CNN's Christiane Amanpour Possible Target of NSA Spying
John Aravosis (AMERICAblog) has discovered an intriguing aspect of the extra-legal NSA spying scandal.
According to the official NBC transcript (later redacted) of an interview between Andrea Mitchell and the New York Times' James Risen (who broke the NSA story) there occurred the following exchange:
Mitchell: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?
Risen: No, I don't. It's not clear to me. That's one of the questions we'll have to look into the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don't know the answer to that
Mitchell: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?
Risen: No, no I hadn't heard that.
Andrea Mitchell, one of the best-connected (if odious) journalists in Washington, clearly knows something that the rest of us don't.
After Aravosis made his first report about his discovery, NBC edited out the passage about Amanpour from their official transcript.
Many people were scratching their heads at this point, wondering if the first account (that included the bit about Amanpour) may have been in error.
NBC last night put this question to rest with the following statement:
Aravosis makes a cogent observation about the NBC statement:
This is quite big. Note exactly what NBC said.
- NBC did not say it pulled the references to Bush spying on Amanpour because it was inappropriate conjecture about something which Andrea Mitchell had no evidence.
- No, NBC said it pulled the references because it was still investigating the accusation and didn't want to scoop itself before it was finished investigating. And make no mistake, NBC is "continuing their inquiry."
- UPDATE: One more point. NBC did NOT delete the part of the interview preceding the Amanpour question - where Mitchell asks if any reporters are being spied on. They only deleted the follow-up question about whether Amanpour was being spied on. Thus, their premature release of info regarding an "ongoing inquiry" wasn't about reporters generally - or they'd have deleted that part of the interview as well - they only deleted the Amanpour follow-up, suggesting that it's the question of whether Bush spied on Amanpour that they have been, and are still, investigating.
That's incredibly big news. NBC has acknowledged that they have information to suggest that Bush may have spied (be spying) on CNN's Christiane Amanpour and that NBC is currently investigating that very possibility. This isn't just conjecture anymore, NBC has confirmed it.
There is various speculation about just why Ms. Amanpour would have made an inviting target for warrantless spying.
Many think it has to do either with her Middle-East connections, her criticism of the Bush administration, or with the fact that she is married to Jamie Rubin, former State Dept spokesman during Clinton, and who was one of Kerry's foreign policy advisors in 2004.
According to the official NBC transcript (later redacted) of an interview between Andrea Mitchell and the New York Times' James Risen (who broke the NSA story) there occurred the following exchange:
Mitchell: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?
Risen: No, I don't. It's not clear to me. That's one of the questions we'll have to look into the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don't know the answer to that
Mitchell: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?
Risen: No, no I hadn't heard that.
Andrea Mitchell, one of the best-connected (if odious) journalists in Washington, clearly knows something that the rest of us don't.
After Aravosis made his first report about his discovery, NBC edited out the passage about Amanpour from their official transcript.
Many people were scratching their heads at this point, wondering if the first account (that included the bit about Amanpour) may have been in error.
NBC last night put this question to rest with the following statement:
Unfortunately this transcript was released prematurely. It was a topic on which we had not completed our reporting, and it was not broadcast on 'NBC Nightly News' nor on any other NBC News program. We removed that section of the transcript so that we may further continue our inquiry.
Aravosis makes a cogent observation about the NBC statement:
This is quite big. Note exactly what NBC said.
- NBC did not say it pulled the references to Bush spying on Amanpour because it was inappropriate conjecture about something which Andrea Mitchell had no evidence.
- No, NBC said it pulled the references because it was still investigating the accusation and didn't want to scoop itself before it was finished investigating. And make no mistake, NBC is "continuing their inquiry."
- UPDATE: One more point. NBC did NOT delete the part of the interview preceding the Amanpour question - where Mitchell asks if any reporters are being spied on. They only deleted the follow-up question about whether Amanpour was being spied on. Thus, their premature release of info regarding an "ongoing inquiry" wasn't about reporters generally - or they'd have deleted that part of the interview as well - they only deleted the Amanpour follow-up, suggesting that it's the question of whether Bush spied on Amanpour that they have been, and are still, investigating.
That's incredibly big news. NBC has acknowledged that they have information to suggest that Bush may have spied (be spying) on CNN's Christiane Amanpour and that NBC is currently investigating that very possibility. This isn't just conjecture anymore, NBC has confirmed it.
There is various speculation about just why Ms. Amanpour would have made an inviting target for warrantless spying.
Many think it has to do either with her Middle-East connections, her criticism of the Bush administration, or with the fact that she is married to Jamie Rubin, former State Dept spokesman during Clinton, and who was one of Kerry's foreign policy advisors in 2004.
posted by Effwit at 11:00 AM
6 Comments:
Just read about all of this at Salon and at AMERICAblog. Very interesting indeed. And the potential implications are absolutely enormous!
I've often found Andrea Mitchell to be a bit overly-enchanted with the right, so I would be somewhat surprised to see her uncover something that could be so damaging to the Bush administration. I guess time will tell if anything more comes of this. I suspect some other news orgs will start digging into this to see if they can scoop NBC.
Stay tuned, as they say.
Andrea Mitchell is known to be especially close to the CIA.
I'm sure that being Mrs. Greenspan helps with getting access to the rest of government.
She is such a gossip that I can see this episode happening without her realizing how damaging it could be to her patrons.
You are right about the implications. Amanpour can sue the administration to get details of any spying on her.
Who knows what juicy tidbits could come out of that lawsuit.
...watched Chris Mathhews comment on the limited cascade effect of the Abramoff deal - shortly upon which I caught a Neat-O exposé by some blog about Chris' deep liasons with Abramoff, Hume,and the usual suspects via a shell charity.
Boy O Boy, if Chris is implicated and shilling in this avalanche then a lot of folks with suspicious hairlines are gonna burn soon - and finally. But will it change much?
Meatball One:
Chris Mathhews is one of the biggest wads in DC.
He allegedly has all this credibility from being Tip O'Neill's chief of staff, you know, the liberal's liberal.
Mathhews is not a liberal.
I'm not suprised to hear that he is associated with Abramoff. All money is green.
He is the most craven type of capitalist.
The type that thinks he will get away with it.
Well I was shocked with myself for letting his confiding tone on the issue run right through my ears without alarm bells ringing.
The confiding-sincere tone is near invariably a leading indicator of incoming BS. My zombified response must be the workings of early onset Alzheimers due to obsessive meatball consumption. But even so, it pains me to have missed a beat. The dude has always unnerved me - a kinda closet political switch hitter.
Meatball One:
As a avid reader of your work, I can assure you that your judgement is spot on.
Mathhews has fooled many over the years. It is his job, after all.
He has also developed the habit of interrupting any interview subject who veers into controversial territory.
You will discover this the first time you begin discussing meatballs on his program.
Post a Comment
<< Home