During the 2016 presidential election, WikiLeaks interjected themselves into the election in a significant and meaningful way. While they may not have definitively aided President Donald Trump, they had a significant impact on Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The first time they significantly hurt Hillary Clinton was when they revealed the extent to which the Democratic National Convention aided Hillary Clinton in becoming the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. It illustrated the way in which the DNC seemingly conspired against Senator Bernie Sanders. The second time they intervened was in the final month of the election cycle when they released, on a daily basis, the emails of Hillary’s aid, John Podesta. This information was illegally obtained from John Podesta’s email server, but most, if not all the material itself was never marked as classified.
Today marked another blow to democracy itself when The New York Times revealed highly classified information that was discussed between President Trump and Sergei Lavrov at last week’s highly controversial meeting where President Trump revealed classified information (even though the President has full authority to declassify any document to anyone at any time). The Washington Post also detailed how the investigation into Russian Collusion now extends into the highest branch of government. From the very start of his presidency, Mr. Trump has not been given the opportunity to lead because individuals in the most vital parts of government have been conspiring to either hurt and gravely damage his ability to reform Washington D.C. or intend to oust him from office.
The point that must be understood is the hypocrisy in which the media and political elite are approaching this issue. The Democratic establishment refused to comment on the contents that were revealed in the WikiLeaks revelations; this was infamously demonstrated when Hillary Clinton refused to answer Fox News moderator, Chris Wallace’s, questions regarding this matter in the third presidential debate. Democratic operators refused to even address these questions and chose to focus solely on how the documents were stolen, and that largely ended the debate with liberal leaning media companies. These same men and women now praise those who detail classified information onto the front pages of the most powerful newspapers which have a far wider reaching audience than WikiLeaks ever had or will have.
The New York Times and The Washington Post now behave more like deep-state run newspapers than legitimately objective news sources. The information released today was most likely gathered at an earlier time but was released one hour after President Trump left on his first foreign trip in an attempt to blunt his ability to make himself looking anything but presidential. When these news organizations achieve their objective, they cheer pure joy for they feel closer to winning their war over this White House, as illustrated last week by the Washington Post. The moment Donald Trump became president was the moment that these two news outlets became the battlegrounds for a resistance movement that has the backing of one of the most powerful political parties in the world.
Elliot Palatnik is a financial researcher.
