Why the Guardian's Manafort-Assange story likely isn't true and is a nothingburger even if (largely) true

The Resistance and allies are breathless over the idea, as reported by The Guardian, that Paul Manafort met Julian Assange at least three times in his Ecuadorean embassy exile.

(Update, Dec. 12: A former consul at the embassy is officially calling it — and previous Guardian reportage on Assange — fake news and demanding a public apology. It's clear by now this is most likely lies; that said, Assange isn't going to sue because at some point, he would have to leave the embassy as part of legal pleadings, would he not? I highly doubt the British government would let a third party represent him.)

Although Glenn Greenwald first cautioned to "let things play out," and as the Idries Shah I've often mentioned notes there are more than two sides to an issue (more on that below) in all likelihood, as Glenn himself later writes, it ain't true.

Why?

1. The Assange-hating reputation of Luke Harding. (Yes, a second byline is on that piece, but that may just be camouflage, because of ...

2. The Assange-hating reputation of The Guardian. But, let's backtrack to ...

1A. The plagiarism reputation of Harding, along with his #TheResistance, British division, reputation, over unfounded collusion claims.

3. The skeeziness of alleged evidence:

Third, it is possible that the document from the government of Ecuador and its very inaptly named current president Lenin by its Senain intelligence agency is itself false information and part of a concerted campaign.

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) November 27, 2018

That's the best the Guardian can do? And, there's no PDF of said document with the story.

4. The vagueness of timeframes, including the 2016 visit, that Manafort met sometime "around" becoming Trump's campaign manager. (Harding will of course say he can't be more precise because Manfor(d) wasn't logged in.

5. The claims that Senain would be so meticulous to keep an off-the-books record yet misspell Manafort's name. (Is this to make it look more authentic?)

6. The claim of "Russians" also coming to the embassy, but miraculously, Harding, Guardian and Senain have no names for any of said Russians.

On the other hand, there could BE a third side.

First, why would Manafort visit Assange in 2013 and 2015? He would seem to have nothing to offer "Paulie" at this time, unless Assange had hacked some Ukrainian government emails that he never publicly dumped, which is theoretically possible, I suppose

But, Manafort could indeed have then visited Assange in 2016.

Carl Bernstein says that Robert Mueller IS investigating a 2017 meeting between Manafort and Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno and asking if Assange was discussed.

The fourth side?

It's unclear if Harding and/or others put a bug in Mueller's ear before the Guardian finished up its story. (Most of the political Twitterverse has already assumed that Mueller's claim Manafort lied to him is related in some way or another to Assange.)

The fifth side?

Even if ALL the visits Harding claimed happened actually happened, no collusion has been proven. In fact, because of the vagueness of "Russians" in Harding's story, and zero timeline for when they allegedly dropped in the embassy, Harding has no way of tying any such Russians, should they actually exist, to Manafort and/or Assange anyway. (So, no, Emptywheel, along with Bmaz and other Kossacks, your wet dreams remain unfounded. They also remain unfounded in light of Thursday's Michael Cohen plea deal stipulations.)

I'd say it means Harding shot himself in the foot over nothing, even though Kossacks like Emptywheel and Bmaz are creaming their undies over this.

Harding probably claims that this just means he's waiting for his sources to tell him Part 2.

As for the Guardian? At one time, it was left-liberal, with vague tints of leftness for the UK and definitely for the US. Now, speaking of nothingburgers, that's exactly what it's become, and over far more issues than this.

That said, if Julian Assange could have kept his pants on in Sweden, or put them back on, in one of the countries in Europe where "no means no" is legally true, he'd never be in this state of trouble in the first place. Given both him and the American bipartisan foreign policy establishment, there'd be some other trouble instead, in all likelihood.

And, another that said — there is no "deep state" in the darkest sense of the phrase machinating all of this. Nobody put a gun to Trump's head and told him to hire Mike Pompeo to run first CIA then State or John Bolton to be NSA. He did that on his own. (That's despite a new nutbar book by David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski, which I noted because The Mooch himself, Anthony Scaramucci, is now following me on Twitter.)

Update:

The sixth side? Mueller allegedly believes Jerome Corsi tipped off Roger Stone in advance of WikiLeaks' actual leaks. And, while that story is on the Guardian website, it's an AP story.

And, lead Brexiteer Nigel Farange did visit the embassy in March 2017, while an ally of his, Ted Malloch, supposedly was asked by Stone, at Corsi's request, to get advance copies of the emails in July 2016.

The seventh side? July 2016 is three months after Manafort's alleged last visit. And, neither the AP nor the Guardian's newest say that Manafort talked to either Corsi or Stone.

So, this update only confirms for me what I thought a week ago: Jerome Corsi is in definite trouble, and Roger Stone could well be next. As for Randy Credico? Stone may just be trying to drag him down and hide behind him, or he could actually have been dumb enough to get mixed up in this.

I still see no proof of a Manafort-Assange meeting. I still don't see Manafort doing that in 2016, especially if he knew about the Corsi-Stone approach. No need to get personally involved. And, Assange doesn't benefit him in 2013 or 2015. People on the ground in Russia, or eastern Ukraine, take care of his needs.

The eighth side? Harding was fed some fake news. Would be poetic justice, if true. (This is setting aside the issue of Politico running a piece under a pseudonym that forwards the ball on CIA claims about Putin while ignoring its own long history of media interference.)

Further update: The Beeb notes the Guardian weakening its story line, beyond what Wikileaks first noted. At the same time, it notes Assange has lied before on this issue, namely, about contacts with Stone.

===

As for a timeframe for action?

I say by Friday afternoon we see further "movement" from somewhere. The Guardian softened its initial story just a few hours after publishing to put a few indicative verbs in subjunctive mood. Whether more comes, or whether Assange and/or Manafort file their threatened suits remains to be seen.

There was no budging by Friday evening, but ... this new revelation means that the Guardian better do something close to a retraction soon. If not a full retraction.

Manafort's meeting in Ecuador with Lenin? He reportedly was working on a deal TO GET MANAFORT BOOTED from the embassy in exchange for aid to Ecuador. Kind of undercuts that whole collusion angle, doesn't it?

With that said, any Guardian-Harding backdooring of Mueller didn't happen. Now, maybe, somebody on Mueller's staff gave Harding a backdoor tip to undermine the findings of boss-man Mueller. Stay tuned.

And, this just gets worse yet.

First, the Guardian used a third byline on the print edition. A skeezix connected to the National Endowment for Democracies. Hit this Twitter thread. And Bezos Post is now officially calling out Harding and the Guardian.

===

This is inevitably going to get confounded with the Michael Cohen plea deal stipulations.

So, let us note that:
1. Cohen, or even Trump family members, talking to Putin grandees about Trump building projects in Moscow has nothing to do with election collusion
2. Re Manafort, there's no evidence he talked with Cohen about these issues
3. The newly-announced German investigation of Deutsche Bank is about the Panama Papers. Last I checked, there were lots of rich people in America and abroad, or rich companies thereunto, with connections to Democrats as well as to Trumpistas.
4. As for anybody meeting with Dmitry Peskov, surely, some foreign real estate magnate has met in the past with a White House press secretary.
5. Again, Putin is too smart, if he's this all-powerful, to use Trump as a deliberately chosen tool. For those who say, "his goal was sowing confusion," Putin could do that by other means, like the Facebook ads, without relying on someone who would be windsock even on confusion.

Warren Buffet's gamble on community papers a loser — and other stupidities (updated)

Warren Buffett doubled down on community newspapers a couple years back, and it's a loser, so far. Hell, I could have told Bloomberg that. First, despite Buffett allegedly supporting paywalls, here in Central Texas, his two small 7-day dailies only paywall the PDF e-edition, which means bupkis, especially as nobody reads PDFs on mobile devices. And, the HTML news stories on site are all free. Given that most non-daily community papers still think this is what a paywall means, it's no wonder that community newspapers are basically, with some differences in detail, about at the same spot in the financial stupidity curve as larger newspapers were a decade ago.

Linked to this is that smaller metropolitan areas, at least here in Tejas, aren't fully sharing in the economic recovery of the big cities.

Take Waco, where the Tribune-Herald is one of the two papers I'm talking about. On Saturdays, which should be a big day, the paper struggles to hit the 30 percent mark on ads, and that's counting the inches of paid obits as straight ad space. I don't know about Bryan-College Station, but I venture to guess the Eagle's in somewhat similar boat, though maybe not as bad.

Beyond that, whether his investments in the biz are small or not, Buffett knows nothing special about newspapers, other than fairly typical slash-and-burn. At the Buffalo News, early on, he was strong on union-busting as part of reducing costs.

Back to the main point, though. PDFing an e-edition while posting in HTML all your main news stories for free is NOT a paywall.

What it is, is stupidity and a waste of time even as newspapers try to do more with less on staff time as well as money.

And this isn't likely to get better in the near future.

Meanwhile, per Editor & Publisher, "winning stratetegies" of small and middle sized dailies include:
1. Publishers using the C-word. Any time a publisher mentions "content," I reach for my revolver.
2. Newspapers "rediscovering" special sections. Problem? If you're hosting the event for which the special section is about, and "hosting" as in paying costs to put it on, having staff on the ground, etc., aren't you losing at least part of your profit? If so, how much? Are you trying to minimize this by having only salaried and not hourly people do this? If so, how much, if any , comp time are you giving them?
3. Newspapers "partnering" with folks like chambers of commerce for tourism guides, etc. Sounds good — until your chamber of commerce does ill-advised spending of hotel-motel tax money, or the equivalent in your state, and, you have to write a story about it. What if the chamber, the economic development board, etc., then "un-partner" with you?
4. A newspaper saying that its expanded database of email addresses for discount blasts have helped ward off Groupon. If you're that worried about Groupon, a company more and more despised by merchants, and you're that worried in part because you've not read NEWS STORIES and not CONTENT that has reported exactly this about Groupon, then [sigh].

What can you expect from such stupidity, though? Per Poynter, back with the big boys, the Boston Globe is now going to a metered paywall, with 10 freebies per month, vs none before. But, it refuses to call it a paywall, just using the term "meter." It's unclear if the totally free Boston.com is staying around. If it is, then the Globe is as stupid as the Chron in San Francisco and the Snooze in Dallas.

That said, the stupidity isn't limited to the U.S.

The Guardian is getting a pretty penny for selling its majority stake in Auto Trader, but, without a paywall, Alan Rusbridger and gang will continue to burn through Scott Trust money, and this "infusion," like money's going out of style.

The company, which has divested of non-core newspaper assets such as GMG Radio – the third largest radio group in the UK which owned brands including Real and Smooth – for £70m has revealed that the sale of its majority stake in AutoTrader has secured the financial future of the newspaper portfolio for a minimum of 30 years.

Yeah, we'll see if this last for 30 years. Meanwhile, how much profit were these other assets making? Maybe you should have kept them and done more to fix the Guardian's bottom line at the same time.

I mean, you can chase the allegedly "lucrative U.S. market" all you want, but since that market, for newspapers, is expected to have another 8 percent ad revenue decline this year, it gets less lucrative all the time. And, new numbers on digital circulation aren't doing a lot more than offsetting print subscription declines, in many cases.

There is essentially now an infinity of digital inventory, very different than scarcity in print, so you can buy digital advertising anywhere and everywhere,” (Ken Doctor) said.

This is something I've been hammering myself, as the flip side of the Gnu Media gurus talking about how the digital world offers an infinity of room for news stories, length of news stories, etc. Throw in programmatic advertising, which is further driving down rates, primarily in print, but surely in digital, too.

Add in that digital dimes are likely to be replaced by mobile nickels, especially per my note above about PDFs and mobile devices, and, Rusbridger can chase diminishing returns all he wants.

Unfortunately, the only real hope Doctor sees is from points 2 and 3 under the "best practices" above:

Growth may come, he suggested, as companies expand into “third, fourth, and fifth” businesses, in addition to the first two, advertising and circulation. Newer revenue sources include digital marketing services, sponsoring events and conferences, and in-house publishing activities to help other papers looking for publishing services.

Uhh, given that Doctor was one of the first media analysts to talk about Digital First Media shutting down Thunderdome for its own papers under "in-house publishing activities," as I noted in my blog about DFM's pending implosion, that's a big negatory, Ken, on that being likely to do anything.

Doctor should also read this piece by Jack Shafer. Shafer gives a good smackdown to the NYT's "Premier" premium website in specific, and to the concept of "premium" newspaper websites in general. Folks in Dallas, Boston, and likely San Fran, who think they can "sell" a premium website while keeping a totally free, totally unpaywalled basic one, should take note. But almost surely won't.

Doctor doesn't specifically mention "swag" under his ideas, but it's kind of hinted at.

So, let's look once again at this.

Digital marketing services? In small towns, papers may have a partial edge on this. But, big cities? Nahhh. That's what public relations companies do, Ken. Thousands of them, both newer and older, flood Monster, Indeed, and other job sites with "SEO specialist wanted" ads all the time, even as that job market loses steam.

So, scratch No. 3.

No. 4? I've already poo-poohed this on conflict of interest grounds. Or worse, on sponsored conferences? We've already seen this backfire with the NYT and WaPost. And Politico. That said, as we see with the likes of Advance Media paying writers bonuses for, essentially, promoting clickbait, journalistic ethics, on the management side, continues to sink by the day. John Paton at DFM should be kicking himself that he didn't think about hosting digital-only cyberconferences, like ginormous Google Hangouts.

No. 5? Given that more media companies are already consolidating printing services, and the long-term future points digital only, how can you even offer this one? And, as I just updated, with that link a few grafs above, that ain't going anywhere, either. Joint copy desk hubs in major newspapers will likely become bigger clusterfucks the more newspapers they're asked to build in the future. (And it's probably time for a separate blog post just on that.)

Shows that outside stereotypical Jarvis, Rosen, Shirky, and other Gnu Media gurus, other analysts aren't so brilliant all the time, either.

I have the feeling that many newspaper companies, their top management, their family owners, or whatever, suffer from the Dunning-Krueger effect.

Folks, analytics say that ads are going to fall 8 percent on average this year. Odds are there's nothing special about your newspaper to beat those odds.

The big issue is that, as Michael Wolff notes, we still haven't figured out how (with select exceptions) to make the online model pay. I've blogged before that the Net is exactly the opposite of print in this way. Because space for stories was limited, it made the "information" of ads pricey, to quote the second paragraph of Stewart Brand's famous saying — one that Gnu Media gurus routinely ignore. Wolff adds elsewhere that advertisers have figured out that Net traffic numbers aren't real, either, which is why click-per-impression rates continue to drop. (Yet more from Wolff here.)

(Brand himself claims he's blamed for a lot of tech-neoliberalism stuff that is not his fault. The rest of that interview indicates he's lying to himself if he really believes that and lying to the rest of us anyway.)

On the Net? Because story/photo/video/space is limited only by server size, and every daily paper with a website, plus top blogs and news aggregators, post wire service stories, ad "information" is almost free, even if it doesn't "want" to be so.

In Buffett's case, other than staff-slashing at Buffalo, then Omaha, he knows no more about new media revenue models than any other old media owner. And, since Omaha's a relatively recent buy, and both it and Buffalo, pre-Media General, were tiny drops in his empire, he's never bothered to give much thought to it, unlike buying BNSF stock a few years back because he expected both intermodal and energy shipping to pick up as the Great Recession lessened.

Our CIA man in Pakistan

Yesterday, the Guardian had an in-depth piece about Raymond Davis, the American consular employee in Lahore, Pakistan, who killed two Pakistanis a month ago, then had another consular employee kill a third while driving to pick him up, by hitting that person with his vehicle.

The story made clear (shock me) that Davis is a spook working for the CIA.

Beyond the disgustingness of the Obama Administrastion, we have members of the U.S. mainstream media who allegedly have also known this about Davis but not printed it.

Meanwhile, the WaPost looks at the legal ramifications of the U.S. claiming Davis has diplomatic immunity. Of course, the warmongering editorial page of the post won't look at the ramifications of an ongoing undeclared war against Pakistan.

Who benefits from the Al Jazeera 'A-bomb"?

I blogged earlier today about the big "A-bomb" that al-Jazeera dropped on the Middle East and passed on to the Guardian, about the sorry state of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. (Here's the link to the al Jazeera main webpage for the coverage, to make sure it gets its due.)

An Al Jazeera explainer page notes what's behind the papers:

There are 1,684 total documents, including
* 275 sets of meeting minutes;
* 690 internal e-mails;
* 153 reports and studies;
* 134 sets of talking points and prep notes for meetings;
* 64 draft agreements;
* 54 maps, charts and graphs;
* and 51 “non-papers.”

Among the bombshells, in numerous sublinks at the Guardian?

But, why? And why now?

The cui bono question is running through my head, mainly.

Yes, we know that WikiLeaks had the U.S. diplomatic cables, but the al-Jazeera leak is separate. So, who gave it what it got and why? And, how did that person come into the info, if he or she isn't an insider?

Would this benefit an Israeli ultrahawk like Avigdor Lieberman? By deliberately sabotaging future talks, which it will?

Or, somebody from Hamas? Though it would be tough for anybody from Hamas to have gotten such detailed information.

Or, either a rival to Abbas for leadership within the PA, or a principled PA negotiator who finally had had enough?

Meanwhile, Team Obama threatened to cut off funds to the Palestinian Authority if it replaced Mahmoud Abbas as leader.

This would be the same Abbas whose negotiating team, in private, officially accepted that Israel could define itself as a Jewish state.

This all further impinges on the "who benefits" issue.

And, was this leak, whoever did it, already planned before the WikiLeaks release of the U.S. cables or not?

Who doesn't benefit? Per one al Jazeera piece, everyday Palestinians, likely to see further Israeli intimidation and violence.

Al Jazeera just droppped an A-bomb on the Middle East

The Arab-world-based news service uncovered a treasure trove of leaked documents about Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and exclusively shared them with the Guardian. (Here's the link to the al Jazeera main webpage for the coverage, to make sure it gets its due.)

An Al Jazeera explainer page notes what's behind the papers:

There are 1,684 total documents, including
* 275 sets of meeting minutes;
* 690 internal e-mails;
* 153 reports and studies;
* 134 sets of talking points and prep notes for meetings;
* 64 draft agreements;
* 54 maps, charts and graphs;
* and 51 “non-papers.”

Among the bombshells, in numerous sublinks at the Guardian?

Israeli intransigence on negotiations, U.S. acquiescence, and Palestinian desperation.

In an emotional – and apparently humiliating – outburst to Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in Washington in October 2009, the senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat complained that the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership wasn't even being offered a "figleaf". ...

(W)hen Palestinian leaders balked at the prospect of an entirely demilitarised state, Livni made clear where the negotiating power lay. In May 2008, Erekat asked (Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister): "Short of your jet fighters in my sky and your army on my territory, can I choose where I secure external defence?"

"No," Livni replied. "In order to create your state you have to agree in advance with Israel – you choose not to have the right of choice afterwards."

By the following year, Erekat appeared to have accepted that choice. "The Palestinians know they will have a country with limitations," he told Mitchell. "They won't have an army, air force or navy." A string of other major concessions had been made, but the issues were no further forward. "They need decisions," Erekat pleaded.

Wow. A demilitarized Palestine.

Israeli annexation of most East Jerusalem settlements.

There's more. Go to the main link, the first one up top, and start reading.

If I'm Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, I'm not walking anywhere now without a bulletproof vest. And, no, that's not too hyperbolic. Plenty of people at various spots in the Hamas food chain would surely be willing to pull a trigger.

Beyond that, this undermines plenty of actors beyond the Palestinian Authority.

Livni is now head of the opposition Kadima Party. Whenever it gets into power again, she'll be no more trusted by Palestinians outside the PA than Bibi Netanyahu is now.

Given that American acquiescence to Israeli intransigence carried over into the Obama Administration, it loses credibility.

And, to the degree more moderate Arab governments are seen has having thrown their collective lot with the PA rather than Hamas, to the degree either further al Jazeera information or WikiLeaks cables shed any light on this, they lose credibility too.

A couple of other thoughts, too.

The cui bono question is running through my head, mainly.

Yes, we know that WikiLeaks had the U.S. diplomatic cables, but the al-Jazeera leak is separate. So, who gave it what it got and why? And, how did that person come into the info, if he or she isn't an insider?

Would this benefit an Israeli ultrahawk like Avigdor Lieberman? By deliberately sabotaging future talks, which it will?

Or, somebody from Hamas? Though it would be tough for anybody from Hamas to have gotten such detailed information.

Or, either a rival to Abbas for leadership within the PA, or a principled PA negotiator who finally had had enough?

Meanwhile, Team Obama threatened to cut off funds to the Palestinian Authority if it replaced Mahmoud Abbas as leader.

This would be the same Abbas whose negotiating team, in private, officially accepted that Israel could define itself as a Jewish state.

This all further impinges on the "who benefits" issue.

And, was this leak, whoever did it, already planned before the WikiLeaks release of the U.S. cables or not?

Who doesn't benefit? Per one al Jazeera piece, everyday Palestinians, likely to see further Israeli intimidation and violence.

Guardian offers 4 Iranelection endgames

The Guardian’s four-option scenario, unlike the one of Time magazine I blogged about a couple of days ago, DOES have a Rafsanjani takeover as one of the options. As often is the case in the world of foreign affairs, the British MSM thinks more broadly than America’s.

Here’s the details:

1 - Happy ending
To widespread surprise, the hardline Guardian Council conducts a thorough recount of votes, as ordered by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and decides, amid much embarrassment, that there should be a new election. Mir Hossein Mousavi wins. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accepts defeat.

2 - Damp squib
The partial recount ordered by the Supreme Leader concludes Ahmadinejad won a clear victory, although by a narrower margin. Despite lingering suspicions of foul play, the opposition is forced to accept the verdict. Ahmadinejad, in bad odour with the Supreme Leader for provoking demonstrators, moderates his line on policy issues. Mousavi vows to fight again.

3 - Confrontation

The Guardian Council's partial vote recount and investigation into electoral fraud are rejected by the opposition. Demonstrations spread and intensify. Security forces respond with increasing force, … Purge of reformist leaders, intellectuals, students and journalists continues. Leaderless demos gradually peter out. Ahmadinejad steps up anti-western rhetoric. Resumed protests at a later date considered highly likely.

4 - A second revolution
An insider cabal of senior clerical and establishment conservatives challenges Khamenei and forces his resignation after a vote in the Assembly of Experts. Former president Hashemi Rafsanjani is elected in his stead and orders an investigation into the actions of Ahmadinejad and other senior members of the regime. Hardliners rally round the president while reformists demand new elections. Amid growing instability, Iran's unique Islamic/secular system of governance appears in danger of collapse.

Not just the last one, but all four show a breadth of thought, and more anticipation of developments in Iran, than did Time.
Per Steve Clemons’ analysis in the Washington Note, No. 1 is off the table with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei continuing to refer to President Ahmadinejad, while threatening a crackdown on further protest.

No. 2 is hardly more likely, so, we’re on to 3 and 4. A LOT of the clerical leadership is worried about No. 4’s last line, but, will anybody find an agreement along the first lines of No. 4 to make it work?

My suggestion is that the Council of Guardians gets expanded; Khamenei keeps his seat as “Supreme Leader Emeritus” and gets to name a friend or two of his. At the same time, Academy of Experts oversight is made clear.

Along with that, Ahmadinejad agrees to put Mousavi in his cabinet, as well as to, per No. 2, moderate himself a bit, at least. Mousavi and his backers agree — if he gets the foreign ministry, to keep a daily oversight on Ahmadinejad taking a more moderate stance, at least for public consumption, on foreign affairs.

What would be the result of this?

“Reform” in Iran would certainly get new window dressing, but little new actual work; appearances, not action. Mousavi would use the foreign ministry to gear up for his next presidential run. By that time, Rafsanjani would “ease” Khamenei out of his official emeritus position. And, albeit more subtly, Rafsanjani would, like Khamenei, engage in presidential kingmaking.

Shah mat!

(Note, late Saturday, US Central time, I will have some more analysis on these lines.)

The Guardian is spot-on for April Fool’s Day

Its top story has to do with Twitter. Read it.