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Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

Lee Fang on Pentagon Leaks, Twitter Files, and Mehdi vs. Matt

Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

Useful Idiots, LLC

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.64.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2023

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Click here for the full interview with Lee Fang: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/lee-fang-on-pentagon-leaks-twitter?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web *We recorded this episode before it was revealed that Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett had written Matt Taibbi a letter threatening him with prison time over his Twitter Files testimony. This makes our discussion with Lee even more crucial.* For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and chat live with Katie and Aaron in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Or find us on Locals at http://usefulidiots.locals.com Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Build Back Better in Ukraine https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/build-back-better-in-ukraine?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Lee Fang, an independent and highly accomplished investigative journalist, is needed this week more than ever. His in-depth research and reporting, increasingly foreign to “intellectually lazy” corporate pundits like Mehdi Hasan, is a superpower for independent journalism in the fight against a mainstream media which has become little more than a traffic cop for the US government. Lee explains the contents of the leaked national security documents (something people know very little about thanks to the NYT & co) and corporate media’s response, sharing the importance of one specific unearthed secret he found in the leak: Biden and national security officials, while publicly parading Ukraine’s advantage in the war, privately claim that Ukraine is losing rapidly to Russia. But instead of allowing Ukraine to negotiate peace, they continue the lie to “weaken” Russia and bleed Ukraine dry of any money they can suck out of it. And then we get to the Twitter Files. Lee, who had exclusive access to Twitter documents, explains what he unearthed about a sweeping Pentagon propaganda campaign. But the more the Twitter Files reveal about the government, the harder corporate media tries to bury them. After Mehdi Hasan’s embarrassing attack on Matt Taibbi (with enough name-calling and avoidance to make Trump proud), Rep. Stacey Plaskett sent a letter to Taibbi threatening him with jail time for committing perjury in his Congressional testimony. Lee’s response: “That is bullshit. What Matt Taibbi said in his testimony is 100 percent accurate.” He proves it point by point. One bright side, however, is that Mehdi, whose flashy punditry needs no actual research, clearly chose the wrong people to go after when he attacked real investigative journalists. Lee’s entire career is highlighted by his willingness to go in the weeds with mountains of documents and sift through years of archives. So he decided to comb through Mehdi’s entire career. And what he found: multiple instances of plagiarism. Watch the full interview with Lee Fang where we read Mehdi’s articles side-by-side with the originals he lifted and decide for yourself if Mehdi Hasan can be considered a journalist. Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Build Back Better in Ukraine. And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello and welcome to Useful Idiots. I'm one of your host Katie Halper.

0:09.0

And I'm another host, Aaron Nighttay. How's it going Katie?

0:11.5

I'm good you.

0:12.5

I'm great and as always everybody you can go to Useful Idiots.Subs.deck.com or Useful Idiots.Lucos.com to sign up for bonus content and support the show.

0:21.0

Yeah and you get a great feature, a weekly feature called Thursday Throwdown which is your midweek dose of media madness

0:27.0

where we react to cable news clips that we don't get to on Monday mornings and that's always a great time.

0:33.0

And then again you get extended interviews. So honestly what's not to love? Give yourself the gift of premium exclusive useful idiots content. You'd be a useless idiot not to.

0:45.0

Mm hmm.

0:46.0

Yeah.

0:47.0

Yeah. All right let's get to our four basic food groups. I have Democrats suck and check out this headline from the Washington Post.

0:55.0

Federal authorities charged four Americans with roles in a malign campaign pushing pro Kremlin propaganda in Florida and Missouri.

1:04.0

Expanding a case that charged a Russian operative with running illegal influence agents within the US.

1:10.0

So if you watch Useful Idiots you'll remember this case. We interviewed one of the figures who's now been charged by the by Justice Department. His name is O'Malley.

1:21.0

Asha Tella and he is the chairman of the African People Socialist Party. Back in the summertime they were rated by the FBI with stun grenades and lasers in both Missouri and Florida.

1:36.0

And the FBI basically accused them of being Russian agents and now this now is the formal indictment in that case. And if you read the indictment they basically are accused of not registering as foreign agents while pushing political positions that the that the Justice Department says are in line with the Kremlin.

1:58.0

And they detail the fact these people have interacted with some Russian nationals and even accepted a small amount of money from them like in the hundreds of dollars.

2:07.0

But yet this is somehow worthy of an indictment accusing them of being unregistered agents.

2:12.0

And so here's the reaction here is Caitlin Johnstone the writer. She says this.

2:18.0

Wait, so Biden's Justice Department just arrested four American leaders of the African People Socialist Party for engaging in political activity that allegedly serves Russia.

2:28.0

How the F is that legal. And she said how is that legal to bring this kind of case over people's political speech.

2:36.0

You know what's ridiculous especially is using the allegation or the fact that they receive money from an individual as if that proves some kind of conspiracy.

2:47.0

This is an organization that really is fueled by donations. I mean that's a large part of what they do is that they collect donations.

...

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