Opinion

Ex-CIA Officer: US Media ‘Fake News’ Claims Aim to Eliminate Free News Sources

The US corporate mainstream media, facing a barrage of criticism over Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the US election, wants to use the "fake news" argument to stamp out genuine independent freedom of expression in the United States, former CIA officer Phil Giraldi told Sputnik.

The mainstream media, which seeks to have a monopoly on providing fake news that favors its point of view, would like to eliminate alternative and independent sites, Giraldi said on Tuesday.

The US political and media establishments are now claiming to identify a multitude of allegedly "fake news" sites which they blame for the election defeat as well as loss of credibility among the public. Outgoing President Barack Obama discussed the issue while he was in Germany and Peru. He said that the fake news items harmed democracy and clearly signaled his desire to limit news reports. However, Giraldi, a former CIA case officer and US Army intelligence officer, dismissed these arguments as fake themselves. "The claim that fake news influenced the election is largely invented as there were fabricated news items going in both directions, but it will be used as a wedge issue to convince omnibus sites like Google and Facebook to expand censorship of their offerings," he explained.