Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Buzzfeed and CNN Report Potentially 'Compromising' Russian Espionage Story That May Have Been Based on 4Chan Prank

I don't know what to believe anymore.

Julia Ioffe was approached with this story, but couldn't independently confirm the details and declined to report on it.

Here's the headline, at Memeorandum, from CNN, "Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him."

And also from WaPo, via Memeorandum, "Intelligence chiefs briefed Trump and Obama on unconfirmed claims Russia has compromising information on president-elect."

Unconfirmed. That's key. Unconfirmed.

It's fake news.

There's a huge roundup at Hot Air, "Yikes: Intel chiefs told Trump Russia claims to have compromising personal and financial information on him; Update: CNN video added; Update: Memos leaked to BuzzFeed."

Also, at Instapundit, "NEW YORK POST: BuzzFeed’s Trump Report Takes Fake News To A New Level":
So the website BuzzFeed decided to publish a series of memos that have been floating around for months alleging all kinds of terrible things about Donald Trump.

Some of those terrible allegations have to do with efforts to influence the American elections and Trump. Some of them have to do with Trump’s personal sexual conduct.

Readers of this newspaper know well not to include me among Trump’s supporters. But the scurrilousness of what BuzzFeed has done here is so beyond the bounds of what is even remotely acceptable it should compel even those most outraged by Trump’s political excesses to come to his defense and to the defense of a few other people mentioned in these papers whose names are also dragged through the mud.

There is literally no evidence on offer in these memos or from BuzzFeed that any single sentence in these documents is factual or true. What’s more, we know most major news organizations in America had seen them and despite their well-known institutional antipathy toward Trump, had chosen not to publish them or even make reference to them after efforts to substantiate their charges had failed...
More.

See Twitchy as well, "‘How are we going to have an inauguration next week?’ Russians have compromising info on Trump, says source."

And lots of stuff on Twitter, plus CNN's big breaking report at the video below.




Expect updates.

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