Byron York | |
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| Born | December 5, 1955 Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. |
| Education | University of Alabama (BA) University of Chicago (MA) |
| Spouse | 1 |
| Relatives | Tom York (father) |
Byron York (born December 5, 1955) is an American conservative correspondent, pundit, columnist, and author. [1]
 | This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(April 2022) |
York holds a B.A. from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa and an M.A. from the University of Chicago.
| This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(April 2022) |
York joined The Washington Examiner as chief political correspondent in 2009. He was previously a White House correspondent for National Review . He is also a syndicated columnist. Before working for National Review, York was a news producer at CNN Headline News and an investigative reporter for The American Spectator .
He has also written for The Atlantic , The Hill , The Wall Street Journal , The Weekly Standard , and the New York Post . He has appeared on such programs as Meet the Press , The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer , The O'Reilly Factor , Meet the Press , Special Report , The Laura Ingraham Show , and Hardball with Chris Matthews , and has contributed occasional commentaries to National Public Radio. For a brief period in 2005 he was a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post . He has taken part in discussions with other media personalities at BloggingHeads.tv.
In 2001, York criticized President Bill Clinton's pardon of Susan McDougal, who had served three months in prison for Contempt of court related to her involvement in the Whitewater scandal. [2]
In 2005, York posited a plot by the Democratic Party to "take down" President George W. Bush in his book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.
In 2007, York called on President Bush to give a full pardon to Scooter Libby, who was sentenced to prison for obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements in the Plame affair. [3]
In 2010, York wrote an op-ed titled "Obama has himself to blame for Muslim problem", which argued that President Obama was to blame for the widespread misconception that he was Muslim. York wrote that Obama had written about his Muslim grandfather and noted that members of his extended family were Muslim. York said that the Obama campaign had "shouted down even a measured discussion of the topic", and "to the outside observer, Obama sometimes doesn’t appear to practice any faith at all. Put it all together, and is it any wonder the public is confused?" [4] [5] [6] [7]
According to the Toronto Star, York has "[led] the inquiries into the alleged deep-state conspiracy against Trump". [8] According to Slate, York has "[spread] conspiracy theories about the FBI." [9] York suggested that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election could be compromised because of an alleged friendship to former FBI Director James Comey, whom President Trump fired. [10] [11] York supported Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham's recommendation of criminal charges against Christopher Steele, one of the people who sought to expose Russian interference in the 2016 election. They alleged that Steele had lied to federal authorities. However, federal authorities have not filed charges against him for lying. [12] In July 2018, when Maria Butina, an accused Russian spy who had sought to involve herself in the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) and the Republican Party, was arrested, York downplayed the charges. [13]
In February 2019, York argued that the attempt by the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives to compel the release of President Trump's tax returns amounted to the "ultimate fishing expedition". [14]
In 2020, during the George Floyd protests against racism and police brutality, York criticized a statement by former President George W. Bush which said it was "time for America to examine our tragic failures." York said it was "remarkable" that Bush "almost completely ignored riots, violence." [15]
Shortly before the 2020 presidential election, York wrote a piece in the Washington Examiner analyzing a findings simulation that claimed Joe Biden wouldn't concede the election if he lost, and claiming that Biden would pressure Democratic governors to reject Trump's victory in their states and that House Democrats would refuse to acknowledge Trump's victory. He also asserted that Trump would concede if he lost. [16] However, in reality, the opposite occurred. Trump lost the election, refused to concede, and pressured Republican governors to reject the results, all while numerous Republican officials, including in the House of Representatives, refused to acknowledge Biden's victory and voted to reject the electors.
He is the son of Tom York, a longtime television personality from Birmingham, Alabama, and Helen Hamilton (born 1929). His nephew is Washington Examiner's Life and Arts editor, Park MacDougald. He is married, and plays the guitar and the mandolin. [17]
Valerie Elise Plame is an American writer, spy novelist, and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. As the subject of the 2003 Plame affair, also known as the CIA leak scandal, Plame's identity as a CIA officer was leaked to and subsequently published by Robert Novak of The Washington Post. She described this period and the media firestorm that ensued as "mortifying, and I think I was in shock for a couple years".
WND is an American far-right news website. It is known for promoting fake news and conspiracy theories, including the false claim that former President Barack Obama was born outside the United States.
Mark Reed Levin is an American broadcast news analyst, columnist, lawyer, political commentator, radio personality, and writer. Nicknamed The Great One, he is the host of syndicated radio show The Mark Levin Show, as well as Life, Liberty & Levin on Fox News. Levin worked in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese. He is the former president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, a New York Times best-selling author of seven books and contributes commentary to media outlets such as National Review Online. Since 2015, Levin has been editor-in-chief of the Conservative Review and is known for his incendiary commentary.
Victoria Ann Toensing is an American attorney, Republican Party operative and with her husband, Joseph diGenova, a partner in the Washington law firm diGenova & Toensing. Toensing and diGenova frequently appeared on Fox News and Fox Business channels, until diGenova used a November 2019 appearance to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros, leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network. In 2019, Toensing and diGenova began representing Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash in his efforts to block extradition to the United States under a federal indictment and became embroiled in the Trump–Ukraine scandal. The couple has worked with Rudy Giuliani in support of President Donald Trump beginning in 2018, and was named to join a legal team led by Giuliani to overturn the results of the 2020 United States presidential election in which Trump was defeated.
Donald John Trump is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
William Pelham Barr is an American attorney who served as the United States attorney general in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1991 to 1993 and again in the administration of President Donald Trump from 2019 to 2020.
Wayne Allyn Root is an American conservative television and radio host, author, activist, conservative political commentator and conspiracy theorist. He is the host of two new television shows, daily at 7 PM ET on Lindell TV network (FrankSpeech.com) and Saturdays at Noon ET "America's Top Ten Countdown with Wayne Allyn Root" on Real America's Voice TV Network. He is also the radio host of "Wayne Allyn Root: Raw & Unfiltered" on AM 670 in Las Vegas and nationally-syndicated on the USA Radio Network, and formerly on Newsmax TV. Root was an opinion columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His newspaper columns are currently nationally syndicated on Sundays by Creators Syndicate.
Irve Lewis "Scooter" Libby is an American lawyer and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney known for his high-profile indictment and clemency.
Spygate was a disproven conspiracy theory peddled by 45th U.S. president Donald Trump and his political base on many occasions throughout his presidential term. It primarily centered around the idea that a spy was planted by the Obama administration to conduct espionage on Trump's 2016 presidential campaign for political purposes. On May 17, 2018, Trump tweeted: "Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI 'SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT.'" In that tweet, he quoted Andrew C. McCarthy, who had just appeared on Fox & Friends repeating assertions from his own May 12 article for National Review.
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The 448-page Mueller report, made public in April 2019, examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
The Steele dossier, also known as the Trump–Russia dossier, is a controversial political opposition research report compiled by Christopher Steele that was published without permission as an unfinished 35-page compilation of "unverified, and potentially unverifiable" raw intelligence reports—"not established facts, but a starting point for further investigation". It was written from June to December 2016 and contains allegations of misconduct, conspiracy, and cooperation between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the government of Russia prior to and during the 2016 election campaign. Several key allegations made in June 2016 about the Russian government's efforts to get Trump elected were later described as "prescient" because they were corroborated six months later in the January 2017 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Mueller Report, namely that Vladimir Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton; that he personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's campaign and to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process"; that he ordered cyberattacks on both parties; and that many Trump campaign officials and associates had numerous secretive contacts with Russian officials and agents. While Steele's documents played a significant role in initially highlighting the general friendliness between Trump and the Putin administration, the veracity of specific allegations is highly variable. Some have been publicly confirmed, others are plausible but not specifically confirmed, and some are dubious in retrospect but not strictly disproven.
The Robert Mueller special counsel investigation was an investigation into 45th U.S. president Donald Trump regarding Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and was conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller from May 2017 to March 2019. It was also called the Russia investigation, the Mueller probe, and the Mueller investigation.
Joseph diGenova is an American lawyer and political commentator who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1983 to 1988. He and his wife, Victoria Toensing, are partners in the Washington, D.C., law firm diGenova and Toensing. He is known for promoting conspiracy theories about the Department of Justice and the FBI. He and Toensing frequently appeared on Fox News and Fox Business channels, until diGenova used a November 2019 appearance to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros, leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network.
Crossfire Hurricane was the code name for the counterintelligence investigation undertaken by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from July 31, 2016, to May 17, 2017, into links between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia and "whether individuals associated with [Trump's] presidential campaign were coordinating, wittingly or unwittingly, with the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election". Trump was not personally under investigation until May 2017, when his firing of FBI director James Comey raised suspicions of obstruction of justice, which triggered the Mueller investigation.
Since 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his allies have promoted several conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal. One such theory seeks to blame Ukraine, instead of Russia, for interference in the 2016 United States presidential election. Also among the conspiracy theories are accusations against Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and several elements of the right-wing Russia investigation origins counter-narrative. American intelligence believes that Russia engaged in a years long campaign to frame Ukraine for the 2016 election interference, that the Kremlin is the prime mover behind promotion of the fictitious alternative narratives, and that these are harmful to the United States. FBI director Christopher A. Wray stated to ABC News that "We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election" and that "as far as the [2020] election itself goes, we think Russia represents the most significant threat."
U.S. government investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, and the links between Russian intelligence and Trump associates, started with the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation, and continued with the "Mueller investigation" which was established after President Donald Trump fired the director of the FBI James Comey,. The Mueller investigation concluded that Russian interference was "sweeping and systematic" and "violated U.S. criminal law", and indicted Russian citizens and Russian organizations. The investigation "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign". The investigation resulted in charges against 34 individuals and 3 companies, 8 guilty pleas, and a conviction at trial. However it concluded that though the Trump campaign welcomed the Russian activities and expected to benefit from them, there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates, and that they were prevented from reaching a conclusion on whether Trump had obstructed justice by a Justice Department guideline prohibiting the federal indictment of a sitting president.
As part of a large, baseless conspiracy theory, Donald Trump posited that Barack Obama had spied on him, which Trump described as "the biggest political crime in American history, by far." The series of accusations have been nicknamed Obamagate. Obama had served as President of the United States from 2009 until 2017, when Trump succeeded him; Trump served as president until 2021.
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