Jeff Gerth has some questions for me. And I have a few for him.
In late January, the Columbia Journalism Review published a massive article by Gerth, an investigative reporter who once worked for the New York Times, which slammed the media for its coverage of the Trump-Russia scandal. Gerth blasted the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and other MSM outfits, charging that they overstated the case that Donald Trump and his crew colluded with Moscow and that they unduly promoted the unproven Steele dossier—the collection of memos that former British intelligence Christopher Steele privately compiled for a Democratic-paid research firm that contained unsubstantiated allegations about Trump’s interactions with Russia (including the infamous pee tape).
Though Gerth raised legitimate criticism about some specific stories, his effort was oddly misguided. Most important, he ignored the core elements of the Trump-Russia scandal: Vladimir Putin attacked the 2016 election to help elect Trump, and Trump and his minions aided and abetted that assault by loudly denying at the time and for years afterward that Putin had waged information warfare against the United States. Moreover, Gerth absurdly asserted that the media’s reporting on Trump and Russia caused the public to lose faith in news outlets and was the reason that Trump launched a bitter and mendacious crusade against American journalism—two propositions unsupported by polling data or, well, reality.
Gerth’s blame-the-media jeremiad let Trump off the hook in two ways. In Gerth’s account, Trump was blameless regarding Moscow’s attack on American democracy. (Gerth failed to acknowledge the seriousness and impact of that assault and Trump’s involvement in it.) And Gerth insisted that the Russia reporting drove the Trump into such a paranoid state of mind that he refused to accept the 2020 election results and incited the January 6 riot.
I felt prompted to retort.
In an article headlined, “Columbia Journalism Review’s Big Fail: It Published 24,000 Words on Russiagate and Missed the Point,” I compared Gerth to a magician who relies on misdirection. He deflected attention from the main elements of Russiagate, mirroring Trump’s own efforts of the past seven years to escape accountability for his profound betrayal of the nation. Gerth, I observed, “ends up bolstering Trump’s phony narrative that there was no Russia scandal, just merely a hoax whipped up by reckless reporters and Trump’s enemies in the press, with the assistance of the Deep State.” His lengthy lamentation was both reckless and dangerous. (In the article, Gerth briefly referenced, without criticism, the story I published in 2016 that first revealed the existence of the Steele dossier and that reported the FBI was investigating its allegations.)
Apparently, Gerth did not appreciate my analysis. He sent an email to Mother Jones brusquely requesting that we answer several questions so he could prepare for a virtual town hall that the Columbia Journalism Review had organized in response to the criticism it drew for publishing his diatribe. This event was to feature Gerth, CJR’s editor Kyle Pope, and Jelani Cobb, the dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, which publishes CJR. No critic of the Gerth piece was included on the panel, but detractors (and anyone else) could submit written questions in advance for this virtual gathering. Some might consider this process skewed in favor of Gerth and Pope, since no direct challenge in real time would be permitted. Nevertheless, as one of the leading critics of the CJR story, I filed a query for the town hall, which was scheduled for two weeks ago but then postponed due to illness.
As for Gerth and his questions, I felt no obligation to reply and provide him information that he seemed to believe would help him defend his article in a highly controlled online forum. My piece spoke for itself. But I proposed a deal: I would answer his questions, if he would answer the ones I had submitted for the town hall. Fair is fair.
Gerth at first indicated he was amenable but then declined, noting that his editor—presumably Pope—preferred that he save his response for the postponed public event. At this point, I felt even less obligated to address his questions.
But…why the hell not? So here are Gerth’s Q’s and my A’s. I think you will see that his queries unwittingly bolster the points I made in my piece.
First, a warning: This gets deeply into the weeds. I realize that not everyone—including Our Land readers—are obsessed with this topic. Yet Gerth’s article was a significant effort to rewrite recent history, similar to Tucker Carlson’s attempt to recast the January 6 insurrection as nothing more than a mostly peaceful excursion to the Capitol of patriotic Trump-loving tourists. Just as it is necessary to keep fighting for an accurate telling of the seditious raid on Congress, it is crucial to preserve the truth of what happened in 2016 and to challenge those who would deny or dismiss this consequential subversion of the American political system. Following this exchange, I will list the questions I sent Gerth that remain unanswered.
Most news organizations require their reporters to seek and publish comments from people/organizations that are going to be criticized in a story. (The New York Times guidelines call it a "special obligation.") Does Mother Jones have such a policy? If so, why did it publish a piece that appears to have violated that policy? (Corn never attempted to reach me even though he knew how to do so.)
Jeff, you wrote a 24,000-word critique of media coverage of the Trump-Russia scandal. That’s nearly a book. My 2,200-word article was an essay about your article—not a piece of reporting about you. Just as a book reviewer evaluating a book or a columnist responding to an op-ed piece would not be compelled to seek comment from the author of the book or the op-ed commentary, I had no obligation to ask you to respond to my analysis of your analysis. (When Mother Jones journalists, including me, report on a story, we do reach out to the principals. Just ask George Santos—or his lawyer.) Look around. In the media world, commentators and analysts often write about and joust over magazine and newspaper articles that warrant attention. It makes for a healthy marketplace of ideas.
Corn's piece contained the following passage: "Vladimir Putin attacked the 2016 election in part to help Trump win, and Trump and his aides aided and abetted this assault on American democracy by denying such an attack was happening. Trump provided cover for a foreign adversary subverting a US election." Two career CIA experts on Russia disagreed with the intelligence community assessment that any Russia operations aimed at the 2016 election were designed to help Trump, according to the book by John Brennan, cited in my piece. Did those two CIA analysts provide "cover for a foreign adversary subverting a US election" or aid and abet the "attack"? Has Mother Jones ever reported on the dissenting analysts? If so, please provide a link. Adm. Mikle [sic] Rogers, head of the NSA in 2017, also expressed less confidence in that specific assessment. Did he provide "cover for a foreign adversary subverting a US election" or aid and abet the "attack"?
Jeff, I don’t think your question fully addresses what I wrote. Do you think it’s controversial to state that Putin attacked the 2016 election in part to help Trump and that Trump and his lieutenants aided and abetted that assault by asserting it was not happening? As I assume you know, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report on the Trump-Russia scandal that was released in August 2020 concluded,
“Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president. Moscow's intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the US democratic process.”
The final report of special counsel Robert Mueller, released (in a redacted version) in April, 2019, concluded that the “Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion” and that Moscow did so because it “perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency.”
The US intelligence community in January 2017 released an assessment that reached the same conclusion:
“Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.”
“We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.”
There are critics of each of these reports, but the consensus is strong: Putin conducted information warfare targeting the 2016 election to assist Trump. The intelligence community concluded this. Mueller concluded this. And so did the Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) chaired the panel.
Yet you cite two unnamed intelligence analysts who during the 2016 election privately expressed a different view while Moscow’s attack was underway. This was a minority view, and it was reached before additional intelligence was collected by US intelligence agencies. Given that these two analysts did not go public with this view—their dissent was part on the ongoing and secret deliberative process within the intelligence establishment—the answer to your question is this: No, they did not provide public cover for the Russian operation.
But the Trump camp did. It possessed information at the time that US intelligence apparently did not. In June 2016, Trump’s top advisers—Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort—held a meeting with a Russian emissary they were told would supply them dirt on Hillary Clinton. (As far as we know, the emissary did not deliver on this promise.) Prior to the meeting, they were informed by the onetime Trump business associate who had organized this sit-down that it was part of a Kremlin effort to help Trump win. That means that the Trump crew explicitly was told that Moscow was running a covert effort to assist its candidate. (The email exchange that set up this meeting included the memorable Donald Trump Jr. response: “If it’s what you say I love it.”) Trump and his aides did not share this information with the FBI or US intelligence—or the voters. Consequently, when Trump and his gang later publicly denied that Moscow was clandestinely intervening in the election, they were indeed aiding and abetting Putin’s operation by providing cover for it. At that point, unlike US intelligence—which was trying to figure out what was happening—they knew that Moscow was secretly trying to boost Trump. And they ran interference for Putin’s assault.
Let’s end where we began: the bipartisan, 966-page Senate Intelligence Committee report, the most extensive government account of the Russian attack on the 2016 election. It stated that the Trump campaign “sought to maximize the impact” of the Russian operation in order “to aid Trump’s electoral prospects” and that the Trump campaign “publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia” and was “indifferent” to whether it was “furthering a Russian election interference effort.” Whatever two unidentified CIA analysts believed in 2016, more comprehensive investigations since then affirmed what we all saw with our own eyes: Trump helped a clandestine Russian operation that subverted American democracy. This is a critical point you did not explore in your article.
Has Mother Jones ever cited Corn's piece about Trump/Russia, published in the days before the 2016 election, as part of its fundraising efforts?
As you might know, Mother Jones is a reader-supported newsroom and a non-profit media outlet, as is the Columbia Journalism Review. You bet that we communicate with our readers about our reporting, especially stories on critical newsworthy issues.
Corn's piece in late October 2016 resulted in the firing of one of his sources, Christopher Steele, by the FBI within hours of its publication. Does Mother Jones share any responsibility for his termination?
Christopher Steele voluntarily consented to an interview with me, and I honored our agreement to not identify him by name in that article, which revealed the existence of the Steele memos and the FBI’s investigation of their allegations. Steele is a sophisticated private intelligence consultant who was fully able to calculate the risks of speaking with a reporter. After the article was published, the FBI agents working with him as a source were angry and ended this relationship. Steele was not terminated from a job. He continued to operate his own business. He did not face difficulty until months later, when Buzzfeed published the full contents of his memos (which I chose not to do) and the Wall Street Journal identified him as their author. In short, Mother Jones was not responsible for how FBI agents reacted to the publication of our story. Are you culpable for how your Whitewater coverage triggered a flood of right-wing conspiracy theories?
Those were the questions from Gerth. Here are the ones I submitted for the town hall:
Jeff Gerth’s piece, as I’ve already noted, was misguided in that it adopted a selective approach toward the Trump-Russia scandal, focusing almost exclusively on media coverage of the Steele memos and the question of whether Trump directly and criminally colluded with Moscow. It neglected the core and well-established elements of the scandal: Russia successfully attacked the 2016 election to help Trump win, and Trump aided and abetted that attack by falsely denying the Kremlin was intervening and trying to subvert American democracy. With all that in mind, why did Gerth, when he interviewed Trump, apparently not ask or press Trump on the following crucial points?
Why did Trump, during the 2016 election, when he often defended Vladimir Putin, lie to voters and say he had no business dealings with Russia, when he spent much of 2015 and 2016 secretly pursuing a major development deal in Moscow that could have landed him hundreds of millions of dollars?
Why did Trump’s top advisers—Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner—meet with a Russian emissary after being told her effort to bring the Trump campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton was part of a covert Kremlin endeavor to help Trump win? Was this not a signal to Moscow that the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference?
Why did Trump direct his son to lie about this meeting when it became public a year later?
Why did Trump, Manafort, and Trump Jr. publicly say Russia was not intervening in the 2016 election, after the campaign had been informed that Russia did intend to covertly help Trump win?
What does Trump have to say about the conclusion of the 2020 bipartisan Senate intelligence report that stated that Manafort, during the campaign, interacted with a Russian intelligence officer named Konstantin Kilimnik “who likely served as a channel to Manafort for Russian intelligence services”? The report noted that Manafort shared secret internal campaign data with Kilimnik (a former Manafort business associate) and that Kilimnik may have been connected to “the [Russian intelligence] hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election.” The committee also found “two pieces of information” that “raise the possibility” that Manafort himself was connected “to the hack-and-leak operations.” Was this Kilimnik-Manafort connection, which the report called a “grave counterintelligence threat,” not a possible instance of collusion?
What does Trump have to say about the report’s conclusion that the “Trump Campaign publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia.” Was this not an act that helped a foreign adversary that was attacking the United States? Was Trump not running interference for a foreign assault on an American election?
What did Trump have to say about this report’s conclusion that Trump and his campaign used Roger Stone to try to get inside information they could exploit on the Russia-WikiLeaks attack that targeted the 2016 election to help Trump?
Finally, with CJR’s larger mission in mind, all this leads to an overarching question: Why did Gerth, even after devoting 24,000 words to this subject, not fully evaluate the media coverage in 2016 of the Russian attack itself and Trump’s false denials? Did the media fail in its coverage of this historic assault that helped shape the outcome of a presidential election?
Will all those questions be answered at the virtual town hall, whenever it may occur? I doubt it. Like many, I was dumbfounded by CJR’s publication of Gerth’s unsound opus. Judging from his questions to me, Gerth seems defensive and focused on fending off a discussion of the larger points I raised. I suspect a tightly controlled event will not provide an opportunity for a full and open debate of the issues at hand. But I am willing to be surprised.
Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.