Sarah Sanders Doubles Down on Weird Lie About Osama Bin Laden’s Phone in the 1990s

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is standing by the bogus story she cited yesterday when she lambasted the media for not being more conscientious about their reporting.

When Sanders lectured the media about reporting responsibly during her latest press briefing, she invoked an old story about U.S. surveillance capabilities that supposedly caused Osama Bin Laden to stop using a bugged satellite phone. As Daily Mail‘s David Martosko and others pointed out yesterday, that story was debunked a long time ago.

BTW, when @PressSec said reporters disclosed info about Osama bin Laden's satellite phone and cited it as an instance of media run amok, she was spreading fake news. https://t.co/iLORJfQAv4

— David Martosko (@dmartosko) August 1, 2018

Later in the day, Sanders doubled down on the story’s veracity while attacking CNN’s fact-checking.

.@CNN was NYT “falsely” reporting Lee Hamilton of 9/11 Commission when he said "Leaks can be terribly damaging. In the late 90's, it leaked out…the U.S. was using Osama bin Laden's satellite phone to track his whereabouts. Bin Laden stopped using that phone; we lost his trail." https://t.co/CifK2yhgqg

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) August 2, 2018

As such, Martosko and other journalists are once again explaining where Sanders is getting her point wrong:

"It leaked out" is very different from saying reporters leaked it. In this case, the Taliban was responsible — two years beforehand. https://t.co/FQLIVAalDY

— David Martosko (@dmartosko) August 2, 2018

OBL's communication to aides via satellite phone had already been reported in 1996 — and the source of the info was another govt, the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan

The 2nd time a news org reported on the satellite phone, the source was OBL himselfhttps://t.co/tpzfY7krSt https://t.co/cbX4Eoz0xx

— Jason Leopold (@JasonLeopold) August 2, 2018

Morning Joe blasted the press secretary for spreading conspiracy theory “from the lectern” for this story (and others) this morning.

Sanders said it was leaked by the press in order to suggest that they be more responsible. It was not leaked by the press. So about that suggestion…

[Image via screengrab]

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