By Greg Miller, Robyn Dixon, and Isaac Stanley-Becker, Washington Post, 1/19/25

LONDON — Ruptures of undersea cables that have rattled European security officials in recent months were likely the result of maritime accidents rather than Russian sabotage, according to several U.S. and European intelligence officials.

The determination reflects an emerging consensus among U.S. and European security services, according to senior officials from three countries involved in ongoing investigations of a string of incidents in which critical seabed energy and communications lines have been severed.

The cases raised suspicion that Russia was targeting undersea infrastructure as part of a broader campaign of hybrid attacks across Europe, and prompted stepped-up security measures including an announcement last week that NATO would launch new patrol and surveillance operations in the Baltic Sea.

But so far, officials said, investigations involving the United States and a half-dozen European security services have turned up no indication that commercial ships suspected of dragging anchors across seabed systems did so intentionally or at the direction of Moscow….

Full article here (behind paywall).

By Kit Klarenberg, Substack, 1/22/25

On January 19th, TIME magazine published an astonishing article, amply confirming what dissident, anti-war academics, activists, journalists and researchers have argued for a decade. The US always intended to abandon Ukraine after setting up the country for proxy war with Russia, and never had any desire or intention to assist Kiev in defeating Moscow in the conflict, let alone achieving its maximalist aims of regaining Crimea and restoring the country’s 1991 borders. To have a major mainstream outlet finally corroborate this indubitable reality is a seismic development.

The TIME article’s brief first paragraph alone is rife with explosive revelations. It notes when the proxy war erupted in February 2022, then-President Joe Biden “set three objectives for the US response” – and “Ukraine’s victory was never among them.” Moreover, the phrase oft-repeated by White House apparatchiks, that Washington would support Kiev “for as long as it takes”, was never meant to be taken literally. Instead, it was just “intentionally vague” newspeak, with no implied timeframe or even desired outcome in mind.

Eric Green, a member of Biden’s National Security Council who oversaw Russia policy, states the US “deliberately…made no promise” to President Volodymyr Zelensky to “recover all of the land Russia had occupied” since the conflict’s inception, “and certainly not” Crimea or the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. He said the White House believed “doing so was beyond Ukraine’s ability, even with robust help from the West.” It was well-understood such efforts were “not going to be a success story ultimately” for Kiev, if tried.

According to TIME, the Biden administration’s three key objectives in Ukraine were all “achieved”. Nonetheless, “success” on these fronts “provides little satisfaction” to some of the former President’s “closest allies and advisers.” Green was quoted as saying Washington’s purported victory in Ukraine was “unfortunately the kind of success where you don’t feel great about it,” due to Kiev’s “suffering”, and “so much uncertainty about where it’s ultimately going to land.”

‘Direct Conflict’

One objective was “avoiding direct conflict between Russia and NATO.” Miraculously, despite the US and its allies consistently crossing Moscow’s clearly stated red lines on assistance to Kiev, providing Ukraine with weaponry and other support Biden himself explicitly and vehemently ruled out in March 2022, on the grounds it could cause World War III, and greenlighting hazardously escalatory strikes deep inside Russian territory, so far all-out hot war has failed to materialise. On this front perhaps, the former President can be said to have triumphed.

However, another “was for Ukraine to survive as a sovereign, democratic country free to pursue integration with the West.” This prospect dwindles daily, as the proxy war’s frontline teeters constantly on total collapse. Kiev is facing an eventual and seemingly inevitable rout of some magnitude, with the conflict likely settled solely on Russia’s terms, and Zelensky – or whoever replaces him – having no negotiating position to speak of. In December 2024, Empire house journal Foreign Policy even openly advocated cutting Kiev out of eventual peace talks.

Biden also “wanted the US and its allies to remain united.” It is this objective that most obviously failed, and quite spectacularly. As this journalist has repeatedly documented, British intelligence has consistently sought to escalate the proxy conflict into all-out war between the West and Russia, and encouraged Kiev in its maximalist aims, to the extent of covertly plotting grand operations for the purpose, and training Ukrainians to execute them. London’s overriding ambition, per leaked documents, is “to keep Ukraine fighting at all costs.”

The Western media has acknowledged Ukraine’s calamitous August 2024 invasion of Russia’s Kursk region was to all intents and purposes a British operation. London provided a vast welter of equipment to Kiev “central” to the effort, and “closely” advised their Ukrainian counterparts on strategy. The aim was to draw Russian forces away from Donbass and boost Kiev’s bargaining position, which has proven a staggering embarrassment on both fronts. But there was a wider, more insidious goal behind the incursion.

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Britain openly and eagerly advertised its fundamental role in the Kursk misadventure to bolster public support at home for continuing the proxy war, and “persuade key allies to do more to help.” In other words, to normalise open Western involvement, and create the “direct conflict” the Biden administration was so keen to avoid. London was also at the forefront of pressuring NATO member states to permit Ukraine to use foreign-supplied weaponry and materiel inside Russia, which could likewise produce their long-sought hot war against Moscow.

Several Western countries – including the US – have offered such authorisation. Yet, Russia has consistently responded to strikes deep inside its territory with heavy duty counterattacks, which Kiev has been unable to repel. Meanwhile, London’s invitation to its allies to become more overtly involved in the proxy war was evidently rebuffed. In November 2024 too, pro-government outlet Ukrainska Pravda published a startling investigation, documenting in forensic detail how the October 2023 – June 2024 Krynky operation was, à la Kursk, essentially British.

Never spoken of by Ukrainian officials today, the nine-month effort saw wave after wave of British-trained and equipped marines attempt to secure a beachhead in a river-adjacent village in Russian-controlled Kherson. Poorly prepared, many died attempting to reach Krynky, due to relentless artillery, drone, flamethrower and mortar fire. Of those that survived the nightmarish journey, most were then killed under a constant and ever-intensifying blitz, in marsh conditions. Russia’s onslaught grew so inexorable, evacuating casualties or providing forces with even basic supplies became borderline impossible.

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Survivors of the Krynky catastrophe – one of the absolute worst in military history – who spoke to Ukrainska Pravda revealed it was hoped the beachhead would be a “game-changer”, opening a second front in the conflict, allowing Kiev’s invading marines to march upon Crimea and all-out victory in the proxy war. They hoped to recreate the June 1944 Normandy landings – D-Day. It is all too easy to envisage British intelligence filling the heads of their Ukrainian trainees with such fantasies.

‘Settle Up’

Fast forward to today, and Britain and France are openly discussing sending “peacekeepers” to Ukraine, to “help underpin” whatever “post-war settlement” emerges between Kiev and Moscow. This is after in February 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested formally deploying his country’s forces to Ukraine to halt Moscow’s advance. The proposal was summarily dropped and forgotten when Russian officials made abundantly clear each and every French soldier dispatched to the frontline would be killed without hesitation, and Paris could become a formal belligerent in the war.

It appears the “peacekeeping” plan is likely to suffer the same fate. On January 20th, coincidentally or not the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, CIA-created Radio Free Europe published an explainer guide on why sending European troops to Ukraine is “a nonstarter”. Among other things, as the Russians are unambiguously winning, they are unlikely to offer many concessions, particularly allowing foreign soldiers to occupy Kiev’s territory. Furthermore, “as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Moscow can block any peacekeeping mission.”

As if the message to London and Paris wasn’t emphatic enough, two weeks earlier, at a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump made numerous comments reiterating his commitment to ending the proxy war. “We’re going to have to settle up with Russia,” he declared. Notably, the President sympathised with Moscow’s “written in stone” determination Kiev not be enrolled into NATO, warned the situation “could escalate to be much worse,” and stated his hope the conflict could be wrapped up within six months.

Markedly, Zelensky was not invited to Trump’s inauguration. In a January 6th interview with Newsweek, the Ukrainian President – typically never one to shy away from international jollies – said he was unable to attend, as it wasn’t “proper” to do so “during the war”. Amusingly, Trump’s son Donald Jr. has rubbished Zelensky’s narrative, claiming he – “a weirdo” – had specifically “asked for an invite” on three occasions, “and each time got turned down.”

For Berlin, Kiev, London, Paris, and NATO more widely, the writing couldn’t be on the wall any more plainly. Whatever reveries they may have of maintaining the proxy war any longer – Britain recently signed a 100-year-long partnership with Ukraine, under which London will “explore” building military bases on Kiev’s soil – they all ultimately remain imperial vassals, wholly dependent on US financial and military support to exist. Save for a major false flag incident, Trump’s message can only be received among the military alliance.

YouTube link here.

By Michael Vlahos, Landmarks Magazine, 1/10/25

Michael Vlahos is author of the book Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change. He taught strategy at Johns Hopkins University and the Naval War College and joins John Batchelor weekly on CBS Eye on the World. Follow him on @Michalis_Vlahos

They say “all wars must end.” Yet how does this actually happen? First, all parties must agree — to go down that path together. Next, they must enter into formal negotiation, which almost always means horse trading, compromise, and accommodation. Finally, and most important, all belligerents must want the war to end.

Russia almost certainly wants this. Its minimum territorial objectives are within reach. Moreover, the destruction of Ukrainian military potential — equipment, infrastructure, and stockpiles — is almost complete. Furthermore, the General Staff’s strategy of attrition is approaching its endpoint. The Ukrainian Army is breaking, and Ukrainian national society is literally on the eve of destruction.

Within the “collective West,” the new “Decider” and the majority of Americans also want this war to end. Yet powerful constituencies in EU and American politics are emotionally invested in keeping war going. Red Hawks and most of the Blue Establishment are committed to defanging Russia and demonstrating Alliance strength and cohesion. A settlement that reeks of defeat, they say, will only embolden predatory “autocracies” and further fissiparous “extreme right wing” populism in Europe.

The Trans-Atlantic War Party Establishment, therefore, is determined to deny the Decider a free hand. If Mr. Trump gives away too much to Mr. Putin, he will be derided as an “appeaser.” Red Hawks — including barons in his new administration — will pressure him to bargain from “a position of strength,” creating an instant fissure in his authority if he shows weakness, and an instant, exploitable opening for Blue. Their bitter establishment, still licking its electoral wounds, will leap at the opportunity to tar Trump as a Paper Tiger, abdicating America’s predestined world leadership while also abdicating the sovereignty of the American Century: They will declare, “Even his advisers say so.”

However, if the new president gives in, and “shows strength” by up-arming Ukraine, and offering only a suspension of hostilities, the war will likely go on. Putin has declared that Russia will not accept a truce, armistice, or ceasefire in lieu of a permanent settlement. A long-term compact can be achieved, he insists, only by accommodating Russia’s inviolable strategic needs. Absent this, negotiation will fail, and failure would surely lead to much buyer’s remorse and dismay among those millions who voted for Trump’s promise to bring the fighting to an end.

For “45/47” it would represent a personal failure as well. After all, he vowed to end the war with speed and éclat: Éclat in the sense of “acclamation” as well as “brilliant success.” This is no trivial matter for him: Success could only elevate and enhance his now-mythic persona. In contrast, failure would be a body blow to his stature.

Thus, failure now beckons from two directions. If Trump “appeases,” then Blue will launch him into the meme trajectory of “weak king, enemy comprador.” However, if his Peace Ship fails, and the war goes on, he will be fatefully captured by the War Party, and the conflict will become “Trump’s War.” He will then be well and truly stuck tight in their hand-crafted Tar Baby and its tender snare.

So how then can a new president thread a course between the Scylla and Charybdis of antagonists, foreign and domestic? Perhaps, like Odysseus, the best course might be to “choose the lesser of two evils.”

Here, the lesser evil is a settlement that both accommodates Russia and saves Ukraine. The greater evil is a continuation of the war, leading to the destruction of Ukraine and the breakup of NATO — and just possibly, another world war.

All this means taking on, and overthrowing, the grip of the War Party (Red and Blue) on this nation’s affairs. There is only one way, moreover, to do this: He must break the iron narrative of “Appeasement” — where the only strategic choice is between war and surrender. Thankfully, the hammer and chisel that will break it is at hand.

It means, simply, that the president must tell the whole truth, at long last, about this war.

The Ukraine proxy war against Russia was sold through the greatest Black-and-White story ever told: Of naked aggression unleashed by a maniacal dictator, the latest threat in a long lineage of Evil, from Kaiser to Hitler to Stalin to Mao, and now, the tyrant Putin.

The truth is that the United States, after 2009 (and especially 2014), relentlessly curated conflict between Russia and Ukraine, with the ultimate intent of expanding NATO and breaking Russia. This is the real story. Highly authoritative expert commentary on how it happened is easily accessed: For example, the lectures and videos of John Mearsheimer, and the almost biblical epic volume of Scott Horton, Provoked. There are many, many sources, both scholarly books and an Internet library of unimpeachable analysis.

Yet official “truth” — from the US and NATO governments — has never veered from the iron narrative that is the Manichaean testament of Putin perfidy, Russian savagery, and a “long, twilight struggle” of good vs. evil, of democracy vs. tyranny, of light against the darkness. Moreover, the “commanding heights” of “the collective West” — its entire ruling establishment — sold its credulous electorates this story, supplemented daily by full injections of Ukrainian propaganda. This “Information Op” was itself fully funded by the US and NATO, and orchestrated by a contractual alliance between intelligence agencies and hundreds of PR firms.

This united front presented by Government, Mainstream Media, Intelligence and the propaganda industry effectively marginalized the voice of actual reality. Those advocating for “foreign policy restraint” were labelled “isolationists.” Those who presented the actual backstory to the war were dismissed as Putinists or Orc lovers or Vatniks.

Over three long years of war, however, actual reality began to sink in. More and more Americans became disenchanted with the war and increasingly suspicious of the official story, and of a Biden administration that, on so many fronts, and with so many issues, had simply, brazenly, lied to the American people. Moreover, by the autumn of 2023, the Ukrainian war effort was visibly failing, a reality that propaganda could no longer conceal.

Today, Ukraine stands at the precipice of national existence.

Ukraine in 1994 was 52 million strong. Then the draining began. The best and the brightest sought opportunity in the EU and Russia. Ukraine was a nation of perhaps 33 million in 2022. Today, a quarter of that already-diminished country’s population has fled to the European Union, and another quarter is in the now Russian oblasts, or residing as new migrants in the Russian Federation. The nation itself has shrunk by half.

Yet this is only one edge of the cliff. Ukraine’s fertility has collapsed. Prewar, it was already one of the lowest in Europe. The years of war have pushed it down below 1.0, perhaps even to 0.7. In the war, Ukraine has sustained shockingly massive casualties. Combined with the sheer number of able-bodied men who are fleeing the country, both draft-dodgers and deserters, or those who were migrants loath to come home, Ukraine — sans settlement — is poised to keep shrinking. Within a generation it may wither to the size of Belgium, perhaps even that of Belarus.

Then there is the matter of casualties. Kiev and Washington — and the entire Media and Official Propaganda industrial complex — has been silent on the subject of battlefield losses until recent months, when the yawning catastrophe could no longer be denied. Yet all along there have been signs and signals and harrowing data points. Stitched together, this is the story they tell.

In the first 18 months of the war — simply counting military obituaries and dead SIM cards — comes to ~330,000 Ukrainian soldiers KIA. Moreover, more than 50,000 lost one or more limbs. Moreover, in the last 18 months, monthly losses intensified. Kiev itself has declared that the army needs 30,000 replacements a month just to maintain the current force. Does this mean that, from September 2023 to date, another ~540,000 soldiers were lost?

Here, it is necessary to be mindful of what Soviet historians call “irrecoverable” losses. Hence, a soldier who will never return to the fight is “irrecoverable.” Killed, crippled, missing: This is the true sum of an army’s losses in war. For Ukraine, arithmetic says that number is not less than ~920,000 men.

Yet not all of these are dead or crippled. Deserters also represent, in a very real sense, irrecoverable casualties, as these are the able-bodied who have fled the country, or who have gone to ground inside Ukraine. Eurostat reports that 650,000 men of fighting age have fled Ukraine. Furthermore, reeling under Russian hammer-blows across the Donbass Front, desertions are reportedly over 200,000 in 2024. Thus, Kiev has been forced to raise its monthly mobilization target from 30,000 to 40,000.

Ukrainian journalists cite a desertion rate of 160 per day in early 2024, rising to 200 by summer, and then jumping to 380 by autumn. This suggests that desertion, over the past year at least, has accounted for a thick slice of irrecoverable losses, perhaps 4500-5000 per month. The sudden surge in desertion after September 2024 has been driven by crushing exhaustion and defeat. This in turn has pushed the state to desperate measures. All “conscription” in Ukraine today takes the form of violent kidnapping, even of the sick, aged, and infirm. Yet in spite of the utmost brutality, that 40K per month target is now short about 20,000 each month.

Moreover, actual irrecoverable losses, across the board, are almost certainly understated. For example, many platoon and company commanders simply do not report desertions, for fear of punishment by their field grade superiors. Likewise, the number of missing KIA is massive, given the sheer number of Ukrainian corpses left on the battlefields. A recent composite of casualty estimates puts the KIA total at 780,000. Adding in the severely wounded, total irrecoverable Ukrainian battle losses could be as high as 1.2 million, after 1000 days of war.

To put all this in perspective: Today’s shrunken Ukraine is half the size of the French Republic in 1914. In World War I, France lost 3.6 percent of its population: A monstrous and unnecessary national bloodletting, and a stain on the very idea of “Civilization.”

America’s proxy war against Russia — goading and pitting Ukraine against a nation nearly 8 times its size — has led to yet another unnecessary bloodletting. Ukraine has lost 3.9 percent of its population. Hidden from us for years, in plain sight.

What hath America wrought? Biden’s narrative narcissism would have us believe the United States has been heroically defending democracy against tyranny and pure evil. How he boasted, loudly, that America was bleeding Russia white — all for the price of not one American soldier. What a bargain! However, in sharper focus, an American emperor and his court, in their lust to bring Russia to its knees, destroyed another nation (and this time, not a “primitive,” but rather a “European” nation) to no purpose but to fulfill its own vanity.

Unwittingly perhaps, the real effect of Biden’s fulmination was to fulfill the enemy’s existential need. Curating and handcrafting this naked American proxy war, ironically, gave Russia the signal opportunity to halt NATO expansion, and buy itself strategic breathing room. Biden’s assault served to mobilize and renew Russian national identity. Eager and blind, an addled Emperor thus became Russia’s strategic helpmate.

Now try out this counterpoint. Imagine an alternative reality where Mr. Putin actually agrees to a ceasefire in-place. This is the last fallback wet dream of the US/NATO War Party. An armistice — with NATO “peacekeepers” — would surely let the collective West rejuvenate and rearm Ukraine. A new army, drafted from the 18-25 age cohort, including even women, might then be harnessed by the War Party to have another go at Russia, and give us yet another vicarious national bleed.

In this fantasy, a nation of 20 million (or less) would be trumpeted as the return of Ulysses, i.e., the million fighting men who fled, and their families, would return to their homeland to “fight the good fight” yet again. In the next war, a righteous Ukraine, eager and steel-annealed to exact revenge, would unleash “Fire and Sword” on the Russian serpent: A summoning of NeoCon Nirvana.

Yet think: An armistice premeditating another war could lead only to the further, final hollowing-out of Ukraine. Any male person in that cursed country — given the terrors they know — will surely flee: “Get out now before it’s too late!” The irreversible downhill slope in fertility keeps singing, ominously, of an irreversible path toward national extinction. Ukrainians will never, ever embrace yet more blood after the sheer terror of 2022-2025.

The Ukraine Question must be permanently settled.

Only this argument can silence Red Hawks and the Blue War Party alike. All the peoples American Empire has ravaged and wrecked this century — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen — stand as mute witness to the dark descent of a once stainless and world-redemptive American Mission. The new president could make use of this American myth about itself to proclaim to the world that “The Fall” stops here.

Bringing peace to Ukraine is the very smallest mercy this nation might ever offer to those millions of innocents betrayed by America’s supremely venal, exiting emperor. Adding further to the argument that this all must end: Russia too has suffered in this war. Their KIA is about twice what America suffered in Vietnam, from a population slightly smaller than the US in 1960. Russia will seek no more wars, whatever ever-ardent keyboard War Hawks declare.

Surely, President Trump can end the madness of another “Forever War” — cold or hot — with Russia. This, without hesitation or reservation, is the greater evil we face.

Surely, a permanent settlement in Ukraine is the lesser of two evils.

By Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter, 1/18/25

YouTube link here.

Editor’s Note: The following is the fourth and final article in The Dissenter’s series on President Joe Biden’s legacy when it comes to press freedom, whistleblowing, and government secrecy. The series began in November, and you can find previous articles here.

President Joe Biden’s administration proclaimed numerous times that “journalism is not a crime” and that the United States government supports “free and independent media around the world.” Biden said the “free press is crumbling” in his farewell address. But the reality is that Biden and his administration helped make the state of the free press more fragile.

Over 200 journalists in Gaza were killed by Israeli military forces armed by the Biden administration. Other client states, like India and Saudi Arabia, trampled on the human rights of reporters without fearing much criticism. 

Through the political case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Biden became the first president to secure an Espionage Act conviction against a journalist. 

Biden, along with Democrats, had plenty of time to pass a federal shield law to protect U.S. journalists from government interference. Yet when asked if he supported greater protection for the news media, the White House would not endorse the legislation. 

And during the last week of Biden’s presidency, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller had guards drag a reporter out of a press briefing room. 

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) offered an assessment in their 2024 World Press Freedom Index that applies to the Biden administration:

A growing number of governments and political authorities are not fulfilling their role as guarantors of the best possible environment for journalism and for the public’s right to reliable, independent, and diverse news and information. RSF sees a worrying decline in support and respect for media autonomy and an increase in pressure from the state or other political actors.

On top of Biden officials’ failure to create the “best possible environment for journalism,” they also cynically invoked freedom of the press to further U.S. foreign policy objectives. For example, officials were outspoken when Russia attacked journalists but nonchalant and tight-lipped when Israel killed, detained, or censored journalists. 

Not All Journalists Are Really Journalists

The Biden administration claimed the authority to determine who is and is not a journalist in order to deny them protection from prosecutions. Officials also applied criminal charges or other forms of lawfare to suppress journalism that they opposed. 

In June 2024, the biggest press freedom case of the century ended as Assange was finally released from London’s Belmarsh high-security prison. He flew to the Northern Mariana Islands and pleaded guilty to engaging in journalism in violation of the Espionage Act.

“Exposing government secrets and revealing them in the public interest is the core function of national security journalism. Today, for the first time, that activity was described in a guilty plea as a criminal conspiracy,” declared Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

Assange was indicted during Trump’s first term. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Biden Justice Department had a chance to heed the concerns of civil liberties, human rights, and press freedom groups and drop the charges. But the Biden administration sided with Trump officials like Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr, and Mike Pompeo, who had vengefully pursued the WikiLeaks founder, and bristled at reporters when questioned about the case.

FBI agents raided the home newsroom of Timothy Burke in 2023, and the following year, the Biden Justice Department charged Burke as an economic cybercriminal.

Burke’s crime, according to prosecutors, was that he “scoured” the internet for “electronic items and information” that were “deemed desirable” for news reporting. In particular, he obtained access to an unsecured stream that contained an uncut version of an interview Tucker Carlson conducted with rapper Kanye West for Fox News. (His trial was scheduled for June 2025.) 

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In Espionage Act prosecutions involving leaks, the Biden Justice Department continued the practice of treating the use of privacy tools, such as Tor or Tails, as evidence of criminal activity.

There were a few positive actions by the Biden administration. In 2021, the Commerce Department blacklisted the NSO Group, a Israeli spyware developer that was hired by countries like Bahrain, India, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The governments targeted journalists, human rights activists, and powerful regime opponents. Visa restrictions against individuals who “misused” commercial spyware were also imposed by the State Department in 2024.

In 2023, a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) judge stood up to Starbucks and deemed it unlawful for the corporation to pursue “extensive” and “verbose” requests for records of communications between unionized workers and news media organizations.

Garland adopted changes to “news media guidelines” in October 2022 that were lauded by press freedom groups. As the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) described, for the first time, guidelines prohibited the Justice Department “from using subpoenas or other investigative tools against journalists who possess and publish classified information obtained in newsgathering, with only narrow exceptions.”

Refusing To Advocate For A Reporter’s Shield Law

The change to guidelines came in response to news reports that the Trump administration had secretly subpoenaed the communications records of reporters at CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post as part of retaliatory leak investigations aimed at identifying sources.

However, the Biden Justice Department continued Trump’s retaliation in 2021 until the subpoenas became public. Officials even imposed a gag order against Times executives, which Times deputy general counsel David McCraw called “unprecedented.”  

The Biden administration gave journalists the cold shoulder as a coalition of groups urged the administration multiple times to codify the change to news media guidelines and back the PRESS Act—a national reporter’s shield legislation. 

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In June 2021, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki incuriously said, “I’d have to look into the specifics of the piece of legislation.” The legislation received no public support from the White House, and in December 2022, anti-press Republican Senator Tom Cotton successfully blocked the law. 

The PRESS Act was reintroduced in 2023, and it passed in the House of Representatives in January 2024. The shield law languished in the Senate for months as Democrats did nothing to move the bill for a vote. In April 2024, when White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked if Biden supported the PRESS Act, she uttered a platitude: “[J]ournalism is not a crime. We’ve been very clear about that.” But the White House refused to back legislation that would offer protect reporters from criminalization.  

After Vice President Kamala Harris lost the presidential election to Trump, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats suddenly recognized the need to pass the PRESS Act. However, it was too late. Trump came out against the shield law, Cotton blocked the bill (again), and the Biden White House maintained its silence.

Tempering Support For Press Freedom When Client States Repress Journalists

During a debate among Democratic presidential candidates in November 2019, candidate Biden pledged to make the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia “pay the price” for murdering Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and make them “the pariah that they are.” Yet by 2023, as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) outlined in their “Global Impunity Index,” Biden had embraced the Saudi kingdom and “stymied” justice for Khashoggi. 

“The failure to pursue justice for Khashoggi, a U.S. permanent resident, signals to repressive regimes that even the most powerful Western democracies will temper their fervor for the protection of journalists if they perceive political and economic interests are at stake,” CPJ Director Robert Mahoney wrote.

“In November [2022], his administration went as far as to declare that the crown prince was shielded by sovereign immunity. That effectively killed a civil lawsuit filed in U.S. district court by Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, that sought to hold Mohammed bin Salman and two of his senior aides liable for the death.”

“Secure in the knowledge that Western governments would take no action against him,” Mahoney added, “Prince Mohammed set about rebranding himself as a tech-friendly millennial and political reformer.”

BBC India produced a documentary, “The Modi Question,” about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, which resulted in the death of over 1,000 people. In response, the Modi regime censored the film, and in February 2022, officials raided the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai. “Documents and phones of several journalists were taken and the offices sealed.”

After the raid, Agence France-Presse journalist Shaun Tandon asked State Department spokesperson Ned Price for comment. Rather than unequivocally condemn what happened, Price suggested that Tandon direct his question to Indian authorities. Price then spoke about the “importance of freedom of expression, which led Tandon to followup. “[D]o you think that this action went against that spirit or the banning of the documentary?”

“I couldn’t say. I couldn’t say. We’re aware that these – we are aware of the fact of the searches, but I’m just not in a position to offer a judgement,” Price stammered.

On the same day that Indian authorities engaged in this act against BBC India, Biden had a phone call with Modi. Biden and Modi discussed a “historic agreement for Air India to purchase over 200 American-made aircraft from Boeing.”

Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a correspondent for Al Jazeera, was killed by an Israeli sniper on May 11, 2022, when military forces opened fire on reporters who were covering a raid on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. 

Akleh’s family demanded that the Biden administration support their efforts for justice, however, officials resisted calls for an independent investigation. In fact, the Biden administration sided with Israel and contended that Akleh was not “intentionally” killed.

After Israel launched an intense bombing campaign against Gaza in October 2023, Biden officials continued to whitewash or ignore attacks on freedom of the press by the Israeli government. 

The Biden administration planned and authorized around $26 billion in arms shipments to Israel, which included weapons that were used to kill journalists. By January 18, 2024, at least 217 journalists had been killed, and many of them were specifically targeted by military forces.

According to the CPJ, in 2023, the Israeli government became one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists. That distinction continued in 2024 as the U.S.-backed government detained or imprisoned 43 journalists.  

Journalists in Gaza were detained under a law that allowed for long periods of detention without charge and “limited access to legal counsel.” Several detained journalists were held in confinement because they “had contacted or interviewed people Israel wanted information about.” They were kept in “inhuman conditions” that included “frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation; [and] deliberate starvation,” according to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

The jailing of Palestinian journalists was symptomatic of a censorship regime that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials enforced. Thousands of international correspondents were prohibited from entering Gaza, and Al Jazeera was shut down in Israel and the occupied West Bank. 

In October 2024, the Israeli government attempted to prosecute Grayzone reporter Jeremy Loffredo for “aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy.” All he had done is travel to the impact sites where Iranian missiles had landed and report on the damage that was done. He was eventually allowed to leave the country, but the Biden administration was extremely quiet as a U.S. journalist faced detention and potential prison time.

One year after the Israeli military launched its assault, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), Israeli forces had “destroyed all media institutions” in Gaza.” Airstrikes had “demolished 73 media facilities, including 21 local radio stations, 15 local and international news agencies, 15 TV stations, 6 local newspapers, 3 broadcasting towers, 8 printing presses, and 13 journalistic service institutions.”

“In the early days of the genocidal war on Gaza, the Israeli military targeted most of the high-rise buildings in Gaza that housed both local and international media offices. For example, the Al-Shawa and Al-Haseeri towers in Gaza City, which contained 15 floors of media offices, were completely destroyed by an Israeli airstrike on December 18, 2023, causing extensive damage to the surrounding area,” PJS additionally recalled. 

Student journalists in the U.S. faced violence from police and so-called counter-protesters as they attempted to cover a groundswell of protests against Biden’s support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. 

At Cal Poly Humboldt in California, a reporter named Adelmi Ruiz livestreamed the moment when police detained her for “interfering with a crime scene.” She told police that she was press, and it was her job to cover the police response to protesters. “Find a different job if this causes you to break the law,” an officer replied.

Such repression was representative of a rising crackdown in the U.S. against routine journalism, especially against reporters that attempted to cover protests or homeless encampments. Freedom of the Press Foundation U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documented in 2023 and 2024 how U.S. journalists were punished for “asking questions of public officials, publishing leaked information, and documenting breaking news in the field.” 

The U.S. Congress, with the support of Biden, also banned TikTok in April 2024. Subsequently, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law that banned the social media app.

As the Freedom of the Press Foundation warned, the law could be applied to “online news outlets based abroad, as long as they offer some kind of interactivity (for example, user comments).” The ACLU described the Supreme Court’s decision as a “disturbing precedent” and one that “increase[s] the risk that sweeping invocations of ‘national security’ will trump our constitutional rights.”

Despite staggering examples of the Biden administration’s role in making the U.S. and the world more unsafe for journalists, officials clung to their press freedom platitudes. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his farewell remarks to the press corps said he had a great appreciation for journalists who ask “tough questions” and hold officials like him to account. “Being on the receiving end, sometimes that’s not always the most comfortable thing; not always the most enjoyable thing. But it is the most necessary thing in our democracy.”

Yet as laudable as that may have sounded, Blinken had steered clear of the briefing room for a number of months. When he appeared, two credentialed reporters—Max Blumenthal and Sam Husseini—were tired of hearing speeches. They were fed up with spokespeople like Matthew Miller, who had smirked and berated reporters who confronted officials with important questions about Israel, which the State Department typically evaded or refused to answer.

Husseini claimed that Miller had “blackballed” him. He interrupted Blinken with two different questions before Miller had guards at the State Department drag Husseini out of the briefing room. Blumenthal was escorted out of the briefing room after he interrupted Blinken. 

“Days before the inauguration of an anti-press President, the Biden administration handed Trump a gift by normalizing punishing journalists for asking questions officials don’t like,” declared Freedom of the Press Foundation advocacy director Seth Stern.    

The moment was emblematic of Biden’s presidency when it came to press freedom. Biden officials supported journalists—except when it was politically inconvenient or they made officials look bad. 

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*Full series on Biden’s legacy can be found here.