BUZZFEED BOMBED! https://cdn-images-1.medium.co
Post# of 65629
JASON LEOPOLD aka FOIA "terrorist"
Jason Leopold, senior investigative reporter at Vice News in Los Angeles: “There are times I’ll file 10 requests per week, but I try to average 10 per month.”
Leopold has filed at least 700 FOIA requests while working at Vice News since 2014. In all, he estimates he has 2,000 requests awaiting responses, dating back eight years. He works with D.C.-based FOIA attorney Jeffrey Light to litigate denials or delays for requests with the potential of producing newsworthy information.
Leopold Told MSNBC That He Has Personally Seen Documents Pertaining to the Investigation & That He Is ‘Very Confident’ in the Accuracy of the Report; The Special Counsel’s Office Later Released a Statement Disputing the BuzzFeed Report.
Kevin Corke, @FoxNews “Don’t forget, Michael Cohen has already been convicted of perjury and fraud, and as recently as this week, the Wall Street Journal has suggested that he may have stolen tens of thousands of dollars….” Lying to reduce his jail time! Watch father-in-law!
Leopold Reported in 2006 That Karl Rove Was About to be Indicted, But Charges Were Never Filed
Jason Leopold faced scrutiny in 2006 for reporting a story about Karl Rove, Deputy Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush, that turned out to be inaccurate. The story was that Rove was facing charges in connection to the case of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent whose identity had been leaked to the media.
Leopold told Medium that an FBI source called him and relayed that Rove had been indicted. Leopold then called a second source who allegedly confirmed that an indictment had in fact been filed. Leopold’s article was published on Truthout.org. However, the story turned out to be false. Rove was never indicted.
‘Salon’ Removed an Article Leopold Wrote in 2002 Due to Questions About its Accuracy & For Plagiarism
Still happy with this 2014 profile of @JasonLeopold. I wrote it before he went to BuzzFeed and broke some of the most important stories about Trump-Russia. https://t.co/r17VcY53WT
— Jason Fagone (@jfagone) January 18, 2019
Jason Leopold used to write as a freelancer for the online magazine Salon. But in 2002, that relationship went sideways over a story Leopold wrote about Thomas E. White. White served as Secretary of the Navy under President George W. Bush. Prior to joining the Bush administration, White worked as Vice Chairman of Enron Energy Services.
Leopold claimed in the Salon piece that White had tried to hide losses at the company. Leopold reported that White had sent an email to a colleague that read, “Close a bigger deal. Hide the loss before the 1Q.” Salon admitted in a written apology that no editors had personally seen the email in question. Salon also stated that nearly 500 words of the article had been lifted from a piece in the Financial Times.
Medium reported that Leopold owned up to the plagiarism. The site quoted him as saying, “It was completely f*cked up” and that “there’s nothing I can say that will explain it.”
Leopold Was Fired From the Los Angeles Times Following a Tense Confrontation With a Colleague
Jason Leopold worked for the Los Angeles Times between December 1998 and April 2000 as a general assignment reporter. He was fired after a dramatic confrontation with a colleague.
Leopold was accused of threatening violence against a co-worker who reportedly asked Leopold to turn his music down.
Leopold discussed the incident in an interview with NPR in 2014. He explained that the woman who requested that he turn down his music was not physically in the newsroom; she told Leopold that she had received a message from another reporter who complained that the music was a distraction. Leopold told NPR what happened next:
Quote:
“I stood up and I said, who the [bleep] just sent Daneen (ph) a note saying my music is too loud? And this little kid stands up and said, it was me. And I said, you [bleep].
I’ll rip your [bleep] head off. He says to me, let’s go outside. We never made it outside. I was the president of the Society of Professional Journalists, the local Los Angeles chapter.
The next thing you know, I get a phone call from my editor. And he said, I got bad news for you. David, who raised the complaint, he went to human resources. I’ve got no choice, we have to fire you. I just lost it. I started crying. I was trying to rebuild my life and it all came crashing down.”
Leopold Has Previously Struggled With Addiction & Mental Health Issues
Jason Leopold talks about his book, News Junkie, which @RareBirdBooks re-released this fall. http://t.co/RmJrcuciV1 pic.twitter.com/7PMY3gVxKs
— J.C. Gabel (@jc_gabel) December 5, 2014
Jason Leopold has been open and honest about struggles he has faced in the past. He described suffering from a cocaine addiction in a memoir titled “Off the Record.” In the book, he also reportedly discussed a suicide attempt and a former conviction for grand larceny.
But the book was never published. According to a Washington Post article from 2005, the publisher decided to cancel the book after receiving a letter from an attorney representing a source referenced in the book. Leopold told the Post, “I’m devastated. I worked really hard these past two years to restore my credibility after the Salon fiasco… I have a checkered past, and I was hoping that by coming clean about my own past, it would allow me to move forward.”
Leopold did end up getting the story of his personal life out there. His book “News Junkie” was published in 2006.
https://heavy.com/news/2019/01/jason-leopold/