Sara A. Carter: Did CNN's Hiring Of It's Illegal-Leak Source Violate Journalistic Ethics?

Pay for play?

Before quoting Carter, here's a bit of snark from Mollie Hemingway:

Okay that's not true about Clapper accept the award for the story he engineered for his new employer CNN, but that really was the story the WHCA honored.

Here's Sara Carter:

CNN walked away with a prestigious journalism award at Saturday night’s White House Correspondent's Association dinner for their role in making public a briefing by intelligence officials to then President-elect Donald Trump. CNN reported the briefing "included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump." But the information briefed to the President was also leaked to the media by one of the same senior Obama administration officials who orchestrated the briefing and was hired by CNN months later as a paid analyst.

Some are questioning now if this was ethical --a pay for play of sorts --as it raises serious questions about the role and responsibility that U.S. intelligence officials have when taking on paid positions as analysts for news organizations, while still retaining their high-level security clearances. It also raises similar questions about news organizations and their role of remaining objective and not paying their sources.

...

By August 2017, Clapper was hired by CNN as an analyst but the network never disclosed that Clapper was a major source behind the leak of an unproven and salacious dossier when he joined the network.

Actually, Carter wrote that a bit wrong or garbled it in rewriting.

Clapper is responsible for giving the dossier the "news hook" that CNN wanted, and therefore making it reportable. He leaked the classified information about the briefing (which was about the dossier).

But the leak was about that briefing -- he didn't leak the dossier itself. He didn't have to. Chris Steele and Fusion GPS had already sent that far and wide through the media.

The briefing gave CNN the excuse -- the news hook -- to report on the "salacious and unverified" dossier. That's what CNN needed, and that's what Clapper (and another source) gave them.

News agencies and reporters never disclose their sources, it would be unethical, but isn’t it also unethical to pay sources for information or give sources jobs as analysts for your news outlet after they’ve been illegally leaking classified information?

Another problem: CNN reported Clapper's denials about leaking without noting that they knew for a fact these denials were false.

Now, if you're going to do that, you have a reporter who doesn't know that he's reporting a falsehood.

Instead, Evan Perez, one of the four credited authors of the Clapper leak, reported Clapper's denial of leaking, and reported it without noting that he knew this was false.

Did the rest of the team not inform Even Perez who one of their big sources was (there were "multiple sources," the four reported -- probably Brennan too).

I doubt it. This gang can't really keep a secret -- I've known Clapper leaked to them for a year. When I kept "speculating" that, I wasn't speculating.

By the way, you know where Brennan ended up?

Brennan, who is now a paid analyst for MSNBC...

...

The FBI, CIA, DNI, among other intelligence agencies, are supposed to work to protect the American people in a non-partisan matter, and current U.S. intelligence officials say the direction these former officials have taken is dangerous.

Former Assistant FBI Director James Kallstrom criticized Brennan and Clapper in an interview Sunday on Fox News Sunday...

Kallstrom said people in the United States should be concerned and react to this, "this is third world country stuff."

Many current and former U.S. intelligence officials agree.

"Clapper was already in bed with CNN months before he was hired and while he was the DNI," said a current U.S. intelligence official.

Read the whole thing, as the cool kids say.

One question I think people should start asking of James Comey:

Remember that James Comey told Trump that CNN had the dossier and wanted to publish it, but could not do so without a "news hook."

Think about that.

Now here's the question:

Who told Comey that CNN needed a "news hook" and was looking for a "news hook?"

Did CNN tell him that?

Or did Clapper tell him that?

And why would Clapper have been talking about CNN needing a "news hook" to publish? Remember, he's actually supposed to not be trying to get classified information to the press. If CNN says "We want to report on this dossier but we don't have a news hook," he should say, "Well, good."

Why did they even get into the territory of "See, here's what we need in order to publish...?"

See what I mean? You would not be telling these people what you need to publish unless they were in on it, asking you, "Well what would it take to get you to publish?"

Instead... he arranges a briefing which he then immediately leaks about to CNN giving them the "news hook" they told him they needed.

So where did Comey hear about CNN's desire of a news hook from? Directly from CNN -- in which case, why didn't he disclose this communication with CNN? -- or, as I suspect, from James Clapper and/or John Brennan?

If he is made to admit that those two told him about the need of a "news hook," that adds further proof to the suspicion that this entire "briefing" was conducted with the sole purpose of being leaked to CNN to give them their news hook, and not for Trump's edification at all.

BTW: CNN is refusing to answer questions about this and has not covered this story at all.

posted by Ace of Spades at 05:14 PM

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