down?' (or close to that.) and: Trump leaked scahill's name!!! as if no one else could figure it out. my.stars.

[video:https://youtu.be/JAnPGdVPU5Q?t=18m41s]

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wendy davis's picture

and the current zeigeist is blowing me away, an i don't see it gettin' any better soon. i need to be put into a trance state by this song that was the last thing john trudell ever recorded before his 'ride came for him'...as he'd put it. i'm dedicating it to FuturePassed as his prize for reading this whole danged diary. ; ) g' night all. g' night, brother john; g'night, quiltman.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRTMe_EPgSM]

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wendy davis's picture

that it was whitney webb who'd quoted maryam saleh as slurring shia muslims, so i went a-bingling, and found a long exposé that she and vanessa beeley had co-written in feb. 2019 that gets deep into pierre's alliances with oligarchs for regime changes: jeffrey skoll, avaaaz, and many others in the non-profit industrial complex.

it's wicked long, and only one part of a series. but here's what i was looking for, plus more:

"Furthermore, Intercept writers covering Syria frequently promote Syrian “rebels” and the opposition while also promoting pro-regime change talking points. For instance, Murtaza Hussain – a long-time writer at the Intercept – has written numerous stories downplaying the terrorist and Wahhabist elements of the Syrian “rebels.” In the last three years, Hussain has written pieces portraying known Al-Qaeda propagandists, such as Bilal Abdul Kareem, and Al-Qaeda-linked organizations, such as the White Helmets, in an overwhelmingly positive light — failing to mention in both cases the significant evidence tying these entities to known terrorist groups.

Hussain is by no means the only Intercept writer who has taken such a pro-opposition stance regarding Syria. A now infamous Intercept piece on Syria, published last September, committed glaring factual errors on basic facts about the war, while also mistranslating a speech given by Assad so as to link him to American white nationalists [b at MoA had noted the same]. In addition, last year, the paper hired Maryam Saleh, a journalist who has called Shia Muslims “dogs” and has taken to Twitter in recent months to downplay the role of the U.S. coalition in airstrikes in Syria. Saleh also has ties to the U.S.-financed propaganda group Kafranbel Media Center, which also has close relations with the terrorist group Ahrar al-Sham.

Even “anti-interventionist” Intercept journalists like Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald have come under fire this past year for allegedly promoting inaccurate statements that supported pro-regime-change narratives in Syria, particularly in regard to an alleged chemical-weapons attack in Douma. That attack is now widely believed to have been staged by the White Helmets."

and most of the subtweeters trounced maryam soundly, and good on them. what a palace pierre's running.

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