Media Twitter Rails Against CNN for Apparent WikiLeaks Screwup: ‘Brian Ross-Level’
This morning brought an absolute bombshell report from CNN. The story claimed that then-candidate Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., and other members of the Trump Organization had received an email offering up a decryption key and website address to a trove of hacked WikiLeaks documents.
According to the CNN story, the email was sent to Team Trump on September 4th, 2016 — days before the documents were publicly released. Based on the timeline presented by the report, a clearer case of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia could conceivably be made. However, it appears there’s just one little problem.
Following CNN’s blockbuster, the Washington Post published its own report on the email indicated that it was actually sent ten days later on September 14th and that CNN got the date wrong in its reporting. Based on the Post’s story, the email led to already public information, as WikiLeaks had posted the hacked content a day earlier. The Wall Street Journal also reported that the email was sent on the 14th and came from a Trump supporter who had sent the campaign $40 earlier. The Daily Caller would later publish a copy of the email in question.
After WaPo and WSJ refuted CNN’s story, Media Twitter immediately went to work railing against CNN for its apparent screwup.
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
This is a really bad, really embarrassing screw-up for CNN. Brian Ross-level. https://t.co/PTJUPZbXuJ
— Jeff B/DDHQ (@EsotericCD) December 8, 2017
How many times have major media outlets completely misreported major facts of Russia/Trump stories, always in the direction of making them more inflammatory? https://t.co/7mgsUJ0ELe This is the behavior that has fueled and empowered Trump's "Fake News" attacks. https://t.co/Vs0JmiiB0g
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 8, 2017
This appears not good. https://t.co/zYHugA2QQS
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) December 8, 2017
CNN spent the morning touting their "exclusive" news about Don Jr. and Wikileaks.
WaPo released their piece contradicting @CNN at 1 PM.
According to a search of TVEyes, the last time @CNN talked about the story on-air was at 1:10 PM.
Still no correction/retraction.
— Amber Athey (@amber_athey) December 8, 2017
Looks like CNN's got a banana on its hands https://t.co/unf2YaEnvM
— Allan Smith (@akarl_smith) December 8, 2017
As I write this, this story is still up on CNN’s website, even though the date in it is wrong. The email was not sent until 10 days later, after the Wikileaks documents were already public. -> Email shows effort to give docs to Trump camp @CNNPolitics https://t.co/9kJORPrmKG
— Brit Hume (@brithume) December 8, 2017
<whispers> the CNN screw up is worse than the Brian Ross screw up
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) December 8, 2017
This is really bad for CNN https://t.co/Rc0Lj6nFLL
— Griswold Christmas Vacation (@HashtagGriswold) December 8, 2017
An hour later after that I sent tweet….A story that CNN surely knows is erroneous is still leading their website uncorrected. https://t.co/4eBaEkyUsx
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) December 8, 2017
With focus on dates, WaPo seems to have disproved fundamental element of CNN piece on Wikileaks email sent to Don Jr in Sept 2016 https://t.co/8QF6P9A3vd
— David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) 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
As of the time of this publication, CNN has not corrected, retracted or amended its report. This afternoon, CBS News had initially released a report verifying CNN’s story and stating that it had independently validated the details. However, right before publication, CBS News corrected its report, stating it had misreported the date of the email.
UPDATE 4:35 PM ET: CNN has since issued a correction to its report, noting that the date of the email was indeed September 14, 2016.
[image via screengrab]
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