Richard Grenell, Profile in Courage

Kay Nietfeld/DPA via ZUMA

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Our loyalist nominee to head up the intelligence community has begged off testifying before Congress:

Acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell has declined to appear before Congress on Tuesday to speak about foreign election threats….[Grenell] asked President Trump to be excused from the briefings because he anticipated pointed questions from Democrats about politically volatile subjects — such as intelligence assessments that Russia is once more interfering in U.S. politics.

But wait. There’s more:

The intelligence community’s top counterintelligence official, William Evanina, will appear instead….Grenell’s name had been included in a list of briefers given to Congress on Feb. 27 and again Monday, people familiar with the matter said….The latest list of briefers, provided to Congress on Tuesday morning, included Evanina in lieu of Grenell.

It’s not just that Grenell is afraid of Trump being pissed off if the truth happens to emerge during today’s testimony. He’s specifically afraid that Trump will be pissed off at whoever happens to deliver the truth. So he fobbed it off on someone else. A true profile in courage.

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Owned by no one—except you.

We just keep seeing it happen: Newsrooms owned by billionaires and corporations are spinning their own narratives, overwriting the truth, following only stories that keep them in the pocket of those with even more power.

Not here. We’re not owned by anyone. We’re not part of any cult that demands our allegiance to a bottom line. We’ve spoken up and spoken out while other newsrooms changed their stories—or cut them altogether—to keep the C suite happy.

Our mission is to find the truth and amplify it. That’s why we’re independent, nonprofit, and, crucially, funded by readers. The investigations on our website will always be free to read, watch, and listen to, but our newsroom is powered by readers who pitch in what they can so we can keep asking the hard questions.

Can you chip in today?

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