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Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump’s FBI director was the topic of an embarrassing story. Now, the FBI goes after the reporter.
What’s taking place? On Wednesday, MS NOW reported that the FBI launched a federal legal investigation “specializing in” Atlantic reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick over a narrative she wrote final month about FBI Director Kash Patel.
The story, which is sourced to greater than two dozen folks, describes Patel as paranoid, continuously drunk, and ill-equipped for the job of FBI director.
Notably, nonetheless, it facilities on Patel’s private conduct within the function, and doesn’t include any labeled info. As MS NOW factors out, that truth — in addition to the investigation’s reported deal with Fitzpatrick relatively than her sources — makes the investigation each irregular and disturbing. (The FBI, for what it’s value, has denied that any such investigation exists.)
On Wednesday, Fitzpatrick revealed a second story about Patel describing his behavior of distributing custom-made bottles of bourbon engraved along with his identify, and typically signed.
What’s the context? The reported investigation into Fitzpatrick is the most recent in a protracted string of assaults on press freedom below the second Trump administration, together with one other investigation — since dropped — right into a New York Instances reporter who reported on Patel and his girlfriend’s use of FBI sources.
The FBI additionally seized units belonging to Washington Put up reporter Hannah Natanson earlier this yr as a part of a leak investigation reportedly concentrating on one among her sources. Natanson’s reporting gained her a Pulitzer Prize earlier this week.
What else ought to I do know? This isn’t even the one main FBI information from Wednesday: This morning, brokers raided the workplace of Virginia state Sen. Louise Lucas, who spearheaded a Democratic redistricting effort in Virginia that has helped to stymie Trump’s makes an attempt to realize an edge forward of the midterm elections.
The case reportedly facilities on doable corruption allegations, however given Trump’s document of utilizing investigations and indictments to punish his political enemies, the timing is conspicuous, to say the least.
And with that, it’s time to log out…
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