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You're Wrong: CNN Steps On A Rake With Donald Trump. Jr. Wikileaks Story
Townhall.com ^ | December 8, 2017 | Matt Vespa

Posted on 12/08/2017 7:53:05 PM PST by Kaslin

Bombshell! Wikileaks, which liberals describe as an agent of the Russians, gave Donald Trump Jr. foreknowledge of the thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election—and had given him the decryption key for the documents. CNN dropped this report earlier today [emhasis mine]:

Candidate Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and others in the Trump Organization received an email in September 2016 offering a decryption key and website address for hacked WikiLeaks documents, according to an email provided to congressional investigators.

The September 4 email was sent during the final stretch of the 2016 presidential race -- on the same day that Trump Jr. first tweeted about WikiLeaks and Clinton.

Whoa. If the Trump camp had access to stolen emails in advance and guided Wikileaks' activity last fall, that would amount to a criminal conspiracyhttps://t.co/OI3jZ9D9E8— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) December 8, 2017

Are we getting closer to evidence of Russian collusion? Is this a hot story? No, not even close. In fact, it’s completely wrong. All of this information was public and it was The Washington Post who reported on this trip up. CNN stepped on a rake on this one, or if you will, pulled a Brian Ross [emphasis mine]:

A 2016 email sent to President Trump and top aides pointed the campaign to hacked documents from the Democratic National Committee that had already been made public by the group WikiLeaks a day earlier.

The email — sent the afternoon of Sept. 14, 2016 — noted that “Wikileaks has uploaded another (huge 678 mb) archive of files from the DNC” and included a link and a “decryption key,” according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post.

The writer, who said his name was Michael J. Erickson and described himself as the president of an aviation management company, sent the message to the then-Republican nominee as well as his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and other top advisers.

The day before, WikiLeaks had tweeted links to what the group said was 678.4 megabytes of DNC documents.

The full email — which was first described to CNN as being sent on Sept. 4, 10 days earlier — indicates that the writer may have simply been flagging information that was already widely available.

Holy crap. That’s a huge error. Like Brian Ross level huge. https://t.co/Qio646xjm0— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) December 8, 2017

And this was hardly a time bomb in the first place. Media outlets keep shooting themselves in the foot. https://t.co/mczmLu4j83— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) December 8, 2017

Instead of retracting its report, CNN is demanding to know why Trump didn't *tell the FBI* about a rando who e-mailed public info. https://t.co/VK8U5x5YAc— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) December 8, 2017

So CNN misreported the date of the Wikileaks email that @DonaldJTrumpJr received, meaning that the entire point of the story --
that the campaign might have gotten advance warning of the leaks -- is wrong. Wow. https://t.co/oiXngwHZAq— Sarah Westwood (@sarahcwestwood) December 8, 2017

ABC News’ Brian Ross also had an issue with dates that cost him four weeks without pay. He was suspended after he erroneously reported that Michael Flynn had been directed to contact the Russians by Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. This was actually discussed after the election when President-elect Trump was laying the diplomatic groundwork for his incoming administration. Ross was suspended and will no longer be reporting on the president. It seems at CNN, they didn’t learn anything from ABC News’s trip up. 

Statement from CNN PR pic.twitter.com/H7XZ8Fuzdi— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) December 8, 2017

***

UPDATE: CNN won’t discipline reporter who filed incorrect story on Trump Jr./Wikileaks, says he followed editorial guidelines but his sources gave him wrong information.

Yeah, again, this information was public—and this fact hasn’t gone unnoticed.

A CNN spokeswoman says there will not be disciplinary action in this case because, unlike with Brian Ross/ABC, @MKRaju followed the editorial standards process. Multiple sources provided him with incorrect info.— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 8, 2017

Name the sources. Being lied to negates any obligation to respect on-background guidelines. https://t.co/gU1xtbRQNX— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) December 8, 2017

“My sources lies to me about information I could have verified and that was readily available and open to the public online”— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) December 8, 2017



TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: 2016election; cnn; domesticenemies; donaldtrump; donaldtrumpjr; fakenews; media; msm; wikileaks
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1 posted on 12/08/2017 7:53:05 PM PST by Kaslin
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CNN is AT&T.


2 posted on 12/08/2017 7:55:47 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Kaslin

CNN people need glass belly buttons, in order to see properly.


3 posted on 12/08/2017 7:56:43 PM PST by Mark17 (Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. In the beginning GOD....And the rest, as they say, is HIS-story)
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To: Kaslin; Whenifhow; null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; 2ndDivisionVet; ...

p


4 posted on 12/08/2017 8:10:08 PM PST by bitt (press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally)
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To: Kaslin
Multiple sources provided him with incorrect info...

years ago it used to be 2 independent corroborators. This day an age, it's get there first. This was something the reporter could have verified himself.
5 posted on 12/08/2017 8:12:37 PM PST by stylin19a (Best.Election.Ever.)
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To: Kaslin
How about double checking the sources?

No, the MSM is so desperate to find something on Trump they will report anything!

6 posted on 12/08/2017 8:16:06 PM PST by fortheDeclaration (Pr 14:34 Righteousness exalteth a nation:but sin is a reproach to any people)
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To: Kaslin

Fake News gives lots of different and creative excuses this week for the intentional lies they’ve been “reporting.”

What’s on the lie list for next week?


7 posted on 12/08/2017 8:19:12 PM PST by Sasparilla ( I'm Not Tired of Winning.)
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To: Kaslin

Watching Trump’s rally:

“CNN apologized...thanks sooo much CNN, they should have been apologizing all last year.”

Crowd roars approval. So funny!

Lol!


8 posted on 12/08/2017 8:23:28 PM PST by JPJones (Who is FOR tariffs? George Washington, Ronald Reagan and Me.)
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To: Kaslin

Is this not the 50th time they have pedaled that email?


9 posted on 12/08/2017 8:30:14 PM PST by dila813 (Voting for Trump to Punish Trumpets!Goo)
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To: Kaslin

Why would it have been illegal for WikiLeaks to send the emails to the Trump campaign? And why do they bitch about the emails being hacked and not what was in the emails?


10 posted on 12/08/2017 8:52:34 PM PST by Terry Mross (Liver spots And blood thinners..)
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To: Kaslin
Over at The Conservative Treehouse, sundance thinks this has been a counterintelligence operation designed to pinpoint leaks.
11 posted on 12/08/2017 8:54:36 PM PST by Bratch ("The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke)
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To: bitt
Thanks been out all day and these tips help catch up,
12 posted on 12/08/2017 9:10:06 PM PST by easternsky
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To: Kaslin

So if a source tell a journalist that an email was sent on a certain date about a certain topic, the journalists shouldn’t have to verify by actually seeing the email? If it’s false information they just blame their source?


13 posted on 12/08/2017 9:12:48 PM PST by Rusty0604
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To: JPJones

He was a hoot at the rally.


14 posted on 12/08/2017 9:13:52 PM PST by Rusty0604
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To: Kaslin

Hey CNN I heard that Hillary sold the Russians a bunch of Uranium so that they can use it in their nuclear bombs against the USA.

I wonder if CNN will run with that bit of news.


15 posted on 12/08/2017 9:20:53 PM PST by seawolf101 (Member LES DEPLORABLES)
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To: Kaslin
(James Earl Jones voice): "This...is F N N ."
16 posted on 12/08/2017 9:41:29 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Gene Eric

Well. Not yet.


17 posted on 12/08/2017 9:46:26 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Kaslin

I’m uncomfortable with the amount of fake news appearing on sites I originally trusted. BTW, I haven’t trusted CNN for years, but I remember with sadness how cool it was to have a 24/7 news channel when CNN first started, gosh when was it, thirty years ago?


18 posted on 12/08/2017 9:58:09 PM PST by Ciexyz (I'm conservative & traditionalist, a nationalist and patriot.)
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To: lepton

Offhand, do you know the status of the deal? I assumed it was done.


19 posted on 12/08/2017 10:30:53 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Kaslin
“My sources lies to me about information I could have verified and that was readily available and open to the public online”— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) December 8, 2017

And there you go. The problem with today's "fake news".

20 posted on 12/08/2017 10:41:44 PM PST by VeniVidiVici
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