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Washington Post Caught Deleting Explosive Article on Mueller Witness

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Not long after it became clear Donald Trump would assume office as our 45th president, The Washington Post took on a new slogan: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

That’s pretty powerful stuff, if not terribly subtle. However, while the new slogan may have made some headlines, it’s not like the WaPo is exactly endeavoring to follow it.

Those who are following Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation were reminded of that again this week when the paper deleted an article that claimed one of Mueller’s witnesses was a pedophile.

According to the Daily Wire, a Washington Post report (see archived copy here) that Mueller witness George Nader had a “15-year-old pedophilia conviction in Europe that has not been previously reported” was removed from the Post’s website sometime in the past few weeks.

The story, titled “Nader, Mueller’s latest cooperator, a convicted pedophile,” was an Associated Press report filed on March 15 and written by Bradley Klapper and Karel Janicek.

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It describes how Nader, “an international fixer whose long history included intrepid back-channel mediation between Israel and Arab countries,” was cooperating with Mueller’s investigation after being intercepted at Washington Dulles Airport as he was traveling to Mar-a-Lago.

“There, special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators stopped Nader, people familiar with the case said,” the report read. “His electronics were seized and he was then allowed to go to his lawyer. Nader later agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation, said the people with knowledge of the case as it pertains to Nader. They weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the case and demanded anonymity.”

The Mueller investigation was interested in two meetings that Nader had: one in December 2016 with Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a White House strategist, and Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist and Trump White House adviser, and Mohammed bin Zayed, “crown prince of Abu Dhabi;” the second meeting was with bin Zayed, former Blackwater head Erik Prince, and a Russian banker close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

However, it was noted that Nader had disappeared from the radar for some years in the 2000s. There was a reason for that — pedophilia convictions in Prague.

Is there a sinister motive behind the WaPo's deletion of this story?

“On Wednesday, an official in the Czech Republic told The Associated Press that Nader is a convicted pedophile and served time in a Prague prison around that time,” the report read.

“Nader was convicted by Prague’s Municipal Court of 10 cases of sexually abusing minors and sentenced to a one-year prison term in May 2003, said Marketa Puci, the court spokeswoman. She said the crimes occurred between 1999 and 2002.”

The crimes he was convicted for were fairly disgusting, as well.

“Puci, the court spokeswoman, said Nader was convicted of ‘moral corruption of minors, sexual abuse and impairing morals,’ after abusing underage boys,” according to the report.

“In one case, Nader requested oral sex from a 14-year-old in a room at the Hilton Hotel in Prague, Puci said. After the boy refused, Nader masturbated in front of the boy and paid him 2,000 koruna — worth about $100 today, she said.”

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The report also noted “other examples of Nader providing money, jewelry, cellphones, clothes and accommodation for sexual services” and that “Nader was separately accused in Washington, D.C., of child pornography infractions in 1985, but those charges were later dropped.”

It wasn’t clear whether or not any of the officials he met with, including either Mueller or the Trump administration, were aware of the charges. (Archived copy of the report here.)

Less than a month later, however, this is what you will see upon visiting the page:

 

And the Post wasn’t the only outlet seemingly whitewashing Nader’s history.

The New York Times, in a rather lengthy piece on Nader last week, failed to mention the convictions at all, in spite of the fact that the AP stands by its story, having referenced it in future pieces on Nader.

So, what’s going on here? Without any direct evidence, one can offer a pretty obvious guess: Nader allows a bunch of media outfits to wave the Russian flag over the Mueller investigation yet again even though there’s a total lack of evidence that Nader’s meetings prove anything beyond the fact that an international fixer met with international officials, which is sort of what international fixers do by definition.

On the other hand, it doesn’t look terribly good when said fixer has convictions for pedophilia that seem to be previously unknown and cast doubt upon his character. So, wallpaper over that. If necessary, delete stuff. That’s my best guess, particularly given that it’s not as if the story was taking up much bandwidth on The Post’s website.

Either way, if democracy truly “dies in darkness,” The Washington Post has a lot of explaining to do about why the facts regarding Nader are being actively plunged into the inky depths that apparently consume republics by the very people purporting to report them.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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