#MeToo has been a brutal movement. Turbulence in the wake of Bill Cosby and Harvey 'Winesteen'. It's claimed many innocents. In Sweden, unscrupulous people have exploited that turbulence to destroy careers, destroy people. And it hasn't mattered that accusers later recant - the victims remain untouchable.
The same seems to have happened to whistleblower PR genius Trevor Fitzgibbon, whose Fitzgibbon Media represented and worked with Michael Ratner, Assange and Manning, the governments of Ecuador and Venezuela - nearly everyone who at one time or another made the deep state of the US look bad.
What to do? Attack and smear each and every whistleblower and whistleblower advocate, one after the other? Absolutely not. Takes too long. Attack and destroy the PR firm giving them their platform: Fitzgibbon Media.
Trevor Fitzgibbon and well-known whistleblower lawyer Jesselyn Radack had a brief affair. This happened years ago. Somehow they got connected and started planning an assignation at a 'Hotel Lombardy'.
The meet took place. Jesselyn seemed to love it. According to court records, she was over the moon. 'I've never been fucked so hard in my life!' exclaimed the mother of three in a direct message to Fitzgibbon.
Yet then, after the fact, Radack filed a police complaint against Fitzgibbon. The complaint didn't really go anywhere, as documents unequivocally showed that Radack was an instigator to the tryst and very positive to it afterward.
But that didn't matter. Mere hours after the case was dismissed, a wave of initially 72 organisations, rounded up by Clinton allies Gloria Allred and David Brock of Media Matters, came out with a joint statement denouncing Fitzgibbon, ultimately forcing the latter's organisation to shut down. Fitzgibbon, also a parent of three, acknowledged the affair, but always claimed it had been consensual, as the hard evidence indicated.
Jesselyn Radack has since been found in contempt of court for her at times unhinged campaign against Fitzgibbon, trying to play tricks with legal procedure, openly and knowingly violating court agreements, and prompting the judge to issue a statement so harsh that many jaws dropped: the judge called her every bad name in the book, ordered her to issue a retraction on Twitter, and ordered her to always in the future inform courts that she had been found in contempt of court in a very serious case - something which, if Radack was used to working as other than a litigator, should have in practice ended her career.
Yet where is word of all that? The documents exist on Pacer; a few minor sites have picked up the story. As Fitzgibbon works at his home, spending as much time as possible with his young children, trying to eek out an existence at the same time, Radack and her friends, most of which belong to the unofficial Hillary Clinton fan club ('who cares about that mail server') continue to defy the courts, and many mainstream publications have also been involved.
It should be easy to correct the record. The documents - the court documents themselves - are there for the taking. At the very least, Wikipedia should jump in. But no.
The Wikipedia page for Jesselyn Radack is guarded by what award-winning CBS news anchor Sharyl Attkisson calls 'agenda editors'. She's been around long enough to know how that works. She's held a TED talk on it. She came out with a book about it two years ago.
For there is one thing scarier than fake news: it's fake history. And what a surprise: it's the lovechild of Jimbo Wales at the centre of it: Wikipedia.
Now some notes, links, and court documents.
Note that 'archive' links are provided when possible, in case originals get 'disappeared', but the archives should contain the original links which can in some cases be more legible and provide more functional embedded media.
Sharyl's Prescient TED Talk from 2015
Sharyl is a 24-year CBS news anchor who won five Emmy awards for her work. So take her very seriously.
This talk is but ten minutes long but it's worth every second. Note that this clip has over one million views.
Civil Action 3:18-cv-00247-REP Document 97 / 26 April 2019
From 26 April this year. This is where Radack is found in contempt of court and taken to task by Judge Robert Payne. This is devastating reading, yet there's no mention of this - or any part of the affair, neither pro nor con - at Wikipedia, as if it simply didn't happen. Download: 20190529,00,00.pdf (Civil Action 3:18-cv-00247-REP Document 97 / 26 April 2019)
Neither contrition nor emotional distress nor illness nor financial difficulties can excuse deliberate misconduct of this sort by any litigant, much less by a lawyer. And, the record here shows that Radack is a sharp-tongued, mean-spirited, proliferous user of social media. Her conduct here is just more of the same. Neither contrition nor emotional distress nor illness nor financial distress have caused Radack to ameliorate her penchant for nasty social media communication. - Robert E Payne, Senior United States District Judge, Richmond, Virginia, 26 April 2019