Obama Staffer Scrambles To Salvage Reputation After Trump-Russia Lies Exposed, Implies Zero Hedge A “Disinformation Clearinghouse”
Atlantic Council senior fellow, Congressional candidate, and Russia conspiracy theorist Evelyn Farkas is desperately trying to salvage her reputation after recently released transcripts from her closed-door 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee revealed she totally lied on national TV.
In March of 2017, Farkas confidently told MSNBC‘s Mika Brzezinski: “The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would not longer have access to that intelligence.”
Except, during testimony to the House, Farkas admitted she lied. When pressed by former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) on why she said ‘we’ – referring to the US government, Farkas said she “didn’t know anything.”
In short, she was either illegally discussing US intelligence matters with her “former colleagues,” or she made the whole thing up.
Now, Farkas is in damage control mode – writing in the Washington Post that her testimony demonstrated “that I had not leaked intelligence and that my early intuition about Trump-Kremlin cooperation was valid.’ She also claims that her comments to MSNBC were based on “media reports and statements by Obama administration officials and the intelligence community,” which had “began unearthing connections between Trump’s campaign and Russia.”
Farkas is now blaming a ‘disconcerting nexus between Russia and the reactionary right,’ for making her look bad (apparently Trey Gowdy is part of the “reactionary right” for asking her who she meant by “we”).
Attacks against me came first on Twitter and other social media platforms, from far-right sources. Forensics data I was shown suggested at least one entity had Russian ties. The attacks increased in quantity and ferocity until Fox News and Trump-allied Republicans — higher-profile, and more mainstream, sources — also criticized me.
Trump surrogates, including former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News hosts such as Tucker Carlson have essentially accused me of treason for being one of the “fraudulent originators” of the “Russia hoax.” -Evelyn Farkas
She then parrots the Democratic talking point that the attacks she’s received are part of Trump’s larger “Obamagate” allegations – “a narrative that distracts attention from his administration’s disastrous pandemic response and attempts to defect blame for Russian interference onto the Obama administration” (Obama told Putin to ‘cut it out‘ after all).
Meanwhile, Poor Evelyn’s campaign staff has become “emotionally exhausted” after her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts have been “overwhelmed with a stream of vile, vulgar and sometimes violent messages” in response to the plethora of conservative outlets which have called her out for Russia malarkey.
There is evidence that Russian actors are contributing to these attacks. The same day that right-wing pundits began pumping accusations, newly created Russian Twitter accounts picked them up. Within a day, Russian “disinformation clearinghouses” posted versions of the story. Many of the Twitter accounts boosting attacks have posted in unison, a sign of inauthentic social media behavior.
We assume Zero Hedge is included in said ‘disinformation clearinghouses‘ Farkas fails to expound on.
She closes by defiantly claiming “I wasn’t silenced in 2017, and I won’t be silenced now.”
No Evelyn, nobody is silencing you. You’re being called out for your role in the perhaps the largest, most divisive hoax in US history – which was based on faulty intelligence that includes crowdstrike admitting they had no proof of that Russia exfiltrated DNC emails, and Christopher Steele’s absurd dossier based on his ‘Russian sources.’