Three of the biggest news organizations in America have been forced to retract a report about the FBI’s communication with President Trump’s longtime lawyer Rudy Giuliani. These large news outlets relied on the same unnamed sources for false information that they then push out as fact.
The Washington Post first reported that the FBI warned Rudy Giuliani that he was the target of a Russian effort to influence the 2020 presidential election. Citing unnamed sources, aka “someone familiar with the matter,” is like asking anyone off the street with an opinion to speak about a topic. There was zero proof that this is true, yet the New York Times and NBC also ran with the fake news. The news outlets also claimed the FBI warned One America News that it was the target of a Russian influence operation…not true. This is more of an attempt to smear Rudy Giuliani after his NYC apartment was raided by the FBI last week.
THE BACKTRACKING BEGINS:
The Post suddenly put out a correction on Saturday announcing that it had removed both claims:
On a Saturday, the Washington Post added this correction to their defamatory story about me. The Washington Post and the NYT must reveal their sources who lied and targeted an American Citizen. #msnbc , #cnn forgot to mention the corrections today. #fakenews #badpeople pic.twitter.com/NhBX7EwQdk
— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) May 1, 2021
“An earlier version of this story, published Thursday, incorrectly reported that One America News was warned by the FBI that it was the target of a Russian influence operation. That version also said the FBI had provided a similar warning to Rudolph W. Giuliani, which he has since disputed. This version has been corrected to remove assertions that OAN and Giuliani received the warnings.”
President Trump said it best to a Washington Post reporter during a press conference:
Trump to reporter: "I'm the President and you're fake news." pic.twitter.com/QCtkX393l7
— The Hill (@thehill) April 23, 2020