As a longtime contributor to the Huffington Post I posted an article about Russia-gate to the site on November 4. Within 24 hours it was retracted. I have never heard from Huffington Post editors about this decision. As a reporter for mainstream media for more than two decades, including almost seven years at the Wall Street Journal, six years at the Boston Globe and ten years for the Sunday Times of London, I know that a newsroom rule is that before an article is retracted the writer is contacted to be allowed to defend her or his work. This never happened. There was no due process. An email I wrote to a HuffPost editor asking why it was retracted was ignored.  I can now only conclude that the decision was not for editorial, but for political reasons. 

Like the word fascism, censorship is over-used and mis-used, and I avoid using it. But I can come to no other conclusion than that this is an act of political censorship. I am non-partisan as I oppose both major parties. I am a reporter who follows the facts where they lead. And they lead to an understanding that the Jan. 6 intelligence “assessment” on alleged Russian interference in the election was based on opposition research, not serious intelligence work.

I captured a pdf of the censored article here: http://raymcgovern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CLEANOn-The-Origins-of-Russia-gate-_-HuffPost.pdf

I've received a lot of support since the censorship became known. Ron Paul interviewed me about it on his TV show, The Liberty Report.  Journalists Tariq Ali, Max Blumenthal, Margaret Kimberley, Sam Husseini and Pepe Escobar have shared it on social media. Pepe said I "killed" the story. Peter Lavelle, host of CrossTalk, asked me about it on the show. ZeroHedge wrote a widely-read piece about it, Mike Whitney referenced it on CounterPunch, and former CIA-analyst Ray McGovern kicked it all off by first exposing the censorship on his blog. Someone actually took the time, 27 minutes and 13 seconds to be exact, to read the entire article on YouTube.

Here is my interview with Ron Paul https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csuVcei02d4

And with Peter Lavelle (other guests are Tim Black and Steve Malzberg) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3T3RSC-gk&feature=youtu.be

Anyone of course is free to disagree with my interpretation and analysis of the facts, but not with the facts themselves. Disagreement with a point of view is not grounds for retraction. It is the very essence of censorship.

Lydia Polgreen, editor-in-chief of the HuffPost, can be reached at lydia@huffpost.com Ask her to either explain why the article was retracted or to restore it to the HuffPost. 

My email address is joelauria@gmail.com