Former MP and former editor of Heat Street, Louise Mensch and colleague Claude Taylor, a blogger, are accused of using bogus information from a hoaxer who falsely claimed to work in law enforcement. A guardian report claims this information was used in scandalous stories about President Trump.
The guardian makes a compelling case.
This isn’t the first time fabulist and obsessed Trump hater Mensch appears to have invented injurious tales about the President. She tweeted recently, “My sources say the death penalty, for espionage, being considered for @StevenKBannon. I am pro-life and take no pleasure in reporting this.”
Mensch now runs a blog with Taylor called Patribotics. It is a site consisting of “Investigative journalism and analysis of the Russian hack on America’s election and related topics. Pro-America, pro-democracy, pro-NATO, pro-Russia, anti-Putin.”
She sees Putin conspiracies everywhere. For example, when Kurt Eichenwald had a seizure from a flashing meme sent to him by a Twitter user, she thought Russian agents did it.
She broke news on occasion but often appeared unhinged. Apparently, despite her fight against “fake news”, she might be the fake news herself.
What the guardian does know is that Claude Taylor tweeted fake details of criminal inquiries into Trump that were invented by a source who deliberately and falsely claimed to work for the New York attorney general. The source’s background was not checked, according to emails seen by the guardian. The allegations were endorsed as authentic and retweeted by his co-writer Louise Mensch.
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One story by the two alleged that Trump’s inactive fashion model agency was under investigation New York for sex trafficking. Another was about Russian money laundering which was said to implicate Rudy Giuliani.
The hoaxer sent the fake news to Taylor because she was frustrated by fake news that Taylor and Mensch were spewing.
“Taylor asked no questions to verify my identity, did no vetting whatsoever, sought no confirmation from a second source – but instead asked leading questions to support his various theories, asking me to verify them,” according to the guardian’s source.
Taylor apologized and Mensch said she had another source. That seems to fall apart given the fact that the story was invented by a hoaxer. That would be quite a coincidence.
Mensch also claimed no one vets other peoples’ sources.
The allegedly false claims have been retweeted thousands of times.
Taylor and Mensch each have more than 200,000 followers. They collect donations for their tales. People like Senator Ed Markey has repeated their unverified information.
A couple of her tweets from the guardian.
From NYAG Schneiderman source, “I am aware of at least one sealed indictment targeting multiple Trump Organization Principals”.
— Claude Taylor (@TrueFactsStated) July 22, 2017
Schneiderman is moving https://t.co/sseoG0yKw9
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) July 22, 2017
Mensch posted a rebuttal to the accusations.
My reporting has never been based on a hoaxer. My sources are always qualified persons, known to me. A note: https://t.co/64v8xYISV5
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) August 29, 2017
In May Mensch claimed an indictment of Trump had already been handed down. Julian Assange called her out on it.
Donald Trump, the @POTUS, has already been indicted. Exclusive. By Louise Mensch and Claude Taylor. @TrueFactsStated https://t.co/ijvmofLKkf
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) May 15, 2017
Total nonsense that Trump has been indicted by the FISA court. Constitution requires Grand Juries alone issue all serious indictments.
— Julian Assange 🔹 (@JulianAssange) May 15, 2017
After I wrote about that strange story, Mensch blocked me on Twitter. It’s the last time I read anything by Mensch on her website or anywhere. We don’t know if Mensch had her own sources but reading her for accurate stories is a waste of time.
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