After
UN Eviction, Obama Team
Offered Gag Order After
Challenge in Foggy Bottom
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Part of Series,
Video
UNITED NATIONS,
February 23 –
After the UN evicted me for
covering its corruption, I
headed to Washington on the
train. It was March 2016. Once
I got to DC and Union Station,
I had two hours before I had
to give a speech of sorts. I
paid for a DC Bike Share pass
and pedaled over to the State
Department, parking the bike
behind the Federal Reserve. It
was time to ask Obama's State
Department about the UN's
censorship, I'd decided.
There is a metal
detector in a building on a
side street. I showed my UN
pass - the difference between
Green and White P not
important or noticed down here
-- and went through, into the
labyrinth of the State
Department. In their briefing
room the front rows were
empty. I sat in the third row,
and suddenly they filled up.
The wi-fi wasn't working.
“Good afternoon,”
State's deputy spokesperson
Mark Toner began, handed the
first question to AP, then
staying in the front two row
for at least a half an hour.
What kind of totem pole was
this? I raised my hand, and
used my phone to tweet it out.
When called on - I cut in - I
asked about Turkey and that
the UN corruption case,
including the Government
Accountability Project's letter
to USUN's Isobel Coleman, that
she should act on retaliation.
“I don't have anything
on that,” Mark Toner said,
while giving me quotes I could
use on my other question, the
Kurds. I left feeling it was
worth it. Later I found a list
of Congress member's staffer's
emails, ironically from a
small and surely sleazy firm
working for Burundi strongman
Pierre Nkurunziza's government
or regime. We'll use the
master's tools. I sent the
email out. It was dawn in
Washington.
I was slated to go to the
Federal Reserve in the
afternoon, but my time was my
own until then. There was a
briefing at the International
Monetary Fund, to which I
usually submitted questions
over their embargoed
live-stream. I bike-shared
over there, went in through
security and into their small
and hot briefing room. There
were only eight seats for
journalists - all taken today
and four along the wall. I
took up a spot, listened and
then raised my hand.
The topic was
Argentina's debt, the need for
a sovereign debt restructuring
mechanism, something discussed
up at the UN. But here it was
more detailed: what about the
vulture funds who bought the
debt? What would be the
message if they got a
windfall? “That's not for us
to say,” IMF deputy
spokesperson Bill Murray said.
I asked him about Zimbabwe
too. Then it was time to go.
There a spacious lunch
and coffee place across the
street, with outlets for
computers and Diet Mountain
Dew. Ban Ki-moon was giving a
live-streamed speech at Lehman
College in The Bronx, that
borough my old stomp or get
stomped ground. I tuned in and
found Ban babbling, how the UN
stands for everything good. I
emailed a guy I knew would be
there, a former Bronx State
Assemblyman who'd been ousted
for being too independent.
“I'll try to ask,” he wrote me
back. “But I doubt I'll get a
question.”
I wrote and uploaded my
IMF story then got back on a
bike, for the ride to the
State Department. I parked
behind the Federal Reserve and
tried to decide when it was
that I'd have to leave State,
whether or not I'd gotten my
question in. Play it by ear, I
told myself. I wanted to get
this question.
This time the State
Department briefer was John
Kirby. But just before he
started, the number three in
the office Elizabeth Trudeau
came over and whispered or
hissed in my ear, We just
emailed you an answer. So
don't just ask the question
again.
I nodded but didn't
agree. Sometimes asking
questions is all you can do. I
got an answer from Kirby about
Yemen, then re-posed my
questions about the UN bribery
scandal and my ouster -
retaliation against the press,
I called it. Vine
(!) video here.
I don't have anything
on that, Kirby said, suggest
you raise it up with the US Mission
in New York. The blowoff.
Already that mission was doing
nothing. Now they'd be
emPowered to do less.
It was time to head to
the Fed. I got there sweating,
and through security. Up in
the Board room on the second
floor I made a joke to Janet
Yellen -- “bike share
problems” -- and some people
laughed. I wanted to ask her
about FOIA, the Freedom of
Information Act. Governor Jay
Powell, who always denied my
appeals, was right next to
here. Maybe I'd throw Goldman
Sachs into the question, just
to rattle them. I did.
The
Congressional staffer who'd
helped fend off Voice of
America three years ago told
me he was still in his office,
he wanted to speak with me in
person because he might see
Gallach up in New York. I
pedaled over there, sweating
even in March, and went
through low-tech Security.
Up in his boss' suite
there were two TVs, on Fox and
CNN, and a bunch of staffer on
Apple desktops. C'mon, the
staffer (nameless here) said,
taking me to a conference room
looking out over Union
Station. It's like last time,
he said. They say the other
journalists don't like you.
It's not a popularity
contest, I told him. They
don't like a blog competing
with them.
So let's go over it, he
said. The indictments and
what's happened since. I told
him.
Right now it's all
about Trump, the staffer
continued. Otherwise I might
be able to get you a hearing.
But I'll go up to New York and
talk with Gallach. The US
Mission will be there too,
Isobel Coleman. They said they
have a proposal.
What is it? I asked
him.
They might change the
coding on your pass so that it
opens that turnstile you
complain about. He paused.
“But in exchange, you'd have
to agree not to tell anyone
what had been done.”
I thought about it, for
about one second. “That a gag
order, right?” I asked him.
It might be the
best I can do, the staffer
told me. And as it happened it
was.
***
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