In the Eyes of the Beholder

Aug 18, 2020 3 Replies

Articles about the FISA court surveillance warrants appeared in the the New York Times and in the Wall Street Journal, both concerning the Indictment handed down the day before by John Durham, Special Attorney to the Attorney General (William Barr).



It is interesting to compare and contrast the very different approaches taken in the two articles when discussing the exact same thing. The WSJ and the NYT are the largest circulation national daily newspapers in the US (excluding USA Today), and they together pretty much define the poles of media opinion. All documents are mercifully short.



Here are links to the two articles:



NYT: "Ex-F.B.I. Lawyer Expected to Plead Guilty in Review of Russia Inquiry", Adam Goldsmith, NYT, 14 August 2020.



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WSJ: "Former FBI Lawyer Expected to Plead Guilty to Altering Email on Trump Aide Surveillance", Byron Tau, WSV, 14 August 2020. (May be behind a paywall, but available in major libraries.)



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DoJ: And here is a link to the actual criminal indictment, which is only four double-spaced pages of text: (Defendant: Kevin Clinesmith, Case1:20-cr-00165-JEB, DC US District Court)



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Although not made clear in the two articles, with a guilty plea and subsequent felony conviction, Clinesmith will be disbarred, and his legal career will end.



Joe Gwinn


I hope you are right. In Washington State Gordon Walgren was disbarred for good reason, but after a couple of years was reinstated.

A search on Gordon Walgren kitsap county ought to pull up his obit.

Dan

It did. It seems that in Walgren's case, it was unclear that an actual crime had been committed, and the law is very precise about such things.

In Clinesmith's case, he will be convicted of intentionally misleading a federal court. I bet he will not get his law licence back.

Joe Gwinn

That would seem to indicate a contradiction. If the law were precise and the fact of a crime unclear, there should have been no conviction in the first place. Those two claims are contradictory in fact.

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