SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
x com
'Let's See If I Get Banned Again!' Journalist Releases Team Trump Rubio Dossier
Trump's reported pick for secretary of state previously suggested the president-elect "could not be trusted with America's nuclear codes" and criticized him for "using language in seeming praise of Putin."
Nov 12, 2024
With U.S. President-elect Donald Trump reportedly set to pick Sen. Marco Rubio as his secretary of state, journalist Ken Klippenstein on Tuesday published a 551-page dossier that the campaign previously compiled on the Florida Republican.
Like the dossier on Vice President-elect JD Vance that Klippenstein released on KLIPNEWS in September, the Rubio file "was offered to major media outlets this summer," the independent journalist noted. "All refused to publish it, not over questions about its authenticity, but because the media thinks it is an arm of the national security state, complying with U.S. government's warnings that because the document came from Iran, the American people shouldn't see it."
"Let's see if I get banned again!" Klippenstein said Tuesday on X, the social media platform formerly called Twitter and now owned by billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk. Klippenstein was "permanently" suspended over the Vance dossier, but after The New York Timesreported last month that the Trump campaign coordinated with X to suppress the document, Musk had Klippenstein reinstated in the name of "free speech principles," according to correspondence obtained by the journalist.
The latest dossier, Klippenstein noted, "is authentic and there are no signs it was altered, something spokespersons for both the Trump campaign and Rubio did not deny when I contacted them for comment and provided them with copies of the dossier."
The journalist highlighted sections of the document detailing Rubio's past remarks about Trump related to Russian collusion in 2016, the 2020 election, Trump's control over nuclear weapons, the September 11 terrorist attacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin, NATO, North Korea's Kim Jong Un, free trade, China, immigration, Iran, the Iraq war, and the U.S. withdrawal from Syria.
For example, the dossier notes that "in 2016, Rubio contended that Trump was dangerous and could not be trusted with America's nuclear codes," and "in 2022, Rubio said it was 'unfortunate' Trump was using language in seeming praise of Putin."
In addition to detailing Rubio's critiques of Trump and "undermining of the 'America First' agenda," the document—last updated April 1, 2024—lays out some of his "questionable" policy positions as well as "ethics issues" and "controversial associations."
So far, Trump's other reported or confirmed foreign policy picks are: Congressman Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) for national security adviser, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for ambassador to the United Nations, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for ambassador to Israel, Steven C. Witkoff for special envoy to the Middle East, and Brian Hook to lead the U.S. State Department transition team.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Exposed: Elon Musk's Real Reasons for Going Full MAGA for Trump
"As eccentric and provocative as Elon Musk wants people to think he is, he's really just another corporate billionaire who wants to avoid accountability."
Oct 22, 2024
Tesla founder Elon Musk has spent his career cultivating the image of a provocateur who's driven by a passionate commitment to free speech and technological innovation—but a new report by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen makes the case that when it comes to Musk's political priorities, there's nothing unique or trailblazing about him.
Musk, said Public Citizen research director Rick Claypool, is galvanized by the same concerns that lead oil executives to pour money into the campaigns of pro-fossil fuel politicians like Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump: self-preservation.
Claypool published research cataloguing the numerous business-related incentives Musk has for supporting Trump, whose rallies the billionaire has spoken at recently and for whose campaign he has created a super political action committee.
At least three of Musk's businesses—electric car maker Tesla, space exploration company SpaceX, and social media platform X—face a total of at least 11 criminal and civil investigations over alleged fraud, labor violations, and other accusations.
"Enforcement priorities can shift significantly when administrations change," wrote Claypool. "Musk's self-serving desire to thwart the numerous civil and criminal investigations into his businesses seems a likely reason for the billionaire's increased involvement in electoral politics."
"Trump has promised to put Musk in charge of government efficiency. Since Musk's companies receive billions in government contracts every year—and often clash with government regulators—Musk would in effect be given the power to trim the very agencies that regulate him."
The report points to federal investigations into Tesla's claims about the "self-driving" capability of its vehicles, with the Department of Justice (DOJ) examining whether the claims constitute criminal fraud, and a case at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charging that Tesla retaliated against Black workers who reported being subjected to racist harassment at work.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is also investigating Musk's $44 billion takeover of X and the Federal Trade Commission has received reports that Musk gave orders to employees that would have breached an FTC consent decree which the company, formerly called Twitter, entered in 2011 as part of a settlement for alleged deceptive practices and privacy violations.
SpaceX has been accused by the Environmental Protection Agency of pollution that violated the Clean Water Act, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last month accused the company of safety violations in its rocket launches in Florida.
Musk, who is the richest person in the world with a net worth of nearly $250 billion, has attempted to fight federal investigations and cases against his companies by threatening a lawsuit against the FAA alleging "regulatory overreach" and challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board and a DOJ case.
Last October, as the DOJ was expanding its probe of Tesla and just after the EEOC sued the company over racial discrimination, Musk called for "comprehensive deregulation."
"As eccentric and provocative as Elon Musk wants people to think he is, he's really just another corporate billionaire who wants to avoid accountability," said Claypool. "Nobody—not government officials or massive corporations or billionaire executives—is above the law. But if self-serving campaigns to the contrary succeed, the injustice of America's two-tiered justice system will only deepen."
The Public Citizen report comes days after Musk urged his followers to sign his petition supporting "free speech and the right to bear arms," promising a random $1 million payment each day to one registered voter who signs—a scheme legal experts say amounts to illegal vote-buying for Trump.
At The Nation on Monday, Jeet Heer noted that Trump has pledged to put Musk in charge of a “government efficiency commission” that could help eliminate federal regulations and advised Democrats to fight Musk's attempts to influence voters by calling attention to what he really is: "an oligarch threatening democracy."
"Musk's eagerness to elect Trump is clearly rooted in a squalid quid pro quo," Heer wrote. "Trump has promised to put Musk in charge of government efficiency. Since Musk's companies receive billions in government contracts every year—and often clash with government regulators—Musk would in effect be given the power to trim the very agencies that regulate him."
"Musk," wrote Heer, "is the perfect face of the new American robber barons."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'This Is Political,' Journalist Who Published Vance Dossier Says of Permanent X Ban
"It's not about a violation of X's policies," wrote Ken Klippenstein. "What else would you call this but politically motivated?"
Sep 27, 2024
Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein said Friday that he was privately informed by the Elon Musk-owned social media platform X that his account has been permanently banned, a decision that Klippenstein argued was "politically motivated."
X, formerly Twitter, suspended Klippenstein on Thursday after he posted to the platform a link to his Substack article containing a download link for a 271-page dossier that Republican nominee Donald Trump's campaign prepared to vet Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who was ultimately chosen as the former president's running mate.
The dossier, Klippenstein noted, "reportedly comes from an alleged Iranian government hack of the Trump campaign," and major news outlets such as Politicodeclined opportunities to publish it. The U.S. Justice Department on Friday charged three men with allegedly carrying out a hack against the Trump campaign.
In a statement issued late Thursday afternoon as it faced backlash, X said that "Ken Klippenstein was temporarily suspended for violating our rules on posting unredacted private personal information, specifically Sen. Vance's physical addresses and the majority of his Social Security number."
On Friday, Klippenstein—who has previously worked for The Intercept and The Nation—shared a private message from X informing him that his account is "permanently in read-only mode, which means you can't post, Repost, or Like content" or "create new accounts."
"The two-step dance X is doing here—avoiding further backlash by pretending like my suspension is just a temporary thing, no big deal, while privately suspending me permanently—only makes sense when you consider the political dimensions," Klippenstein wrote on his Substack. "Elon Musk is an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump and JD Vance's political campaign. The Wall Street Journalreported that he promised $45 million a month for a pro-Trump Super PAC (Musk subsequently disputed this). So X clearly doesn't want to give the appearance that my ban was politically motivated. But a careful look at the pretext X cites for my suspension makes it obvious that this is political."
"The media is going to see the case of the Vance dossier and conclude that reporting on similar documents isn't worth losing their social media accounts over."
Observers have noted the obvious parallels between the social media platform's handling of the Vance dossier and a 2020 New York Post story on the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop. At the time, Twitter—not yet under Musk's ownership—placed restrictions on sharing of the Post story, limits that were reversed months later.
Klippenstein noted Friday that Musk—a self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist"—was "so incensed by Twitter's previous owners' decision to block the story on its platform that he took the extraordinary step of releasing Twitter's internal correspondence to independent journalist Matt Taibbi so he could report on how the decision came about. (I support his transparency, by the way.)"
"Now, anyone posting a link to my article finds their account locked, which is exactly how Twitter handled the Hunter Biden laptop story by the New York Post," Klippenstein wrote.
Journalist Lee Fang pointed out shortly after Klippenstein's ban that "the Hunter Biden laptop—which had newsworthy info that was fair game—also had personal dox info, far more than this Vance doc."
"The Biden laptop had bank/credit cards, personal addresses, nudity, etc," Fang added. "You can still link to those Biden docs on X, but Vance doc link banned?"
Klippenstein argued that "the biggest tell that this is political" is that X did not offer him a chance to restore his account by removing the post that resulted in his ban, as the platform typically does with users accused of violating its policies.
"As an experiment, last night my editor and I decided to redact all 'private' information from the Vance dossier in my story here at Substack," Klippenstein wrote Friday. "Despite filing an appeal in which I mention this, I remain banned. So it's not about a violation of X's policies. What else would you call this but politically motivated?"
"Boo hoo, poor me, I lost my account. That's not the point here," he continued. "If you were frustrated with the media's refusal to publish the Vance dossier, prepare for a future that's worse. The media is going to see the case of the Vance dossier and conclude that reporting on similar documents isn't worth losing their social media accounts over. Why take the risk when you can just blather on about the horse race? As always, it's the public that loses out the most."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular