Washington Post chief "Fact Checker" Glenn Kessler is on a partisan run again with two hostile "checks" on new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. On Sunday, Kessler appeared in the paper aggressively defending Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell against "McCarthy's specious revenge attacks" with a "Four Pinocchios" hot take:
McCarthy clearly warned there would be payback if Democrats started choosing which members could serve on House committees. The Democrats punished two Republican lawmakers — and now he wants to punish two Democrats. But in contrast to the public actions or statements made by Greene and Gosar, widely condemned at the time, these expulsions appear based on figments of imagination.
This is where liberal-media “fact-checking” is annoying. They use their own partisan incuriosity against Republicans. For example, this is Kessler on Schiff and the “whistleblower” at the heart of the first Trump impeachment over Ukraine and Biden Incorporated:
During the impeachment probe, Schiff tried hard to avoid having the whistleblower’s name revealed publicly, often cutting off questions that might expose the official. Eventually, right-wing media published the name of an intelligence officer, though that individual has never been officially confirmed as the whistleblower.
But we can find no evidence that Schiff lied about whether he knew the whistleblower’s name.
Even now, Kessler can’t write “Eric Ciaramella,” the suspected whistleblower. In fact, put "Eric Ciaramella" in the search engine at washingtonpost.com and you get...zero results.
Why has the Post never confirmed the whistleblower? This is the legendary Woodstein newspaper, and they could never figure it out? Or.....they never wanted to figure it out, or suppressed what they learned? Always remember that journalists use their power by reporting what they know....or not reporting what they know.
Do we know that Ciaramella didn't leak to the Post? There's "no evidence" of that, since the sources are routinely hidden from public view. "Trust us, our choice of anonymous sources won't look partisan," says the partisan press. (Kessler doesn't include any mention of Schiff seeking to ban journalists from Twitter who worked on the Ciaramella story.)
Instead, back in 2019, the Post touted anti-Trump sources inside the government as harassed “public servants.”
An entire roster of public servants has been disparaged, bullied and in some cases banished for standing in Trump’s path as he sought to pressure Ukraine for political favors, or for testifying about his conduct afterward.
So put aside the Pinocchios for a minute, and let’s just proclaim that we smell something suspicious. Is The Washington Post coming fervently to the defense of Schiff and Swalwell because they’ve been such helpful anonymous sources against Trump, or facilitators of other leaking “public servants”?
The world will never know.
