The allegations leveled at President-elect Donald Trump in a secret dossier that is now public are unconfirmed and pose a threat to the future of journalism, author and journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote in a new column.
Greenwald, a co-founding editor of The Intercept, wrote a lengthy story for the website that discusses the revelations first reported on by CNN, and later published in full by BuzzFeed.
Greenwald called the numerous media media reports about the dossier the Deep State's "tawdriest and most aggressive assault yet on Trump: vesting credibility in, and then causing the public disclosure of a completely unvetted and unverified document, compiled by a paid, anonymous operative, while he was working for both GOP and Democratic opponents of Trump, accusing Trump of a wide range of crimes, corrupt acts and salacious private conduct.
"The reaction to all of this illustrates that while the Trump presidency poses grave dangers, so, too, do those who are increasingly unhinged in their flailing, slapdash, and destructive attempts to undermine it."
Greenwald argued the CIA was actually in favor of Democrat Hillary Clinton winning the presidential election. Members of Clinton's party, he wrote, simply hopped on the agency's coattails as it revealed information about Trump and Russia.
The dossier in question alleges Trump has ties to Russia, and Russia has enough dirt on him to blackmail the president-elect. The claims, however, are all unsubstantiated and unproven. The document was allegedly written by a former British intelligence officer at the expense of Democrats, and before that, anti-Trump Republicans.
If the claims are found to be untrue, the fact media organizations have gone public with them means there could be long-term ramifications in the journalism world.
"There is a real danger here that this maneuver can harshly backfire, to the great benefit of Trump and to the great detriment of those who want to oppose him," wrote Greenwald, who helped expose classified U.S. government information stolen from the NSA by Edward Snowden.
"If any of the significant claims in this 'dossier' turn out to be provably false — such as [Trump lawyer Michael] Cohen's trip to Prague — many people will conclude, with Trump's encouragement, that large media outlets [CNN and BuzzFeed] and anti-Trump factions inside the government [CIA] are deploying 'Fake News' to destroy him. In the eyes of many people, that will forever discredit — render impotent — future journalistic exposés that are based on actual, corroborated wrongdoing."
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