A lot of people on the right are giving up hope today, because of this article in the Washington Examiner, claiming that President Trump’s legal team has disavowed Sidney Powell. Many on the left are rubbing their hands and chortling with glee.
Knock it off, everyone. This changes nothing. It’s just another bit of brilliant gaslighting from our friends in the Media.
Sources close to the president [said] neither the White House nor the Trump campaign have seen any of the evidence she claims to have…
Even national security officials within the Trump administration said they have seen no evidence…
I don’t know anyone who has seen the evidence,” one senior administration official [said]…
On Sunday, after the Washington Examiner reached out about Trump insiders complaining about Powell’s legal effort with the election, the Trump campaign released a statement saying she is not a member of their team.
Insiders! Sources! Officials! In other words, not official; moles. The White House janitor is “close to President Trump”. He or she could have made one of these statements.
Even if these people are legit, there’s no particular reason why they should be privy to evidence turned up in what amounts to a private investigation. One of them sniffed,
If she really had the evidence — and she’s saying, ‘Where’s the FBI? Where’s the Justice Department?’ — she should be the first one standing at their door…
No, Justice should be pounding on her door. Even without proof, these claims amount to probable cause to start an investigation. Justice has been properly invited to the party, they’re just not on the ball.
If Sidney Powell had lost Trump’s confidence, Trump would say so. He would make it official. Now here’s the killer graf:
“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own,” Giuliani and Ellis said. “She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity.”
You see what’s not there? “As of” “Due to” There’s no language in that paragraph to indicate that anything has changed. Yes, Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She always was. Her activities are private, her plaintiff is not the President, it’s the People. Here’s what Lin Wood, another guy who has publicly promised a Biblical Kraken in Georgia, had to say about it:
All interests are aligned.
Sundance, one of the hardest people on the internet to fool, yawns and says it’s all about the Benjamins.
This whole thing is a fiendish bit of manipulation on the part of Washington Examiner. They use unofficial sources to establish a narrative momentum, so the statement from Giuliani and Ellis will be read as a sign of disaffection or rupture. But nothing in the statement explicitly means that. It can just be a factual statement about who is doing what.
There’s one more reason to see this not as straight reporting but as an information op: the story broke everywhere all at once. Within minutes of the Old Blogosphere picking this story up, it was featured in more-or-less entirety on dozens of news outlets. Somewhere out there, people, is a Journolist.