Anderson Cooper of CNN lies repeatedly in a desperate attempt to defend CNN’s fake news coverage of the fake Buzz Feed Russia memos after being blasted by Donald Trump and the NY Times for their fake news reporting.
Anderson Cooper Fails Miserably Trying To Lie About CNN’s Fake News
In a heated argument with Kelly Anne Conway, Trump’s Campaign Manger, Anderson Cooper lies repeatedly trying to defend the network’s coverage of the memos published by Buzz Feed that have now been outed as being fake. The interview comes after CNN challenged Donald Trump to point out anything inaccurate in their reporting.
Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway responds to Russia reports https://t.co/YZ32bCBsdM https://t.co/y38Yw50r7t
Cooper desperately tries to deflect blame on Buzz Feed for publishing the memos in full while stating it was wrong for Buzz Feed to do so because the memo’s are clearly fake.
CNN is now trying to claim all they did was responsibly report that intelligence officials presented a two page summary of the fake the memos to President-elect Donald Trump and President Obama and never presented them as being true to the public. Cooper even states, as are other CNN anchors that CNN never repeated any of the allegations made in the memos because CNN could not verify the wild accusations in the memos. Meanwhile CNN repeated numerous allegations in the memos in both writing and on their network.
What you need to know
After being outed for running a Fake News report on Russia hacking intelligence memos CNN is now desperately pointing their fingers at Buzz Feed and other news outlet for their shameful promotion of a false news story alleging Donald Trump has been cultivated by Russia for over 5 year after Russian FSB agents secretly record Trump at a sex party in which he order prostitutes to perform a ‘Golden Showers’ show on a Ritz Carlton bed in the premier suite that was allegedly President Obama and Mrs. Obama’s favorite suite.
CNN is now pointing their fingers at Buzz Feed acting as if they are the culprit behind the fake Russia memos. However, the truth is all Buzz Feed did was publish, in full, a 35-page dossier of fake memos that CNN was already pushing as truthful on their website. By releasing the memos Buzz Feed, most likely thinking the dossier was factual given that CNN was running as their top story a two-page synopsis of the memos that CNN represented as being factual citing numerous sources to corroborate the memos, did nothing more than reveal that CNN’s reporting on intelligence briefings surrounding the memos were nothing more than the same Fake News that CNN has been railing against ever since Donald Trump won the 2016 Presidential election.
In fact:
- The memos behind the intelligence briefings have been circulated for months and CNN was aware the allegations contained in the memos were false.
- CNN also knew the allegations in the memos were presented to the FBI and various intelligence agencies which found the claims to be unsubstantiated.
- U.S. intelligence agencies provided Donald trump with a summary of the rumors Democrats and “Never Trump” republicans were spreading about him for the sole purpose of informing him of what the rumors were.
- CNN seized on the opportunity of the presentation of these rumors to Donald Trump to report on the rumors while at the same time hyping up the rumors and presenting to them to the public as having merit and being corroborated by top government officials.
What Really Happened
Here’s a walkthrough of what happened. Recall that just last month CNN was wining that President-elect Donald Trump wasn’t taking daily intelligence briefings from the U.S. Intelligence Community. At the time, Trump proclaimed he wasn’t getting daily briefings because there was no need for him to be presented the same thing over and over every day. CNN was outraged, decrying that Trump was putting U.S. national security at risk by not attending the meetings.
Flash forward to earlier today when Trump held his first press conference since being elected. While much of the reporting has been focused on Trump refusing to take questions from CNN while calling an out of line CNN reporter “Fake News” on live national television following CNN’s fake news reports on Buzz Feed’s Russia memos Trump made a startling revelation that most of the media did not report on. In his press conference Trump revealed that every time he attended one of the Intelligence briefings CNN was crying about him not attending the details of the briefings were soon leaked to the press who used them to run fake news stories that he was defenseless against since the briefings themselves were highly classified forcing Trump not to reveal any details about them.
Suspicious about who the source of the leaks was Trump decided not to tell anyone, including his most trusted staff, about his last briefing knowing that if the details of the briefing were leaked he could be assured that it was members of the Intelligence community performing the briefing that were responsible for the leaks. Confirming his suspicions, CNN immediately ran a story about Trump’s briefing which vaguely discussed classified information that should have only been known by President Trump and the Intelligence officials that briefed him on the matter.
Refraining from his typical behavior Trump did not take to Twitter to discredit the briefing or discredit CNN’s reporting. At this point, CNN assumed they had Trump taking his non-response as an admission of guilt. Instead, Trump was simply laying a trap to snare those who were leaking classified Intelligence information to CNN. CNN of course didn’t know of Trump’s plot and assumed Trump must be guilty. Based on the assumption CNN went full steam ahead publishing a damming report, based on unsubstantiated allegations against on Trump that the establishment pushed hard for months to try to corroborate and push in the media, in an article that CNN promoted as their top news headline.
In the lede to their article CNN laid out allegations that they were presented with classified documents that included allegations that Russian operatives had comprising personal and financial information about not “President-elect” but “Mr. Trump” proclaiming that multiple US officials with direct knowledge confirmed to CNN. CNN reported that the allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis as an appendix to a report on Russian interference with the election which summarized the work of a former British Intelligence that intelligence officials found credible based on past work.
Little did CNN Trump remained silent on the accusations so he could snare the officials that were leaking the details of his briefings. Instead, CNN promoted the fake news story as their top headline and ran nearly non-stop coverage on their TV news channel the entire time. CNN ran their coverage knowing that the synopsis referred to memos that numerous news outlets had already investigated and knew were false. That didn’t matter to CNN which presumed that since the memos were classified they would never be released to the public giving CNN full cover to claim whatever they wanted about the memos. Instead, as the now fully leaked Buzz Feed memo’s show certain elements of the liberal media are simply taking any allegations against Trump they have, no matter how false or unsubstantiated, and simply running with them as long as the allegations can’t be proven as false.
This is exactly what CNN was caught doing, proclaiming that the nation’s intelligence chiefs took the extraordinary step of including the synopsis in the briefing documents to make Trump aware the allegations were circulating about him among intelligence agencies, senior members of congress and other government officials in Washington.
CNN then proclaimed, citing the 35-page memo that would eventually be leaked only for CNN to denounce credibility thereof while falsely asserting the network never reported any of the specifics from the memos, that senior intelligence officials also said the synopsis of the memos demonstrated that Russia had collected and compiled information harmful to both Trump and Hilary Clinton but only released information that was damaging to Hillary Clinton.
With CNN’s assertion that the network never reported any allegations contained in the dossier now proven to be entirely false, CNN made further assertions about the memos presenting each one as a legitimate charge against Donald Trump.
CNN reported on the allegations from the Buzz Feed memos the charged that there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump’s campaign surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government, citing two unnamed national security officials to corroborate the claim.
CNN then double down claiming sources told them the same allegations about communications between the Trump campaign and the Russians were mentions in classified briefings for congressional leaders last year, which were prompted by head Democratic Senator Harry Reid sending a letter to FBI Director James Comey last October. CNN however failed to mention that Reid’s letter to the FBI was about the same fake buzz feed memos and that the FBI already investigated the claims and found they were not substantiated. Instead, CNN misled their readers into believing the two events were unconnected and Reid’s letter somehow independently corroborate the leaked synopsis of the fake Buzz Feed memos only to wait until their fake news article was read by tens of millions of people online before finally updating their article with a link pointing out the link.
CNN also proclaimed that I reviewed the 35-page compilation of memos, which has now been released to the public courtesy of Buzz Feed, and didn’t make a single mention of how mundane or completely outlandish the claims made in the memos were. Instead, CNN only noted that was not reporting on the details of the memo and it hasn’t corroborated specific allegations. However, as already pointed out CNN has in fact reported on specifics and allegations in the memos, regardless of whether they were in a 2-page intelligence synopsis or note, to which CNN totally presented the allegations to the public as being plausible and having merit. Likewise, CNN noted “But, in preparing this story, CNN has spoken to multiple high ranking intelligence, administration, congressional and law enforcement officials, as well as foreign officials and others in the private sector with direct knowledge of the memos.”
The public of course takes that as CNN can’t verify these reports but top intelligence, administration, congressional and law enforcement officials tell CNN they are true which mislead the public into believing the rumors are true. This of course is a complete fabrication of the truth and CNN representing the of the synopsis of memos as being corroborated knowing the underlying memos summarized are false clearly illustrate that CNN knowingly pushed the story for political purposes and in direct contradiction to any claims they are making they were just performing honest journalism.
CNN also points out that the memos, which started being compiled last summer, have been circulating since last summer while proclaiming what has changed is “US intelligence agencies have now checked out the former British intelligence operative and his vast network throughout Europe and find him and his sources to be credible enough to include some of the information in the presentations to the President and President-elect a few days ago.” Here again, CNN implies the Buzz Feed memos are credible because US Intelligence agents have vetted the source of the memos and found the source to be credible. That reporting of the source’s credibility is of course now starkly being contrasted by CNN’s complete disownment today of any credibility of the memos now that Buzz Feed has leaked them to the public.
CNN goes on to explain how “sensitive” the Buzz Feed memos were writing “The two-page summary was written without the detailed specifics and information about sources and methods included in the memos by the former British intelligence official. That said, the synopsis was considered so sensitive it was not included in the classified report about Russian hacking that was more widely distributed, but rather in an annex only shared at the most senior levels of the government: President Obama, the President-elect, and the eight Congressional leaders.” CNN wrote this believing the public would never see the memos and now that the memos have been released it is clear there was nothing that made the memos “so sensitive” that they could not be disclosed to the public. They in fact were instead compiled by a public intelligence company and contained no such sensitive intelligence. Additionally, contrary to the CNN’s original reporting the intelligence was included as an appendix to the intelligence briefing presented to Trump and Obama the fact is, which CNN previously admits, it was only included so that Trump would be informed of the rumors being spread about him.
CNN goes on to give the memos more credibility reporting John McCain presented them to the FBI on December 9th only two learn the source of the memos had already presented them to FBI officials in Rome.
Here’s CNN’s orginal written coverage which they are now claiming did not promote the allegations in the Buzz Feed published memos:
Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him
Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.
The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump.
The classified briefings last week were presented by four of the senior-most US intelligence chiefs — Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers.
One reason the nation’s intelligence chiefs took the extraordinary step of including the synopsis in the briefing documents was to make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him are circulating among intelligence agencies, senior members of Congress and other government officials in Washington, multiple sources tell CNN.
These senior intelligence officials also included the synopsis to demonstrate that Russia had compiled information potentially harmful to both political parties, but only released information damaging to Hillary Clinton and Democrats. This synopsis was not an official part of the report from the intelligence community case about Russian hacks, but some officials said it augmented the evidence that Moscow intended to harm Clinton’s candidacy and help Trump’s, several officials with knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.
The two-page synopsis also included allegations that there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government, according to two national security officials.
Sources tell CNN that these same allegations about communications between the Trump campaign and the Russians, mentioned in classified briefings for congressional leaders last year, prompted then-Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid to send a letter to FBI Director Comey in October, in which he wrote, “It has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government — a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States.”CNN has confirmed that the synopsis was included in the documents that were presented to Mr. Trump but cannot confirm if it was discussed in his meeting with the intelligence chiefs.
The Trump transition team declined repeated requests for comment.
Appearing on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Kellyanne Conway, a senior Trump adviser, dismissed the memos, as unverified and untrue.
CNN has reviewed a 35-page compilation of the memos, from which the two-page synopsis was drawn. The memos have since been published by Buzzfeed.
The memos originated as opposition research, first commissioned by anti-Trump Republicans, and later by Democrats. At this point, CNN is not reporting on details of the memos, as it has not independently corroborated the specific allegations. But, in preparing this story, CNN has spoken to multiple high ranking intelligence, administration, congressional and law enforcement officials, as well as foreign officials and others in the private sector with direct knowledge of the memos.
Some of the memos were circulating as far back as last summer. What has changed since then is that US intelligence agencies have now checked out the former British intelligence operative and his vast network throughout Europe and find him and his sources to be credible enough to include some of the information in the presentations to the President and President-elect a few days ago.
On the same day that the President-elect was briefed by the intelligence community, the top four Congressional leaders, and chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees — the so-called “Gang of Eight” — were also provided a summary of the memos regarding Mr. Trump, according to law enforcement, intelligence and administration sources.
The two-page summary was written without the detailed specifics and information about sources and methods included in the memos by the former British intelligence official. That said, the synopsis was considered so sensitive it was not included in the classified report about Russian hacking that was more widely distributed, but rather in an annex only shared at the most senior levels of the government: President Obama, the President-elect, and the eight Congressional leaders.
CNN has also learned that on December 9, Senator John McCain gave a full copy of the memos — dated from June through December, 2016 — to FBI Director James Comey. McCain became aware of the memos from a former British diplomat who had been posted in Moscow. But the FBI had already been given a set of the memos compiled up to August 2016, when the former MI6 agent presented them to an FBI official in Rome, according to national security officials.
The raw memos on which the synopsis is based were prepared by the former MI6 agent, who was posted in Russia in the 1990s and now runs a private intelligence gathering firm. His investigations related to Mr. Trump were initially funded by groups and donors supporting Republican opponents of Mr. Trump during the GOP primaries, multiple sources confirmed to CNN. Those sources also said that once Mr. Trump became the nominee, further investigation was funded by groups and donors supporting Hillary Clinton.
Spokespeople for the FBI and the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment. Officials who spoke to CNN declined to do so on the record given the classified nature of the material.
Some of the allegations were first reported publicly in Mother Jones one week before the election.
One high level administration official told CNN, “I have a sense the outgoing administration and intelligence community is setting down the pieces so this must be investigated seriously and run down. I think [the] concern was to be sure that whatever information was out there is put into the system so it is evaluated as it should be and acted upon as necessary.”
Source: CNN
