Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein just sent the mainstream media into meltdown mode by very diplomatically backing up former FBI director James Comey's assertions that many, many of the MSM stories using "anonymous" sources have been "dead wrong," as Rosenstein issues a statement urging Americans that still read the establishment media to "exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous 'officials'," and to "be skeptical about anonymous allegations."
Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous 'officials,' particularly when they do not identify the country - let alone the branch or agency of government - with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated. Americans should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. The Department of Justice has a long-standing policy to neither confirm or deny such allegations.
Journalists went into complete meltdown mode on Twitter and other social media, claiming the statement was "odd" and "curious" and "strange," and "bizarre," yet not one of them acknowledges to their followers how many recent stories the MSM have published, using "anonymous" sources, have been proven to have been "fake news."
The most recent high profile example was CNN, the day before former FBI Director James Comey's scheduled testimony in Congress, published an article headlining and claiming that their "sources," unnamed of course, verified that Comey was going to "refute" President Trump's claim that he was told by Comey on three separate occasions that he was not personally under investigation.
CNN even repeated their claim, on air, stating "Comey is going to dispute the president on this point if he’s asked about it by senators, and we have to assume that he will be," said Borger, the network's chief political analyst. "He will say he never assured Donald Trump that he was not under investigation, that that would have been improper for him to do so."
Then Comey's prepared statement came out, which confirmed not CNN's false story, but Trump's initial assertion that he was in fact, told he was not personally under investigation.
1. January 6th Meeting at Trump Tower: "In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President Elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance."
2. January 27th Dinner at White House: "During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it."
3. March 30 Phone Call: "I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that."
CNN then changed their headline from "Comey expected to refute Trump," to "Comey unlikely to judge on obstruction," and added the following "CORRECTION AND UPDATE: This article was published before Comey released his prepared opening statement. The article and headline have been corrected to reflect that Comey does not directly dispute that Trump was told multiple times he was not under investigation in his prepared testimony released after this story was published."
In other words their unnamed and anonymous "sources," were wrong and/or just lied to them.
Journalists from MSBC, AP, CNN, NYT, Politico, ABC News and others, all of which make a habit of using "anonymous" sources or repeating other outlets that claim to cite unnamed sources for their "bombshell" news, all took to Twitter to express their shock and confusion over why Rosenstein would issue such a statement.
The problem for them is, Rosenstiens statement aligns with Comey's testimony under oath in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. News they downplayed, if they even addressed it at all.
MEDIA OUTLETS IGNORE SIMILAR STATEMENT FROM COMEY UNDER OATH
One specific story, from the NYT, was highlighted when Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) asked Comey about a NYT article from February 14, 2017, titled "Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence," to where Comey confirms for Risch that the article, which again quoted anonymous officials and sources, was "not true."
Comey answered "In the main – it was not true,” Comey said. “The challenge -- and I’m not picking on reporters -- about writing stories about classified information is that people talking about it often don’t really know what is going on. And those of us who actually know what’s going on aren’t talking about it. And we don’t call the press to say, hey, you got that thing wrong about this sensitive topic. We just have to leave it there."
DNI Director Dan Coats was also quoted stating that he's learned not to always take the Washington Post "at face value" and that its reporting is not always accurate." Another outlet that consistently uses "anonymous sources."
So these journalists melting down on social media appear to be disingenuous in their claims of confusion over Rosenstein's statement which not only aligns with what we have seen in congressional testimony, but also adhered to the standard practice of not confirming or denying specific allegations.
No matter how diplomatic Rosenstein's statement was, the inherent message from Rosenstein's statement, along with Comey and DNI Director Coats' testimony, is that the MSM is reporting "fake news."
