'Keep An Eye on What We Know (And Don't)'

(TPM) "In the past, generally speaking, you could use formal communications and background briefings from federal law enforcement, within important parameters, as a guide to the state of an investigation. It’s a given that they would be sure to make you think that whoever they thought was guilty was definitely guilty. They could also be relied on to speak in the institutional interest of their department or agency. But for a general understanding of what an investigation had uncovered, you could learn a lot from it, so long as these critical points of skepticism were borne in mind. Federal law enforcement, certainly off the record, could also often provide some constraint or filter on what the administration was saying. My point isn’t to romanticize the old system. But it was, from a journalistic perspective, often a key source of information."

"In the current environment I think it’s fair to say there’s really no reason to believe anything we’re hearing from federal law enforcement, either formally or on background to reporters."

"The top executive positions at the FBI are held by hyper-partisan podcasters. Credible reports say roughly a third of the senior career leadership has been purged. Certainly the people who remain are either politically aligned with the administration or know that any straying from the company line means immediate termination. So again, things they say could be true. There’s simply no reason to assume that or even believe it’s more likely to be true than not."

"In this post however I want to focus on how extremely little we actually know."

Continued at link:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/keep-an-eye-on-what-we-know-and-dont