The Justice Department Is Now Actively Producing Fake News
They've put together an entire terrorism report designed to mislead the American people.
Fake news is not merely news you disagree with. It’s not mere stupidity. “The Earth is flat” is not “fake news,” it’s just a lie that ignorant people believe.
The cartoonishly villainous U.S. Department of Justice has produced a report that is the very definition of fake news. It is a masterpiece of the genre. A work of pure fiction made up of individually true elements. There is not one whit of intellectual honesty in the whole enterprise, but Fox, and your hill people family, will quote it as truth.
The Justice Department sullied itself so it could produce this statistic for mouth-breathers to parrot. They successfully got it into the lead of a Washington Post story:
Attention Buyer: Not All Legal AI Models Are Created Equal
A new Justice Department report issued Tuesday suggests that, since 9/11, 73 percent of terrorism convictions in the United States have involved individuals who were born in other countries.
In the very next sentence, the Post starts to deconstruct this misinformation:
An expert on terrorism data, however, said that what is most alarming about the document is its math.
The 73 percent figure is… FAKE.
Sponsored
Attention Buyer: Not All Legal AI Models Are Created Equal
How To Maximize Productivity With Westlaw Precision With CoCounsel
Mitigating M&A Cyber Risk: Pre- & Post-Acquisition Due Diligence
New Report - Are Small Firms Achieving Their Legal Tech Goals?
“It’s an awfully thin report for an absolutely important topic,” [Karen Greenberg, director of Fordham University’s Center on National Security] said. “There’s almost no rhyme or reason to the things they choose to include or not include — they don’t explain it.”
The report considers only those incidents motivated by international terrorist groups — so instances of domestic terrorism are not counted. Moreover, individuals captured overseas, extradited and brought to the United States to face trial are included in the same category as people who emigrated to the United States and were charged with terrorism offenses years later.
The dishonesty would be shocking if we weren’t already familiar with how Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions roll. They’re counting people who were only in the United States for their show trial in their statistic designed to malign U.S. immigrants. They’re NOT counting domestic terrorists in their statistic about WHERE TERRORISTS COME FROM.
This report is like Jeff Sessions offering to play you a symphony and then holding you down and farting in your ear for two hours.
And it’s not just Sessions’s fault. Yes, he’s the boss and I’m sure the president ordered him to smear immigrants (not that he needs to be told). But the people who prepared this report at the DOJ, whoever they are, lack integrity. I don’t care how powerless you feel in the face of “orders” from the Confederate Attorney General. Men and women of integrity DO NOT SIGN THEIR NAMES on work so grossly dishonest. If you can’t represent your client without lying to the court, then you can’t represent your client.
Jeff Sessions and the minions who support him are turning the Justice Department into a sh*thouse.
Sponsored
New Report - Are Small Firms Achieving Their Legal Tech Goals?
The Ethical use of Generative AI
Trump administration links terrorism and immigration, but an expert doubts the math [Washington Post]
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.
