Yves here. Tom Neuburger amplifies Matt Taibbi’s view that Obama is behind the sudden press knowledge of Biden having classified records in his possession. While this is a sensible explanation, given visible facts, I find it striking that Taibbi wasn’t willing to say so in a straightforward manner, with appropriate caveats.
The fact that Obama likely does have the clout to have been in the loop regarding the Biden classified documents exposure and then getting it public is straight up third world Big Man behavior. Yet neither Neuburger nor Taibbi seem to regard that as scandalous, much the less call it out as rank corruption.
By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at God’s Spies
Matt Taibbi used to be in much greater favor with Democratic Party supporters than he is right now. And he was in great favor for more than a few reasons. The section reprinted below, taken from his podcast “America This Week,” is an example of one of those reasons.
Do you wonder why the news about the Biden classified files is coming out at all? Why isn’t it buried along with all the other news that’s buried as well? This problem didn’t have to occur; it was kept secret for months by everyone who knew about it,. Until, that is, a “source familiar with the matter” leaked the information to CNN.
Why did that happen? What made that source go public?
<Side Note: Covid Is Far from Toothless
As an example of completely buried news, consider this article from the respected science publication Nature: “Transcriptional reprogramming from innate immune functions to a pro-thrombotic signature by monocytes in COVID-19”. (See also here, from PubMed in 2021.)
I know that’s doctorese, but here’s how a doctor translated the title for us: “Our cell’s genes are rewired in MILD COVID.” And not in a good way; thrombosis means blood clots, usually in blood vessels.
This should be major health alert — Covid’s not over. Yet not one word about this from the only media that counts, the public-opinion creators at CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.
What’s the Story Behind the Story?
But back to Taibbi. Here’s his theory — and he admits it’s just a theory — about why Joe Biden is bedeviled lately by near-continuous news of his own classified files snafu. The following is taken from the published transcript(subscriber only) of Taibbi’s January 13 podcast. The podcast format is a conversation about between Matt and the writer Walter Kirn. (Emphasis mine.)
Matt: We should move on because there’s another ridiculously interesting story that broke this week. The leaking of the story that Joe Biden’s got classified documents in his Corvette, which is in a locked garage. There are so many angles to the story that are unlikely but also probably pretty transparent that it almost boggles the mind that this story is out there. What’s your interpretation?
Walter: Well, I want you to count the ways in which it seems unlikely first, because I’ll add to the list.
Matt: So, okay. We just went through a nearly identical story, which you and I mistakenly thought was going to be the biggest story in the world for a long time, which was the raid on Mar-a-Lago in the home of Donald Trump, because he was keeping classified records at his house. And we were told everything, from these were nuclear secrets that were going to be sold to the Russians or whatever to God knows what else, sources and methods, they brought out every conceivable law enforcement cliche to describe the nefarious intent in that story. But now we have a basically identical story about classified records that Joe Biden has apparently stored incorrectly for six years. And the interesting part isn’t even the story, it’s where does it come from?
And the first time I saw it was in a CNN story, which quoted the familiar source familiar with the matter, who explained that the US attorney in Chicago, John Lausch, has been briefing Merrick Garland. So you can read into that what you want, but it sure looks like the Democratic Party is pulling a Frank Pentangeli on Joe Biden, and essentially saying, dude, the clock is run out on your presidency. You’re out. Somebody else is going to run. And you might want to do the honorable thing. And if you don’t, this is going to get worse. That was my read on this. And who this came from seems pretty clear to me. But obviously we can’t really talk about that too much because it’s not reported. So I don’t know.
Note: “If you don’t, this is going to get worse,” and “who this came from seems pretty clear to me.”
That podcast went out on January 13, and things have indeed gotten worse for Biden. He’s had two more turns in the news cycle barrel on this issue, two more revelations of even more documents found.
Biden has completely lost his advantage against Trump on this issue, should they both be nominated in 2024. Are Party leaders who count, the donors and the major players in the ecosystem, actually encouraging him to bow out gracefully? Or is this just another speculation?
I leave that as an exercise for the reader. My mind’s not yet made up.