Legendary Capone treasure hunter Geraldo Rivera tweeted earlier today that the New York Times was “retreating to shore” after supposedly admitting that the underlying facts on its story about Russian putting bounties are faulty.
Unfortunately for the Fox “News” contributor, that’s not what the New York Times article said at all.
The Times story notes that republicans briefed by the administration on the Russian bounties echoed doubts on the veracity of the story told by the newspaper:
Top Democrats in the House and Senate demanded that all members of Congress be briefed, and the White House summoned a small group of House Republicans friendly to the president to begin explaining its position.
The lawmakers emerged saying that they were told the administration was reviewing reporting about the suspected Russian plot to assess its credibility. They [the small group of House republicans] also said the underlying intelligence was conflicting, echoing comments from Ms. McEnany that the information in the assessment had not been “verified” because, she said without detail, there were “dissenting opinions” among analysts or agencies. [Highlighting added.]
In fact, the lack of confidence in the intelligence was stated by a small group of partisans who were briefed on talking points by the Trump Administration. The intentional misrepresentation of the NY Times writing is a furtherance of the administration talking point.
Rest assured, however, that this will be the talking point on Fox “News” throughout the day, likely amplified by a Rivera appearance on Trump advisor Sean Hannity’s show tonight.