Greenwald, Scahill step down from The Intercept

INTERNET — Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill announced they were leaving The Intercept, Saturday, citing conflicts of interest with Pierre Omidyar, founder and owner.

In an exclusive interview with the Internet Chronicle, Scahill said, “Firstly, I’m sorry to the folks at Pando. I ran my mouth off on twitter, but then I did my research and it was obvious that The Intercept’s founder, Pierre, was off fomenting world wars in Ukraine on behalf of the US government. I can’t report on anything and take money like that.”

Scahill heaved a sigh of relief and his eyes watered, “When I came to Glenn and told him why I had to step down, he laughed and told me, ‘Your bravery is inspiring,’ and then he said how guilty he was at backing Tor, a pseudo-activist internet cloaking device built and maintained by the US Navy.”

Greenwald apologized to Yasha Levine of Pando, who reported on Tor’s funding, saying, “I know I called you a conspiracy theorist, but I was just shooting from the hip. I’m sorry for that. I had backed Tor for too long. I now know that you’re basically right. Tor is a military-backed project working towards the military’s ends and I was a useful idiot that drew in countless thousands by promoting it. And Pierre Omidyar, he was always pushing me to put Tor into my stories even when it didn’t fit. The guilt will haunt me to my death, but at least if I speak out now I can minimize the damage to others, even though it damages me personally. It isn’t easy to admit you’ve been accidentally doing propaganda work for the US military, but it sure is a relief to get away from The Intercept.”

Greenwald’s eyes twinkled as he said, “Snowden’s dream can finally come true. We’re going to do it, finally. We’re going to publish the list of people who are in prison because of the NSA’s illegal parallel investigations, and they’re going to go free, god dammit!”

Both Greenwald and Scahill remain upbeat and have already joined the staff at Internet Chronicle, where they will take a massive pay cut and forego all bylines for a year in an act of voluntary penitence as they work on freeing the victims of illegal NSA wiretapping.