If You Can't Trust A Senior Intel Official, Who CAN You Trust--Right?

Regular readers will recall that I attributed the swift US narrative about face on the Ukrainian missile that landed in Poland to a division of opinion on policy between the US military—which desperately wants to avoid escalating our war on Russia—and cowboy Neocons at NSC, State, and CIA, who are perfectly willing to push the envelope right up to the edge. Initially, almost immediately after the story broke, AP ran a story citing a “senior US intelligence official” who stated as fact that the missile had been fired by Russia. That was almost immediately contradicted by Zhou himself—at that time in attendance at the G20 in Bali. Zhou stated that US tracking of the missile showed that it couldn’t have been a Russian launch.

That tracking would have been done by the US military. Clearly the military saw the AP story and went into panic crisis management mode, reaching out to Zhou and convincing him that he had to immediately contradict the “senior US intelligence official” to avoid an escalation that could even lead to WW3—or something uncomfortably close to it. Moreover, this would occur in a situation in which the data to prove that the “senior US intel official’s” claims were a hoax were readily available—both to the US as well as to Russia. The hoax could be exposed to the world. At the same time, General Mark Milley tried to reach out to General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian ‘Stavka’—Gerasimov ignored Milley’s call, but the call was clearly an effort to convince Russian that the US was NOT trying to hoax its way into a radical escalation.

In the aftermath, the AP reporter who was contacted by the senior intel official was fired by AP—supposedly on the grounds that he had violated AP policy on backing stories with a single anonymous source. We now know that that is false. What’s going on is obviously this: The AP reporter is taking the fall to protect the intel official, who really must be senior to get this kind of protection. The idea that such an official could try to hoax the US into a major escalation of war with Russia deserves to be exposed. So far that has not happened.

Below is an excerpt from Fired AP Reporter Who 'Risked Triggering WWIII' Actually Did Nothing Wrong, which documents how this went down, demonstrating that editors above the reporter made the call. It also raises questions about the relationship between the AP and the Zhou regime Neocon zealots. We The People deserve to know the full story before these crazies spark a nuclear exchange:

Five days after the report, LaPorta was fired. But Slack messages obtained by Semafor reveal that he did nothing wrong - aside from working for AP in the first place.

The messages begin with LaPorta passing along a tip from a "senior American intelligence official" who was "vetted by Ron Nixon." Nixon is an Associated Press vice president.

Via Semafor

Next, editor Lisa Leff asked if the wire service could run with the narrative despite having a single source - which is against AP's rules for anonymous sources.

"that call is above my pay grade," LaPorta replied.

Another AP reporter, Vanessa Gera, suggests moving forward with the report, writing, "I can't imagine a US intelligence official would be wrong on this."

Leff then asks PaPorta if he is "in position to work up an urgent" - to which he replies, "No, I'm actually at a doctor's appointment. What I passed is all I know at the moment."

Then, Gera and Leff decide to run with it.

In short, LaPorta - a former USMC infantryman, was fired after forwarding a tip from a vetted source, and then demurring when asked if he thought they should run with it.

He has since been ordered not to comment on the situation, saying that he "would love to comment on the record, but I have been ordered by the AP to not comment." As such, Zero Hedge has not reached out for comment.