Glenn Greenwald

Journalist; Author; Columnist, @Folha; Founder: @TheInterceptBr; Co-Founder: @FreedomofPress, @theintercept; @idm_org; @abrigo_hope. Former Lawyer. Vegan.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

We're very excited to be returning to @Substack after 3 great years of doing our live nightly show, System Update, on @rumblevideo.

I'm particularly happy to be getting back to written reporting and long investigations. We'll have our first up today.

https://t.co/XPhI354NA4

[Joe Wrote @joewrote]

@AaronRegunberg People are missing the Times' admission that they read all her texts and messages from this time, and they found no corroboration. They even read her diary. Nothing. All they found was a text saying she wanted to campaign for Collins.

[Lindsay Ballant @lindsayballant]

This is one of the two reporters bylined on the Platner story, fwiw

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

@dkrishock @BigDaddyjv6g How am I doing that? Be specific. When did I ever advocate the #BelieveWomen standard?

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

@TXStrong11 I have long opposed the #BelieveWomen standard, whereby accusations are instantly decreed true as long as a woman makes them against a man. I believe in due process and evidence, and argued the same with Brett Kavanaugh and tons of other cases:

https://t.co/cywrB8FEa8

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

Five days after @Maddow excitedly put on Avenatti about Julie Swetnick's gang-rape accusations against Brett Kavanaugh -- as Maddow claimed NBC hadn't reported out the story -- the @MiamiHerald said NBC had serious doubts but kept those to themselves:

https://t.co/xrZ1MuLWMZ

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

Graham Platner's primary accuser, Lyndsey Fifield, is a pathological liar (see below) whose main cause is Israel.

Make of that what what you will. I know one's views of the #BelieveWomen framework radically shifts based on the politics of the accused, but it's clearly relevant:

[Mel @Villgecrazylady]

She made all her social media accounts private but here she is blatantly lying about why Rumeysa Ozturk was targeted by Rubio’s state department.

This is all I need to see to know she’s a lying hack with a very clear political motive.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

@AnneDAngelo5 You're asserting this happened because she claims it did.

Did you apply this same #BelieveWomen standard to Brett Kavanaugh's accusers?

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

It's kind of wild to find out that the Republican in the NYT story that says she had a toxic relationship with Graham Platner is Lyndsey Fifield. Having been in DC for too long, I know a decent number of people who know her quite well. For a long time she was the co-host of a podcast with her best friend Bethany Mandel, called Ladybrains, though she has also worked for multiple super PACs, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Heritage Foundation.

Some background, presented without judgment: In 2014, Fifield began work as digital director for American Action Network, a Republican Super PAC that oversees House races. The next year she became social media manager for the Heritage Foundation, where she stayed for the next seven years.

In 2022, she joined the Super PAC backing Nikki Haley for president, switching to the official campaign side the next year, and staying until the campaign flamed out. She now lists herself as a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, a prominent dark money group that is best known for helping usher Brett Kavanaugh on to the Supreme Court and giving Susan Collins the talking points she needed to make her decisive speech in his favor.

The NYT breezed past all this, saying she was "a Virginia conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns."

In an interview for a news outlet called Red Alert Politics that named her to a “30 under 30” list back in 2016, she said that she wanted to “emulate the late conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart’s approach to online activism.” Breitbart, known for pushing the boundaries when it came to political combat, is perhaps best remembered for having exposed Anthony Weiner’s penchant for sending nudes to young girls, and for his work elevating James O’Keefe.

That she worked for Independent Women's Forum recently is even wilder since IWF played a critical role in Kavanaugh's confirmation and in persuading Collins to support it.

Heather Higgins, chair of IWF, laid out the group’s role in a talk several years ago. “We wrote a memo. It was used by a lot of members of the Senate and the House, Fox News, and elsewhere. Most important, Susan Collins told me that without that memo, she would not see how to support him,” Higgins said. “And if you look at the speech she gave on the Senate floor, it’s entirely the playing out and architecture of how we said to structure the argument — what to say and how to say it, which is just so gratifying. We’re watching TV and we’re like, ‘That’s ours! That’s ours!’”

Meanwhile, the timeline Fifield gives of their relationship is confusing, because during at least some of that time she was actually dating a different person, her longterm boyfriend who became her fiancee before she called off the wedding in 2018. We all know this because she and Mandel did a podcast episode on it that went mega-viral in Republican circles back then. Apparently this is the kind of thing the NYT thinks is important now, so I guess it requires more reporting. I'll report back.

Here is Heather Higgins celebrating IWF's role in getting Susan Collins to confirm Kavanaugh:

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

@LisaGrande13 @BigDaddyjv6g I love consistent applications of principles. 😍

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

Platner's primary accuser, beyond constantly lying for Israel, also boasted of defending Brett Kavanaugh from similar accusations by giving Susan Collins the rationale to confirm him.

Unproven #MeToo accusations like this are so cynically weaponized:

https://t.co/hR8qLJ9LaZ

[Emma Vigeland @EmmaVigeland]

Here's the chair of the Independent Women’s Forum, the right-wing group where Lyndsey Fifield is a fellow, bragging about helping draft Susan Collins's remarks when she voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh.

Fifield is NYT's main source, and the only one alleging anything physical.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

@LisaGrande13 @BigDaddyjv6g Yes, but do you apply that same reasoning to the accusers of Brett Kavanaugh, who only emerged when he was nominated to the Supreme Court?

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

@Belle063189428 @RubinReport Right, it's not intended as an insult. It's just true. There are worse things than being dumb (he's a lot of those, too, but being dumb it just who he is).

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

@BigDaddyjv6g Agreed. But people have decided instead -- on an extremely selective and obviously politicized basis -- that the better standard is #BelieveWomen, meaning believe any accusation from a woman regarding sexual assault, bad boyfriend, etc.

But everyone can switch sides on a dime.

[Caroline Wren @CarolineWren]

“Hi, Jared Golden. It’s Chuck Schumer. Just wanted to let you know our plan to cancel the Maine Senate Primary and install you as our nominee is almost complete. Just hang tight for another couple weeks. Talk soon buddy.”

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

@catoletters Yes, that one.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

This DNC-loyal part of the left always does this: they find a hero and then immediately throw them away if they don't stay loyal to the Dem Party and left-liberal Democrats.

They did this to Cindy Sheehan in 2003: she denounced Bush for killing her son in Iraq and liberals swooned. Then she realized that Dems also support and wanted to keep financing the war, so they maligned her and tossed her to the curb because her use as a partisan tool was expired.

[Ken Klippenstein @kenklippenstein]

AOC says of Graham Platner: "I haven't waded into that primary."

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

@JamesDelmore1 When someone buys Paramount and CBS, TikTok and trying to buy Warner Brothers and all its properties (including CNN), I think it's important to understand what their loyalties and agendas are. Larry Ellison's is Israel, not the US.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

When Larry Ellison donated a record-breaking amount of money to the IDF (not to US soldiers, but to the IDF), he repeatedly talked about the "country we call our own" and the importance of the IDF "to defend our home."

By "our country," he is referring to Israel, not the US.

[Timber style @robinhoodjr24]

@ggreenwald Is Larry Ellison israeli or american?

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

@thececilcharles @glennbeck How do people use decade-old cliché emojis catered to 3rd graders in lieu of any argument and convince themselves that they've done something clever?