December 15, 2018

Individual 1 Spent His Saturday Morning Ranting About the “Russia Hoax”

“Witch Hunt!”

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

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President Donald Trump is having quite the day on Twitter. After announcing the resignation of his embattled Interior secretary and blasting the “dishonest” media, the president took aim at the “Russia Hoax.”

Referring to a recent Department of Justice inspector general report into attempts to recover text messages sent by former FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok—both of whom worked on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation—Trump wrote, “Wow, 19,000 Texts between Lisa Page and her lover, Peter S of the FBI, in charge of the Russia Hoax, were just reported as being wiped clean and gone.” He added. “Such a big story that will never be covered by the Fake News. Witch Hunt!”

In 2017, it was revealed that Page and Strzok had exchanged text messages critical of Trump during the 2016 campaign. Republicans have used the case to slam the FBI for what they claim is a bureau-wide bias against Trump.

But there’s no evidence supporting Trump’s implication that the messages were deliberately “wiped clean” in order to cover up supposed wrongdoing. In reality, the messages appear to have been lost due to a widespread technical problem within the FBI, according to the inspector general report released Thursday. The report noted that while many of Page and Strzok’s texts were lost, thousands of others were recovered.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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