US intelligence officials showed President-elect Donald Trump unverified classified information from a British intelligence source that the Russians claimed to have damaging personal information about him, it was reported Tuesday.
CNN reported the information was also given to President Obama.
The information is salacious and includes no evidence at all. The memos Buzzfeed posted have been floating around for months and are alleged to deal with efforts to influence the election. Others are about Trump’s personal behavior.
Though they have been available for months, no major newspaper would print them. Buzzfeed tells us the documents were “prepared for political opponents of Trump by a person who is understood to be a former intelligence agent.” That should set off the BS detector.
“Intelligence sources” are commonly used in fake news, John Podhoretz wrote in the NY Post Tuesday. “‘In my experience, there is no source of whom you need to be more skeptical, and whose information you need to verify to the letter before you can even begin to think of publishing it, than an ‘intelligence’ source.'”
Podheretz is no Trump fan but he points out one obvious fake aspect is that “every factoid is given equal weight”.
The report, in the least, has been doctored.
-
The Importance of Prayer: How a Christian Gold Company Stands Out by Defending Americans’ Retirement
Fake Unverified News
A copy of the documents originally posted by BuzzFeed revealed the very real possibility that it’s fake news in a number of ways. Also, it’s unverified. They should have checked it because it looks like it could have been planted.
The documents said that the Russians had been feeding Trump information about Hillary Clinton for “years.” However, Trump only announced his candidacy for president in mid-2015.
During Trump’s classified briefing Friday with the heads of four US intelligence agencies – Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers — the documents allegedly came up.
CNN says they reviewed a 35-page compilation of the memos, from which the two-page synopsis was drawn. The network also admits that “the memos originated as opposition research, first commissioned by anti-Trump Republicans, and later by Democrats”, or said otherwise, a hit piece.
Furthermore, CNN adds that it is “not reporting on details of the memos, as it has not independently corroborated the specific allegations. But, in preparing this story, CNN has spoken to multiple high ranking intelligence, administration, congressional and law enforcement officials, as well as foreign officials and others in the private sector with direct knowledge of the memos.”
How Did CNN Get Classified Information?
How did CNN and Buzzfeed obtain this highly confidential information? NBC received classified documents last week and Donald Trump wants them investigated. He can add CNN and Buzzfeed to the list.
They can’t corroborate so they run with it? Cosmopolitan also ran with it.
Buzzfeed was the originator of the story and has been criticized since it’s unsubstantiated. They have decided to post the full document so that Americans can read the unsubstantiated information for themselves. The report talks of bribes and sex parties.
If the story is not substantiated and they didn’t want to report on details, why are they reporting on it at all, much less releasing the entire document?
We know why — it delegitimizes Donald Trump.
In the Day of Fake News, Mainstream Media Is the Worst Culprit
When journalists are up in arms about “fake news,” what BuzzFeed has done is take fake news to a whole new level. Its editor, Ben Smith, acknowledges “there is serious reason to doubt the allegations.”
In other words, there is almost certainly fake news inside these memos, and it might all be fake, or some parts of it might be true but buried so deeply under falsity that it would be impossible to separate it out.
“Publishing this dossier reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017,” Smith writes. This is an amazing thing to say, because if you think it through, it means publishing open libels and slanders is the job of reporters in 2017.
“Fake news will become more sophisticated, and fake, ambiguous, and spun-up stories will spread widely,” warned an important American editor at the end of December 2016. His name: Ben Smith. His publication: BuzzFeed.
Perhaps it is time for reporters to be protected a little less than they are.
The biggest offender is WaPo, but they are trying to change their tune.
When your propaganda backfires and you're trying to abort. pic.twitter.com/dYRzxKOcu1
— Brittany Pettibone (@BrittPettibone) January 10, 2017
Trump Responds
A statement from the campaign is forthcoming, but in the meantime, Trump is tweeting.
FAKE NEWS – A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017
I have never been to Prague in my life. #fakenews pic.twitter.com/CMil9Rha3D
— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) January 11, 2017
‘BuzzFeed Runs Unverifiable Trump-Russia Claims’ #FakeNews https://t.co/d6daCFZHNh
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017
4 Chan User Might Have Invented the Story
The Gateway Pundit believes they’ve found the source. They say a 4 Chan user made up the story which they then fed to an Anti-Trumper, knowing he’d fall for it.
We have the goods on that nasty @realDonaldTrump with hookers smear… You will be stunned! Stay tuned! pic.twitter.com/TYgiQdtOMb
— Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit) January 11, 2017
The Gateway Pundit also pointed out that if this information came from MI5, they would not have used the header that was on this document.
Here is the CNN fake news story on video.
An update can be found on this link below.
wpDiscuz
