The New Yorker hits the prostrated Cuomo, teaching us something about mainstream journalism.

by Lev Tsitrin

The Twitter is alight with high praise for Ronan Farrow’s expose, “Andrew Cuomo’s War Against a Federal Prosecutor.” The scoop? Seven years ago the about-to-quit New York Governor Andrew Cuomo feuded with the then-DA Preet Bharara over the latter’s corruption investigation, and called the White House to ask it to have Bharara tamed. Now, years later, the story is suddenly all the rage: not only was Cuomo kissing the ladies on the cheek without their permission, but he also tried to obstruct justice! What a monster!

This story is fascinating for a number of reasons. The more obvious one is, why now? None of this is new: back in 2014 the New York Times reported on Cuomo’s unhappiness with Bharara’s righteous mission. And why did Obama’s adviser Valerie Jarrett wait till now to tell us that way back when Cuomo called her asking to reign Bharara in? Why didn’t she talk to The New Yorker journalist back then? She did not want to undermine a fellow-democrat for the sake of mere justice, but provided it now when he needed an extra kick to fall down? Shouldn’t that be the story here? 

It should; but there is an even bigger, and unknown story too. Preet Bharara is no knight in shining armor fighting corruption. In fact, he is one of the corrupt. I know it for a fact because when I sued for fraud three judges from US Second circuit court of appeals — for federal judges feel free to replace parties’ argument in their decisions with the utterly bogus argument of judges’ own concoction so as to decide cases the way they want to, not the way they have to, it fell to Preet Bharara’s office to defend them. His chosen method of defense was strange for a determined fighter against public corruption: he defended judges by citing their self-given, in Pierson v. Ray, right to act from the bench — can you guess how? — yes, “maliciously and corruptly!”

So much for Mr. Bharara’s anti-corruption activity: it was highly selective. He ardently pursued cases that would advance his career, but stopped short when mere corruption was at stake. In fact, he clearly deemed corruption beneficial in judges.

Mr. Farrow’s “scoop” tells us something about the media, too. The very same New Yorker that kicks the now-prostrated soon-to-be ex-Governor Cuomo in the name of justice adamantly refuses to cover the fact that federal bench often engages in obstructing justice. So The New Yorker‘s championship of justice and due process is also extremely selective. It is one thing where Trump or the now-fallen Cuomo are alleged to obstruct justice. When it comes to federal judges, its a different matter entirely; The New Yorker looks the other way. I know it for a fact because I exchanged e-mails with them on the subject. When it comes to federal judges, The New Yorker shares the motto of the rest of the legacy media: “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” There are different kinds of corruption insofar as the media is concerned, some good, some bad; some are worthy of coverage, others, not. Cuomo’s corruption is, given that he is on the way out; Bharara’s corruption, not so much.

And finally, this manufactured outrage tells us something about the art of manipulating the public. As someone observed, “masses are asses;” their cheers and their jeers come and go by a sign from a herder, The New Yorker, in this instance. John Milton, in his Paradise Regained put it a bit more elegantly. When Satan — the master of the unredeemed world, tempts Christ by an offer of putting the world at his feet and making him a glorious ruler of mankind, this is how Christ replies:

For what is glory but the blaze of fame,
The people’s praise, if always praise unmixed?
And what the people but a herd confused,
A miscellaneous rabble, who extol
Things vulgar, and, well weighed, scarce worth the praise?
They praise and they admire they know not what,
And know not whom, but as one leads the other.

Nowadays, those “leaders” are the mainstream media of which The New Yorker is a typical representative; and the “people” are still a “herd confused,” that can’t figure on its own what to cheer at, and at what to jeer, and has to be told. Today, Cuomo is a villain, and Bharara is a hero. Yet, “They praise and they admire they know not what:” whatever you think of Cuomo, I assure you that Bharara is no less corrupt. Its just that the likes of The New Yorker refuse to say it.

Lev Tsitrin is the founder of the Coalition Against Judicial Fraud, www.cajfr.org