What a word mash - conflating numerous alleged reports into one or two sentences in order to get right words close together in order to suggest something that the alleged reports likely don’t say.
And yes, it is a distraction - although like all great distractions, they take on a life of their own and continue on long after their immediate purpose has been met.
When everything is a distraction nothing is a distraction because everybody is too distracted to notice anything.
;-)