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In my earlier Times Argus commentary July 27, I criticized Publisher Steve Pappas for holding back on publishing many articles from the New York Post in October 2020, which exposed salacious and incriminating information found on Hunter Bidens laptop (clearly implicating President Joe Bidens deep corruption). This story was buried yet, for almost more than the five years prior to that, Publisher Pappas chose to publish numerous AP stories incriminating Donald Trump. These stories were all leaked sources from the DOJ, FBI (incidentally, which is a crime), and from people not authorized to speak to the press and those who demanded anonymity. But the press ran with those leaked stories and continued the narrative Donald Trump was a Russian agent. We got him this time. Where did those years of incriminating, false stories end up? We read little about that in the Times Argus. After all, the mainstream media did not want to admit they were wrong.

Why was that? In my opinion, the government was never able to convict Trump after all the years of Russia, Russia, Russia because there was not enough proof (worthy of impeachment and indictment) and the media could never admit to their loyal readers they got this story so wrong. After all, losing credibility from your readers could have serious consequences for their financial viability.

So where are we now with the raid on Mar-a-Lago? Agree with Donald Trump or have a visceral hatred, we are now in a very similar media frenzy with this event even before anyone really knows the facts. Sound familiar? It is apparent the Department of Justice and Merrick Garland (by extension) are feeding information to the media and by doing so, are creating provocations which all are going to have the effect of damaging an already wounded DOJ and trust in the FBI. Perhaps, more importantly, American opinion of equal justice under the law will continue to erode. If you dont believe this, read all persuasions.

This DOJ behavior is questionable and the legal basis for raiding a past presidents home remains to be determined. Lets wait and see. We currently have a sewer of leaks without regard to fairness and are only two weeks into this event. Our government currently feels emboldened they can control the narrative through leaks to the media. They have obviously leaked information to the Washington Post and New York Times, a reminder of how they approached the Russia hoax: same game plan, drip, drip, drip. Intelligent, aware American citizens (and Times Argus readers) should understand this with open minds and eyes wide open. Failure to do so make haters giddy but, remember, what goes around, comes around.

Interestingly, Dave Gram (worked in Vermont journalism for 35 years) excoriated me in his Aug. 2 commentary by saying I was wrong for criticizing Publisher Pappas and said Newspaper investigations often take years to develop into publishable stories.

How is it, Gram, that Publisher Pappas can print an AP story about the Mar-a-Lago raid less than two weeks after it happened and at the end of this -page story, which said after prosecutors interviewed another witness who told them that there were likely additional classified documents still stored at Mar-a-Lago, the person said. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Dave Spaulding lives in Montpelier.

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Spaulding: Censorship at the top? | Commentary | rutlandherald.com - Rutland Herald