I posted this article a few days ago with the warning that I could not vouch for the source. I have since checked out the website–WhoWhatWhy–and conclude that it is a highly reputable source for honest investigative journalism.
I think if you scan the website, see who writes for it, who edits it, who is on the board of directors, you will agree this is not fake news.
Here is the mission statement:
WhoWhatWhy embodies a form of investigative reporting that is rigorous, relentless and scientific — we call it forensic journalism.
Forensic journalism requires skepticism towards power and credentialed expertise; a determination to unearth the facts interested parties want to keep hidden; and an unflinching commitment to follow the trail wherever it leads. We are truth seeking-not quote seeking.
We take on controversial topics others will not touch and dig deep to uncover and name the institutions and persons shaping our world. Our organization is neither partisan nor ideological and only provides accounts based on extensive research and thorough sourcing.
In addition to producing rigorous investigative reporting, we seek to further the long-term survival and betterment of the news industry as a whole.
The story with which I began is about the possible connection between Trump and the Russian mafia. This story has enormous implications for our democracy and for future elections.
It begins:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation cannot tell us what we need to know about Donald Trump’s contacts with Russia. Why? Because doing so would jeopardize a long-running, ultra-sensitive operation targeting mobsters tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and to Trump.
But the Feds’ stonewalling risks something far more dangerous: Failing to resolve a crisis of trust in America’s president. WhoWhatWhy provides the details of a two-month investigation in this 6,500-word exposé.
The FBI apparently knew, directly or indirectly, based upon available facts, that prior to Election Day, Trump and his campaign had personal and business dealings with certain individuals and entities linked to criminal elements — including reputed Russian gangsters — connected to Putin.
The same facts suggest that the FBI knew or should have known enough prior to the election to justify informing the public about its ongoing investigation of potentially compromising relationships between Trump, Putin, and Russian mobsters — even if it meant losing or exposing a valued informant.
***
It will take an agency independent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to expose Donald Trump’s true relationship with Moscow and the role Russia may have played in getting him elected.
Director James Comey recently revealed in a congressional hearing for the first time that the FBI “is investigating … the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”
However, a two-month WhoWhatWhy investigation has revealed an important reason the Bureau may be facing undisclosed obstacles to revealing what it knows to the public or to lawmakers.
Our investigation also may explain why the FBI, which was very public about its probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails, never disclosed its investigation of the Trump campaign prior to the election, even though we now know that it commenced last July.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There is a lot of smoke. There is a huge effort from Trumpsters to discredit the media. With every new bit of news that appears to be credible I am also reminded that Trump can offer presidential pardons. Only an independent commission is likely to address this “hot mess” and that seems unlikely because most Republicans in Congress are more loyal to party than to country and they enjoy a majority position.
I sure hope you are wrong, Laura. This potus is really crazy. The GOP is a huge mess and rightfully so.
Yes they are (as are the establishment Democrats) until things start going South. As soon as any number of externalities be they economic or in our foreign engagements from trade wars to real ones starts rocking the boat.
The whole charade will go down fast. Of course as Chomsky said, a false flag or actual terrorist attack is always a possibility with fascists.
The nepotism and conflicts of interest in that administration are disgusting.
We should pass some enforceable ethics laws. This is “failing state” level corrupt.
The first one should be you can’t hire your entire family to run the government when you’re elected President.
There are nepotism laws which were passed in 1967-8 after Jack Kennedy had appointed Bobby Kennedy the AG.
Enforceable is the key….we also have a 25th Amendment, and the Emoluments Clause which both could deal with Trump…but who in Congress has the will to enforce the laws?
And since most laws refer back to the DoJ and Jeff Sessions, anything but the Russians affairs which Sessions recused himself from overseeing since he is one more Trumpster who lied to Congress, including Flynn, Pruit, Price, and others, makes it moot.
However all these who the world watched LIE TO CONGRESS should all be impeached….after all Bill Clinton was impeached for lying to Congress about sex and what is, is…not about colluding with the enemy, Putin, and endangering the US and the world in nuclear cataclysm. Repubs are great at cover ups, and Dems are great at what?
The most plausible explanation of FBI and Obama administration reluctance to go after was given the other night and we do not have to make super hero characters out of the Russians to do it.
Are there elements of collusion absolutely . Is part of this story plausible and factual yes .
But was that the motive of the FBI, Obama and the Justice department in not going after Trump.
The Truth is that no one expected Clinton to be as God awful as she was. Except for the progressives in the Democratic party who held their nose and voted for the far lesser of the two evils.Leaving Stein barely registering in Swing States. Progressives knowing that in a Nation that 80% of the workforce was getting killed. White working class factory workers my a$$, wage stagnation in-spite of increased family hours was rampant through the economy. Progressives warned all along that this was not going to be a cake walk .
http://www.epi.org/publication/stagnant-wages-in-2014/
That explanation; the establishment thought she was going to win , No need to go to Michigan ,Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and even Indiana or Long Island where house seats could have been picked up. . All once reliable Blue States until the Clinton’s came along.
No need to start a civil war by locking up the treasonous Orange haired a$$hole till long after he lost.
Google the famous photo of Gen Mike Flynn sitting next to Putin at the head table at a dinner honoring RT, the Russian propaganda media machine. In the foreground of the picture is another American at Putin’s table. No one ever asks why she was there. Who? Jill Stein. The Russian Green Party criticized her bitterly for failing to criticize Putin’s human rights record. She won 1 million votes in the election and served as a protest vote against Hillary.
Joel, I agree that the Clinton campaign took their base for granted, a stupid mistake. I wish she had come out swinging against the privatizers and malefactors of great wealth.
I feel sure Trump was shocked that he won, that his smear campaign worked. I don’t think we will see the special prosecutor who is supposed to “lock her up” for her heinous crimes.
If the revelations about Trump’s ties to the Russian mobcontinue to emerge, despite his distractions and efforts to change the subject, maybe we will get a special prosecutor after all. Not for her but for him.
No need to google it . I think I posted that photo here, months ago ,or a link to it . There are quite a few progressives that have seen the RT Network as one of the few places to be given air time . I doubt they see themselves as Russian agents from Ed Schultz to Thom Hartmann they have been locked out by the corporate media.
So Stein does not bother me . What was troubling is that a very recent (in 2015) former top US intelligence agent recently fired by the current Administration is sitting next to Putin in that picture . A man who was not at the time working on any campaign , so he was not there to discuss policy . And a man who a month or two later became the most high profile supporter of the Orange haired Baboon with the tiny hands .
Joel,
I have been invited on several occasions to appear on RT. I declined. I know what it is. Others make their own choices.
If I were running for president, I would not accept an invitation to sit at Putin’s table. Especially if I claimed to be a champion of human rights, which Putin has systematically curtailed in Russia.
Actually should have said fired by the Obama administration, as that Flynn has now been fired by both , one for cause and one for cover .
Organizations like “WhoWhatWhy” should quietly investigate at this point so that they can uncover information they are searching free from possible interference. We live in the age of “internet viral” everything. At times this is totally advantageous. But not always. Czechs who grew up under Communism have a healthy understanding of a form of activism that packs a lot of power because it goes under the radar. Many important conversations Czechs had often were held with among a trusted circle of people and at places like pubs. I for one hope there are many reputable “forensic journalists” doing their work quietly and may they carry a big stick when the iron is hot if they find action detrimental to our democracy.
Journalists have NO power to indict. Special prosecutors DO.
Certainly journalists can provide the material that leads to INDICTMENT as in Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein! I certainly look forward to the day when undeniable evidence is handed to special prosecutors. It cannot happen soon enough.
Read the WhoWhatWhy article & the parallel one in USA Today when you first posted about them. I found them both informative & well-researched. So far, it’s just circumstantial evidence, but there sure is a lot of it. It’ll be interesting to see where the FBI’s continuing investigation leads.
I got the feeling WhoWhatWhy was legit, & it’s good to hear that it is after you’ve checked it out.
Lenny,
If you go to the website of Whowhatwhy, you will see that it has an impressive staff and board of advisors. Experienced independent reputable journalists.
Yes, it is a really impressive group. My wife read Russ Baker’s book, Family of Secrets, & was very impressed by it. I let her know he also has this website. Thank you for making us all aware of it!
First of a 4 part editorial in today’s L.A. Times. They even pay lip service to public education:
Our Dishonest President
It was no secret during the campaign that Donald Trump was a narcissist and a demagogue who used fear and dishonesty to appeal to the worst in American voters. The Times called him unprepared and unsuited for the job he was seeking, and said his election would be a “catastrophe.”
Still, nothing prepared us for the magnitude of this train wreck. Like millions of other Americans, we clung to a slim hope that the new president would turn out to be all noise and bluster, or that the people around him in the White House would act as a check on his worst instincts, or that he would be sobered and transformed by the awesome responsibilities of office.
Instead, seventy-some days in — and with about 1,400 to go before his term is completed — it is increasingly clear that those hopes were misplaced.
In a matter of weeks, President Trump has taken dozens of real-life steps that, if they are not reversed, will rip families apart, foul rivers and pollute the air, intensify the calamitous effects of climate change and profoundly weaken the system of American public education for all.
His attempt to de-insure millions of people who had finally received healthcare coverage and, along the way, enact a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich has been put on hold for the moment. But he is proceeding with his efforts to defang the government’s regulatory agencies and bloat the Pentagon’s budget even as he supposedly retreats from the global stage.
“ It is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. ” Share this quote
These are immensely dangerous developments which threaten to weaken this country’s moral standing in the world, imperil the planet and reverse years of slow but steady gains by marginalized or impoverished Americans. But, chilling as they are, these radically wrongheaded policy choices are not, in fact, the most frightening aspect of the Trump presidency.
What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. His obsession with his own fame, wealth and success, his determination to vanquish enemies real and imagined, his craving for adulation — these traits were, of course, at the very heart of his scorched-earth outsider campaign; indeed, some of them helped get him elected. But in a real presidency in which he wields unimaginable power, they are nothing short of disastrous.
Although his policies are, for the most part, variations on classic Republican positions (many of which would have been undertaken by a President Ted Cruz or a President Marco Rubio), they become far more dangerous in the hands of this imprudent and erratic man. Many Republicans, for instance, support tighter border security and a tougher response to illegal immigration, but Trump’s cockamamie border wall, his impracticable campaign promise to deport all 11 million people living in the country illegally and his blithe disregard for the effect of such proposals on the U.S. relationship with Mexico turn a very bad policy into an appalling one.
In the days ahead, The Times editorial board will look more closely at the new president, with a special attention to three troubling traits:
1 Trump’s shocking lack of respect for those fundamental rules and institutions on which our government is based. Since Jan. 20, he has repeatedly disparaged and challenged those entities that have threatened his agenda, stoking public distrust of essential institutions in a way that undermines faith in American democracy. He has questioned the qualifications of judges and the integrity of their decisions, rather than acknowledging that even the president must submit to the rule of law. He has clashed with his own intelligence agencies, demeaned government workers and questioned the credibility of the electoral system and the Federal Reserve. He has lashed out at journalists, declaring them “enemies of the people,” rather than defending the importance of a critical, independent free press. His contempt for the rule of law and the norms of government are palpable.
2 His utter lack of regard for truth. Whether it is the easily disprovable boasts about the size of his inauguration crowd or his unsubstantiated assertion that Barack Obama bugged Trump Tower, the new president regularly muddies the waters of fact and fiction. It’s difficult to know whether he actually can’t distinguish the real from the unreal — or whether he intentionally conflates the two to befuddle voters, deflect criticism and undermine the very idea of objective truth. Whatever the explanation, he is encouraging Americans to reject facts, to disrespect science, documents, nonpartisanship and the mainstream media — and instead to simply take positions on the basis of ideology and preconceived notions. This is a recipe for a divided country in which differences grow deeper and rational compromise becomes impossible.
3 His scary willingness to repeat alt-right conspiracy theories, racist memes and crackpot, out-of-the-mainstream ideas. Again, it is not clear whether he believes them or merely uses them. But to cling to disproven “alternative” facts; to retweet racists; to make unverifiable or false statements about rigged elections and fraudulent voters; to buy into discredited conspiracy theories first floated on fringe websites and in supermarket tabloids — these are all of a piece with the Barack Obama birther claptrap that Trump was peddling years ago and which brought him to political prominence. It is deeply alarming that a president would lend the credibility of his office to ideas that have been rightly rejected by politicians from both major political parties.
Where will this end? Will Trump moderate his crazier campaign positions as time passes? Or will he provoke confrontation with Iran, North Korea or China, or disobey a judge’s order or order a soldier to violate the Constitution? Or, alternately, will the system itself — the Constitution, the courts, the permanent bureaucracy, the Congress, the Democrats, the marchers in the streets — protect us from him as he alienates more and more allies at home and abroad, steps on his own message and creates chaos at the expense of his ability to accomplish his goals? Already, Trump’s job approval rating has been hovering in the mid-30s, according to Gallup, a shockingly low level of support for a new president. And that was before his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, offered to cooperate last week with congressional investigators looking into the connection between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.
On Inauguration Day, we wrote on this page that it was not yet time to declare a state of “wholesale panic” or to call for blanket “non-cooperation” with the Trump administration. Despite plenty of dispiriting signals, that is still our view. The role of the rational opposition is to stand up for the rule of law, the electoral process, the peaceful transfer of power and the role of institutions; we should not underestimate the resiliency of a system in which laws are greater than individuals and voters are as powerful as presidents. This nation survived Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon. It survived slavery. It survived devastating wars. Most likely, it will survive again.
But if it is to do so, those who oppose the new president’s reckless and heartless agenda must make their voices heard. Protesters must raise their banners. Voters must turn out for elections. Members of Congress — including and especially Republicans — must find the political courage to stand up to Trump. Courts must safeguard the Constitution. State legislators must pass laws to protect their citizens and their policies from federal meddling. All of us who are in the business of holding leaders accountable must redouble our efforts to defend the truth from his cynical assaults.
The United States is not a perfect country, and it has a great distance to go before it fully achieves its goals of liberty and equality. But preserving what works and defending the rules and values on which democracy depends are a shared responsibility. Everybody has a role to play in this drama.
This is the first in a series.
When Trump started out in the NY City real estate business he had dealings with the Mafia. There its no reason why he would change his behavior.