Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

EVIDENCE: How CNN Faked A Story About Rep. Matt Gaetz, Got Caught, But Still Won’t Remove It.
National Pulse ^ | 04/12/2021 | Raheem Kassam

Posted on 04/12/2021 5:46:50 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

In the early afternoon of April 11th, 2021, internal and external communications staffers for embattled Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-1) received a request for comment from newly minted CNN reporter Gabby Orr.

Orr, a former POLITICO employee, would report as her first story for Jeff Zucker’s network that Rep. Gaetz had been denied a meeting with former President Trump. The aim of the story was to weaken support for Gaetz on Capitol Hill as the House returns from recess.

Orr’s e-mail read: “Apologies for bothering you on a Sunday but I wanted to run something by you for confirmation before reporting it out… I was told by two people familiar that Congressman Matt Gaetz asked to meet with former President Trump at [Mar-A-Lago] last week and was denied.”

But Orr did, in fact, “report it out” before receiving any confirmation from either side. And the original CNN story claimed neither side has responded, which wasn’t true.

She was reaching out from an unverified, anonymized ProtonMail account, while her Twitter biography still held her old, POLITICO e-mail address.

A few hours later, Gaetz’s team responded. At least, they thought they did.

“Rep. Gaetz was welcomed to Trump Doral this week and has not sought to meet with President Trump himself. He’s been mostly relaxing with his fiancée this week during recess. GOP establishment types can leak as many lies as they want to their friends at CNN, but a recent poll showed Rep Gaetz’s constituents are overwhelmingly supportive of him, and that’s the only support a Member of Congress needs,” their statement read, in full.

Orr changed her e-mail after being quizzed on the matter.

The statement was sent to Orr on multiple channels, including every possible perturbation of a CNN e-mail address for her, her POLITICO e-mail address, and via Twitter direct messages, The National Pulse has verified. Spokesmen tend not to respond to “@protonmail.com” or other easily faked e-mail accounts because they have no way of verifying that it is the actual reporter reaching out. They prefer official emails.

When the story was released, and as of the time of publication, CNN failed to include this whole statement in their story. Instead, they claimed Gaetz staff had not responded.

The National Pulse reached out to Orr over the matter, who admitted in direct messages to me, an “Honest mistake,” and “a sincere oversight on my end,” adding: “I would never deliberately ignore a spokesperson’s response to a request for comment.”
Orr’s admission of guilt.

But even after several “updates” the article still only contains half the Gaetz spokesman comment, and for hours did not reference the most critical part of the story, which came shortly after CNN had to first update its story: the official denial from Trump world.

Trump comms strategist Jason Miller took to Twitter to slam Orr and CNN’s reporting, claiming the entire thing was fabricated.

CNN has no on-the-record sources making this claim, no electronic or written or recorded evidence backing up this claim, it flat out never happened, and we demand a full retraction of this story.

Who was the editor that allowed this to be printed??? https://t.co/sgTTWOF1YT

— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) April 12, 2021

Why – if Gaetz had really reached out and was openly rebuffed – would Trump’s spokesman bother responding like this? Surely the point would be to hang Gaetz out to dry. But they didn’t.

Miller insisted: “This CNN story is complete fake news. No such scheduling or meeting request was ever made, and therefore, it could never have been declined. Take note that this story has zero on-the-record sources. It’s literally made-up. We are demanding a full retraction.”

He added, in a second statement: “CNN has no on-the-record sources making this claim, no electronic or written or recorded evidence backing up this claim, it flat out never happened, and we demand a full retraction of this story. Who was the editor that allowed this to be printed???”

That CNN failed to approach Miller in the first instance, forcing a post-publication correction would be bad enough.

But the CNN editorial process failed on multiple levels:

But wait, that’s not all.

Your faithful correspondent was at the Trump Doral event this weekend in Miami, wherein Rep. Gaetz broke his silence on the number of increasingly bizarre allegations against him and even preemptively warned of “anonymous sources” in stories about him.

It took less than 24 hours for his predictions to be borne out.

CNN wrote of the speech, given to the Women for America First group, “Aides saw his last-minute speech at the Women for America First event, which was held at the nearby Trump National Doral resort, as a blatant attempt to reach Trump and his supporters.

“A person directly involved with Trump’s post-presidential operation said the ex-President’s aides ‘were under the impression that Gaetz went down there to try and run into Trump or people around him’.”
CNN’s false story remained on their homepage even after admitting their mistakes.

But the claim makes no sense for multiple reasons, confirmed and observed by The National Pulse:

  1. Gaetz arrived at the event, spoke, and left. He did not attempt to “run into” anyone;
  2. Trump’s whereabouts this weekend were well known. He was hosting at Mar-A-Lago, not Doral, and therefore there was no chance of “running into Trump”;
  3. CNN accredited 12 reporters to the Doral event to cover Gaetz’s speech, any of whom could have confirmed these details to their own reporter, Gabby Orr.

As of the time of publication, this farcical, anonymously-quoted line remains in CNN’s story.

It is very possible Orr’s representation of the events are as she claims: an “Honest mistake.” But if it was so honest, why does the false article remain on the CNN website, and why do these “mistakes” only ever happen when reporting on conservatives?


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cnn; fakenews; mattgaetz

1 posted on 04/12/2021 5:46:50 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Whenifhow; null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; AZ .44 MAG; Baynative; bgill; ...

p


2 posted on 04/12/2021 6:21:37 PM PDT by bitt (People who wonder if the glass is half empty or half full miss the point. The glass is refillable.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: bitt; little jeremiah
I wrote Congressman Gaetz the other day and encouraged him. The Marxist autocracy trying to seize power in this country are setting their sights on their two biggest threats: Gov. Ron DeSantis and Matt Gaetz.

There are more coming along, Marjorie Taylor Greene for one, and a couple more whose names allude me. Even the GOP would like to be shed of them because they are true conservatives, not weasels in Republican clothing.

Let's take this Republic back! May Marxist clowns rot!

3 posted on 04/12/2021 7:57:24 PM PDT by Bob Ireland (The Democrap Party is the enemy of freedom.They use all the seductions and deceits of the Bolshevics)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

So they lied.


4 posted on 04/12/2021 9:43:19 PM PDT by bray (Whites are not racists)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Orr admitted an “Honest mistake” and “a sincere oversight on my end.”


5 posted on 04/12/2021 10:32:17 PM PDT by MarvinStinson ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I hate to say it but why are we even writing about CNN? We know who they are and they are. The worst of the drivebys!! Would we expect anything else from them? Of course not.


6 posted on 04/13/2021 2:55:04 AM PDT by rodguy911 ((FreeRepublic home of the free because of the Brave---Where we go One))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bob Ireland
I think you left out Christi Noem. They would like to take her out as well. It's just what they do. If you are a political party that stands for nada,like the dems, but more communism coming to the country, your only choice is to attack the best we have. That's what they do over and over.
7 posted on 04/13/2021 2:57:26 AM PDT by rodguy911 ((FreeRepublic home of the free because of the Brave---Where we go One))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: rodguy911
***more communism coming to the country, your only choice is to attack the best we have***

We are under a Marxist regime with a party first above everything else philosophy. The country is being slammed in to monolithic control. The enemy is wasting no time to cement their power grab.

As always the media is an essential component. The media are not just dangerous - they are traitors! The Joe said of the 2nd Amendment: it is not absolute. That virtually renders all of the first ten amendments as interpretive and, of course, the whole Constitution progressively.

This cannot end well; the coup conspiracy is deep and wide - plus China is poised now to become the dominant world super power.

8 posted on 04/13/2021 6:09:07 AM PDT by Bob Ireland (The Democrap Party is the enemy of freedom.They use all the seductions and deceits of the Bolshevics)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Bob Ireland

Everything you said is true Bob. I’m hoping Trump has a plan that will carry us through these tough times. He’s the best potus in my lifetime along with Reagan. We need him back now more than ever.Lets hope it happens.


9 posted on 04/14/2021 3:18:27 AM PDT by rodguy911 ((FreeRepublic home of the free because of the Brave---Where we go One))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

CNN is ATT


10 posted on 04/14/2021 3:20:38 AM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson