LIST OF ALL FAKE TRUMP-RUSSIA STORIES (so far)

****BE SURE TO CHECK BACK FOR FUTURE UPDATES****
(Also note: We are working on an entire feature on the Christopher Steele Dossier.)

July 18, 2016: “Trump campaign guts GOP’s anti-Russia stance on Ukraine” (Washington Post)

(See also, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow; Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook; National Public Radio)

This allegation originated from an opinion column, written by The Post’s Josh Rogin. Rogin’s claim rests upon the platform writing process during he Republican National Convention. During this process, the Trump campaign allegedly “orchestrated” the defeat of a proposed amendment to the platform that would have explicitly called for “providing lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine. Instead of that specific language, the final platform included language that called for giving “appropriate assistance” to Ukraine.

However, focusing solely on a failed amendment ignores what actually happened.

According to the Washington Examiner’s Byron York, the key thing “[m]issing from all the talk is what the Republican platform actually said before it was allegedly ‘gutted’ by Trump.” In this regard, York writes,

As it turns out, a look at the original draft of the platform — which has never been released publicly — shows that it always had tough language on Russian aggression in Ukraine. And not only did that language stay in the final platform — nothing was taken out — it was actually strengthened, not weakened, as a result of events at the convention.

Specifically, the original platform had two passages regarding Russia and Ukraine. The first passage, according to York, “warned of ‘a resurgent Russia occupying parts of Ukraine and threatening neighbors from the Baltic to the Caucasus.’”

The second passage, York said, “was more expansive and began by noting a desire to maintain a friendship with ‘the people of Russia.’ But better relations are made more difficult, the draft said, by ‘the continuing erosion of personal liberty and fundamental rights under the current officials in the Kremlin.’” The second passage continued:

Repressive at home and reckless abroad, their policies imperil the nations which regained their self-determination upon the collapse of the Soviet Union. We will meet the return of Russian belligerence with the same resolve that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. We will not accept any territorial change in Eastern Europe imposed by force, in Ukraine or elsewhere, and will use all appropriate measures to bring to justice the practitioners of aggression and assassination.

In addition to these passages, the following was added to the first passage:

We support maintaining and, if warranted, increasing sanctions, together with our allies, against Russia unless and until Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are fully restored. We also support providing appropriate assistance to the armed forces of Ukraine and greater coordination with NATO defense planning.

In closing, York had this to say:

Not long after the platform subcommittee meeting, the Post’s “Trump campaign guts GOP’s anti-Russia stance on Ukraine” story was published, and a new conventional wisdom began to form: The Trump team, doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin, gutted the GOP platform’s position on behalf of Russia.

That is precisely the opposite of what happened. In the end, the platform, already fairly strong on the Russia-Ukraine issue, was strengthened, not weakened, as a result of the subcommittee meeting. The Trump campaign agreed to a platform condemning Kremlin belligerence, calling for continued, and perhaps increased, sanctions against Russia, for the full restoration of Ukrainian territory, for refusing to accept “any territorial change in Eastern Europe imposed by force, in Ukraine or elsewhere,” and pledging to aid Ukraine’s armed forces.

The bottom line is that almost nothing in the Trump-weakened-the-GOP-platform narrative is as it seems.

November 24, 2016: “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say” (Washington Post)

Craig Timberg reported on an anonymous group of researchers that compiled a list of websites that it believed “created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, . . .”

After receiving a tidal wave of criticism (see, e.g., The Intercept, The Nation, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone), The Washington Post backtracked and posted this Editor’s Note at the top of the story:

The Washington Post on Nov. 24 published a story on the work of four sets of researchers who have examined what they say are Russian propaganda efforts to undermine American democracy and interests. One of them was PropOrNot, a group that insists on public anonymity, which issued a report identifying more than 200 websites that, in its view, wittingly or unwittingly published or echoed Russian propaganda. A number of those sites have objected to being included on PropOrNot’s list, and some of the sites, as well as others not on the list, have publicly challenged the group’s methodology and conclusions. The Post, which did not name any of the sites, does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot’s findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor did the article purport to do so. Since publication of The Post’s story, PropOrNot has removed some sites from its list.

December 30, 2016: “Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont” (Washington Post)

In late December 2016, Juliet Eilperin and Adam Entous from The Washington Post published (what would have been) a truly bombshell story, if it was true. The Post reported,

A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials. . . .

American officials, including one senior administration official, said they are not yet sure what the intentions of the Russians might have been. The penetration may have been designed to disrupt the utility’s operations or as a test by the Russians to see whether they could penetrate a portion of the grid.

But by the next day, an editor’s note appeared at the bottom of the story that read,

An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.

The Burlington Free Press reported that the computer in which the malware was found “was not connected to the operation of the grid.”

February 14, 2017: “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence” (The New York Times)

The New York Times’s Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo alleged that, according to “four current and former American officials,” associates of the Trump campaign were in contact with “senior Russian intelligence officials”:

Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

But when former FBI Director James Comey later testified in June, he strongly disputed the accuracy of the story:

RISCH: . . . On — I remember, you — you talked with us shortly after February 14th, when the New York Times wrote an article that suggested that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians. You remember reading that article when it first came out?

COMEY: I do. It was about allegedly extensive electronic surveillance…

RISCH: Correct.

(CROSSTALK)

COMEY: … communications. Yes, sir.

RISCH: And — and that upset you to the point where you actually went out and surveyed the intelligence community to see whether — whether you were missing something in that. Is that correct?

COMEY: That’s correct. I want to be careful in open setting. But…

RISCH: I — I’m — I’m not going to any further than that with it.

COMEY: OK.

RISCH: So thank you.

In addition to that, after that, you sought out both Republican and Democrat senators to tell them that, hey, I don’t know where this is coming from, but this is not the — this is not factual. Do you recall that?

COMEY: Yes.

RISCH: OK. So — so, again, so the American people can understand this, that report by the New York Times was not true. Is that a fair statement?

COMEY: In — in the main, it was not true. And, again, all of you know this, maybe the American people don’t. 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’s going on.

And those of us who actually know what’s going on are not 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.

When Oklahoma Senator Tom Cotton followed up on this topic, Comey was even more direct in his answer:

COTTON: On February 14th, the New York Times published a story, the headline of which was, “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.”

You were asked earlier if that was an inaccurate story, and you said, in the main. Would it be fair to characterize that story as almost entirely wrong?

COMEY: Yes.

May 10, 2017: “Days Before Firing, Comey Asked for More Resources for Russia Inquiry” (The New York Times)

See also, CNN.com; CNN’s Anderson Cooper; CNN Chief National Correspondent Jim Sciutto; CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash; CNN White House Correspondent Sara Murray; CNN Correspondent Randi Kaye; CNN Counterterrorism Analyst Phil Mudd; LA Times’ Joseph Tanfani; POLITICO’s Annie Karnj and Ali Watkins; MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow; Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal.

A slew of reports surfaced in the days after FBI Director James Comey was fired that alleged that Comey requested more resources for the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The speculation that arose from the President’s critics in the wake of these reports was that President Trump fired Comey, because the Russia investigation was “getting to close” to the President.

But the next day, on May 11th, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe — under oath — flatly contradicted these blindly sourced allegations, and even went so far as to suggest that Comey asking the Department of Justice for more resources is not even how that process would work (he’d have to go to Congress):

COLLINS: I want to follow up on a question of resources that Senator Heinrich asked your opinion on. Press reports yesterday indicated that Director Comey requested additional resources from the Justice Department for the bureau’s ongoing investigation into Russian active measures. Are you aware that request? Can you confirm that that request was in fact made?

MCCABE: I cannot confirm that request was made. As you know ma’am, when we need resources, we make those requests here. So I — I don’t — I’m not aware of that request and it’s not consistent with my understanding of how we request additional resources.

That said, we don’t typically request resources for an individual case. And as I mentioned, I strongly believe that the Russian investigation is adequately resourced.

The Los Angeles Times’ Joseph Tanfani, citing a “Democratic congressional aide” and another “official,” explicitly reported that Comey made the request to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein during a meeting the two had:

FBI Director James B. Comey met last week with Rod Rosenstein, the new deputy attorney general, and asked for both money and personnel to step up the investigation into possible coordination between Russian intelligence and members of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, according to two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

But on May 19th, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified — under oath — that Comey never requested additional resources for the Russia investigation:

I want to address the media claims that the FBI asked for additional resources for the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. I am not aware of any such request. Moreover, I consulted my staff and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and none of them recalls such a request.

June 7, 2017: Comey will testify that he never told President Trump that he was not under investigation (CNN)

(See also, CNN’s Anderson Cooper; CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger)

This obviously turned out to be a total lie. Comey did, in fact, testify that, on three separate occasions, he informed President Trump that he was not personally under investigation.

CNN issued this correction after Comey’s prepared remarks were released:

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.

June 22, 2017: “Congress investigating Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials” (CNN.com)

In this story, CNN.com alleged that Congressional investigators were probing a January 16th, 2017 “meeting” between the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Anthony Scaramucci, a fundraiser for Trump’s campaign and executive committee member of Trump’s transition team. The President’s critics — specifically, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Maryland Senator Ben Cardin — sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to investigate the alleged “meeting.”

But Scaramucci disputed the account and told CNN in an email that an individual with the RDIF “came over to say hello in a restaurant, and I was cordial. There is nothing there.”

A Breitbart News investigation later exposed the story as baseless, and reported, “The supposed Senate probe seems to exist only in the minds of Senate Democrats on the Intelligence Committee, not the full committee.”

Shortly thereafter CNN retracted the story, and issued the following editor’s note:

On June 22, 2017, CNN.com published a story connecting Anthony Scaramucci with investigations into the Russian Direct Investment Fund.

That story did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted. Links to the story have been disabled. CNN apologizes to Mr. Scaramucci.

A few days later, three “journalists” involved in the publication of the story resigned, according to CNN media reporter Brian Stelter:

Three CNN journalists, including the executive editor in charge of a new investigative unit, have resigned after the publication of a Russia-related article that was retracted.

Thomas Frank, who wrote the story in question; Eric Lichtblau, an editor in the unit; and Lex Haris, who oversaw the unit, have all left CNN.

July 18, 2017: “Trump and Putin Held a Second, Undisclosed, Private Conversation” (The New York Times) (see also, The Washington Post; The Wall Street Journal)

Several news outlets alleged that President Trump held a “secret,” “undisclosed,” and “private” meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin. The implication made in much of the coverage that this was some meeting hidden away from public view (it wasn’t).

The “meeting”/“conversation” was not really “private.” To the contrary, it occurred during a dinner of G-20 leaders, during the G-20 summit, hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But that did not stop the press from trying to portray it as sinister. Here’s how The Washington Post described the encounter:

At some point during the meal, Trump left his own seat to occupy a chair next to Putin. Trump approached alone, and Putin was attended only by his official interpreter.

Conveniently omitted from the story was the fact that the dinner was a spouses dinner and, to mix things up, each spouse was seated at a different place at the table. The seating arrangements, which President Trump had no part in creating, placed First Lady Melania Trump next to Putin and President Trump next to the wife of Japan’s Prime Minister. Here’s a picture for reference:

President Trump (lower left), Melania Trump (upper right), and Vladimir Putin (upper right).

Therefore, the characterization of the meeting that President Trump gave in a recent interview to The New York Times provides the missing context:

In his first description of his dinnertime conversation with Mr. Putin at the Group of 20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany, Mr. Trump downplayed its significance. He said his wife, Melania, was seated next to Mr. Putin at the other end of a table filled with world leaders.

“The meal was going toward dessert,’’ he said. “I went down just to say hello to Melania, and while I was there I said hello to Putin. Really, pleasantries more than anything else. It was not a long conversation, but it was, you know, could be 15 minutes. Just talked about things. Actually, it was very interesting, we talked about adoption.”

Some in the press made a big deal of the fact that President Trump used the Russian translator instead of an American translator. That complaint quickly lost credibility when it was revealed that only one translator was allowed per couple, according to a statement put out by the White House:

Each couple was allowed one translator. The American translator accompanying President Trump spoke Japanese. When President Trump spoke to President Putin, the two leaders used the Russian translator, since the American translator did not speak Russian.

Here’s a picture of everyone who attended the dinner (“secret meeting”):

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