RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
Sept. 24to Sept. 30
Featured Investigations
Glenn Simpson didn't just become a master of the dark arts of opposition research - he did his research. Theco-founder of Fusion GPS, who recently testified before Senate investigators about the false and scurrilous "Russian dossier" he helpedcreatefor Donald Trump's enemies, was once an idealistic Wall Street Journal reporter who co-authored a book slamming the "sleaze" of his future profession. Simpson's 1996 book, "Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics," describes opposition research as a "gateway to acts that are not just offensive but duplicitous and sometimes illegal." His co-author was political scientist Larry Sabato, who has no connection to Fusion GPS. As Tim Cavanaugh reports forRealClearInvestigations, "Dirty Little Secrets" argued that the proliferation of mud-slinging had turned campaigns once fought over real issues into a "debate over irrelevancies" -- and led to blackmail and other crimes. These dark arts may not be noble, but they are lucrative. Cavanaugh continues: By the next decade, Glenn Simpson would leave journalism to become one of Washington's most notorious collectors and peddlers of the type of sleaze he once decried. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Simpson commissioned and shopped around the lurid Trump-Russia dossier now central to investigations of President Trump's ties to Russia. … In his previous profession, the meticulous Simpson would have sneered at the Russian dossier, which failed to stand up to even cursory scrutiny. It asserted that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen met with Kremlin officials in Prague last August. But Cohen produced credible evidence he'd never been to Prague in his life. The document's repeated misspelling of the name of the largest privately owned commercial bank in Russia hardly inspired confidence in the dossier's unsubstantiated claim that IgorSechin, the CEO of Russia's state oil company, offered illegal cash payoffs to Trump associates. Implausible too is the claim that Trump had been offered nearly 20 percent of a multi-billion-dollar Russian company. In promoting the dossier, Fusion GPS appears to have gone through the roster of reputable publications before settling onBuzzFeed, which published it in full in January. Nevertheless, the dossier has contributed to the collusion cloud that hangs over Trump, prompting the Justice Department's appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel aswell as Senate and House inquiries. The House Intelligence Committee this month subpoenaed the Federal Bureau of Investigation over documents related to the dossier. The FBI has been criticized by conservative media for its reported use of the dossier's claims and sources. Read Full Article Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Inside the Legal Labyrinth of a Campus Rape Case
RealClearInvestigations
The football player, the freshman and a fateful one-nighter: Ashe Schow unpacks a University of North Carolina frat-house hookup turned prolonged rape case, and finds a legal labyrinth of "he said, she said" vagaries and costly, overlapping inquiries of a sort that could well outlive the policies of the Obama era. A Campus-Rape Official Who Disses MenOnline
RealClearInvestigations
ANorthwestern University aide responsible for training staff on how to handle campus-rape complaints has an online side-project with dubious content: One post says, "I'm not sorry thatcishetalpha men are trash to me until proven innocent." Lawyers say such material could be evidence against the school in a Title IX lawsuit. Jeff Sessions Has Lawyer Friends Back Home in Trouble
RealClearInvestigations
Critics are calling on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from investigations involving Balch & Bingham, a white-shoe Alabama law firm he is closely allied with. Two of its attorneys have been indicted on charges of conspiracy and bribery, one of two cases under federal investigation with links to the firm. Networks Did Not Show Angry, Booing NFL Fans
Sporting News
The NFL's TV partners decided to airplayingsof the national anthem before games this week, given the red-hot news of President Trump's attacks against protesting players. But they left out a key element of the coverage: crowd shots of angry fans. One behind-the-scenes TV staffer told the Sporting News that camera operators were ordered to avoid panning the stands. Cameras were similarly crowd-shy at other stadiums. Russian Facebook Ads Backed Stein, Sanders, Trump
Politico
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was touted in at least one of the Russian-boughtpolitical ads on Facebook that federal government officials suspect were intended to influence the 2016 election. Other such ads criticized Hillary Clinton and promoted Donald Trump. Some backed Bernie Sanders and his platform even after his presidential campaign had ended. Congressional aides and special counsel Robert Mueller's team got a look at the ads this week. The Untold Story of the Assassins of North Korea
GQ
Two women killed Kim Jong-nam, heir to the North Korean dictatorship, by rubbing VX nerve agent on his lips while he waited for a flight in Kuala Lumpur. They both separately explained that they thought they'd merely slathered him with a harmless liquid for a hidden-camera TV show. A writer finds there is something to that story-and more. Investigative Classics: The Klansman'sSecret, 1965
New York Times
Daniel Burros had a secret. It wasn't that he was New York State leader of the Ku Klux Klan or that he had been active in the Neo-Nazi National Renaissance party. It was that he was Jewish, as the New York Times revealed to its readers on Oct. 31, 1965 -- which also became the last day of Burros's life. | 
