The War on Independent Journalism Has Just Begun

On the Trump Administration's subpoena of Breakthrough News and its newly-announced attack on "far left terrorism."

Since coming to power in their second term, the Trump Administration has launched a regime change war against Iran, kidnapped the president of Venezuela and his wife, aided Israel’s assaults on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, kidnapped and tried to deport people in the US for expressing the view that Palestinians are equal human beings, and now they’re saying ‘Let’s keep it going” by targeting and spying on domestic media outlets.

The independent online news outlet Breakthrough News just received the first subpoena.

The MAGA-led House Ways and Means Committee is demanding all of Breakthrough’s internal communications, financial records, and more in this McCarthyite crackdown, accusing them of being part of some foreign influence operation. It’s the classic playbook that the Democrats began in 2016 with Russiagate and that the Republicans have now escalated to target any dissenters of Israel.

Of course that’s the big irony: the phrase ‘Every accusation is a confession’ continues to hold true. The Trump Administration is so immersed with the Israeli government that Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale has a $45 million contract with Israel to launch an influence operation aimed at Americans. Trump himself regularly brags about how much money he gets from Israel megadonor Miriam Adelson. And while they’re throwing stones, let’s take a look at the members of the Ways and Means Committee.

According to Track AIPAC, Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri has take $105,099 from pro-Israel PACS. Ranking Member Richard Neal tops him with $139,849. Scrubbing through the list of committee members, we found only one member who had taken less than $50,000, with the committee in total raking in multiple millions of dollars from pro-Israel PACs. For fun, here’s some more honorable mentions on the committee:

Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA): $965,597

Max Miller (R-OH): $366,455

Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY): $278,736

David Kustoff (R-TN): $255,173

Rudy Yakym (R-IN): $231,960

David Schweikert (R-AZ): $206,443

Kevin Hern (R-OK): $161,565

Darin LaHood (R-IL): $146,867

Claudia Tenney (R-NY): $146,157

So while Breakthrough News, which is a nonprofit and earns money through the subscriber model (like Useful Idiots), gets accused of taking money from a foreign agent, the accusers bathe in showers of gifts and cash from their foreign bosses in Israel.

Last week, we discussed the subpoena with journalist and host at Breakthrough News Rania Khalek.

Useful Idiots: Rania, talk to us about what is happening on the domestic front to Breakthrough News?

Rania Khalek: There’s so many wars happening.

I want to put this in the context of what else has been happening: the Trump Administration has been escalating its war on the left in the U.S. We had that anti-communism summit that Marco Rubio held last week with ministers from sixty different countries where he and Stephen Miller laid out this really dystopian, irrational, fascistic notion that communism is the biggest threat to America and the world.

The word they were using was ‘far left terrorism,’ but they’re not actually defining what any of these things mean, just accusing the far left of being violent and wanting to destroy American civilization, saying it needs to be treated the way that Islamic jihadist terrorism has been treated.

They’re planning to “debank, defund, and destroy.”

Then you had this report that the State Department released, a hundred pages branding activists and journalists on the left as agents of the Cuban government, including entire sections on the Democratic Socialists of America, on Code Pink, on the People’s Forum, on the National Lawyers Guild. Apparently, all of these groups are foreign agents of the Cuban government trying to destroy America from within.

Useful Idiots: How does the government plan to actually go after these groups?

Rania Khalek: The design is that we haven’t done anything wrong but it doesn’t really matter.

It’s designed to tie us up: they know that our budget is microscopic compared to any billionaire-funded media corporation that basically dominates our airwaves. They don’t actually need to prove that we’ve done anything wrong, they don’t really even need to win. They can’t win because we haven’t done anything, but they just need to bury us in legal proceedings and hostile press from Fox News until our resources drain away and the reporting stops. That’s what these kinds of attacks are all about.

The process of it is the punishment.

This is also a warning shot to every other independent media outlet that dares to cover the things that we cover. Things that powerful people would rather have buried. For those who are watching, maybe you don’t care about Breakthrough News. It’s small. Who gives a shit? Well, this could be you next. The stakes are really high. It’s an attack on all independent media and really the very principle of a free press.

And it likely doesn’t stop with left independent journalist. The people running this operation don’t see much difference between Useful Idiots and Kamala Harris or the New York Times. Of course you, our readers, do, but to them we’re all “left-wing radicals.” So while liberal media will ignore today’s attack on Breakthrough News, they should know that this comes for them next.

We’ll be monitoring Breakthrough News’ case as well as the Trump Administration’s next moves, and we’ll continue our reporting here at Useful Idiots until they come and stop us. For Rania’s full analysis of Trump’s war on the left, plus an update on Israel’s assault on Lebanon where she’s currently based, listen to our full chat here.

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