Trump and Putin, behind the scenes

[stpioc]

Huh?!

A defamation lawsuit filed by longtime Fox News contributor Rod Wheeler against the network alleges that President Trump was directly involved in concocting a fake story intended to undercut the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian hackers waged cyberattacks against Democratic targets to help him get elected.

The Fox News story — headlined “DC MURDER MYSTERY: Slain DNC staffer was WikiLeaks’ source, say investigators” — was heavily promoted on Sean Hannity’s show and Fox & Friends, but was retracted by Fox News about a week after it was published. It falsely claimed there was evidence linking slain former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich with WikiLeaks, which published emails hacked from the DNC...

The lawsuit claims that Butowsky and Zimmerman hoped the story “would debunk reports the Russian were responsible for the DNC hacks” and “undermine reports of collusion between Russia and the Trump Administration.” It claims that in the weeks ahead of the article’s publication, Butowsky was in touch with then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer, White House strategist Steve Bannon, and Department of Justice spokesperson Sarah Flores “regarding his efforts related to Seth Rich.” Wheeler says he and Butowsky met with Spicer “and provided him with a copy of [Wheeler’s] investigative notes.”

But the day the story was published, Spicer denied having foreknowledge of the Fox News report, saying during the White House press briefing that “I’m not aware of that… it would be highly inappropriate to do that.” Spicer has now changed his story. He confirmed to NPR that he met with Butowsky after all.

Wheeler claims that he became upset when he read the Fox News piece and saw the fabricated quotes attributed to him.

UPDATE (12:15 p.m., 8/1): In a statement, Fox News President Jay Wallace doesn’t deny that Trump was involved in the network’s since-retracted Seth Rich story, but says “[t]he accusation that FoxNews.com published Malia Zimmerman’s story to help detract from coverage of the Russia collusion issue is completely erroneous.”

Explosive lawsuit alleges Trump reviewed and approved bogus Fox News story on Seth Rich

If this is true it's incredible. Hannety is still peddling this nonsense, by the way.

And yet another one having to change his story after being caught with the facts..

Admin, it has to be pointed out that these are accusations by one party, they are not necessarily true. Interesting to follow, but way too early for conclusions, IMHO.