by WorldTribune Staff, January 12, 2017
CNN and BuzzFeed reported on the unverified intelligence dossier that Russia allegedly has compromising information on President-elect Donald Trump because “the normal techniques” the press uses to destroy Republicans did not work, Rush Limbaugh said on Jan. 11.
Such attacks simply “bounce off Trump.”
“There’s a coordinated effort,” Limbaugh said. “CNN reports on the existence of the report but they don’t detail it. Jake Tapper, who wants to be known as one of the most highly respected journalists in the world, decides to start vomiting this stuff — but he doesn’t get into details.
“That’s a signal for BuzzFeed to go ahead and release and publish all 35 pages. And BuzzFeed does so while telling everybody that none of it has been verified.”
Limbaugh noted that a slew of media outlets have been trying since before Election Day to verify the dossier, but could not find “a single shred” of evidence that would enable them to run with the story.
Tapper attempted to distance CNN from any connection with BuzzFeed on Jan. 11 by saying BuzzFeed’s reporting was “irresponsible.” BuzzFeed is bankrolled in large part by NBCUniversal.
“I can understand why President-elect Trump would be upset about that,” Tapper said. “I would be upset, too. It is why we did not publish it and why we did not detail anything specific from it. That’s not what we do. We’re in the business of sussing out what is true and what is false.”
Limbaugh said that CNN’s coverage was in line with a kind of reporting that seeks to cast a pall over a man’s character through outlandish but unverified charges.
“What we have here, folks, is a variation on, ‘Yeah, we have no evidence, but the seriousness of the charge demands an investigation,’ ” Limbaugh said. “We first heard that or I first became familiar with it during the Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill hearings. Actually, no. I first heard about it when they alleged that George H. W. Bush flew on an SR-71 in the summer of 1980 to meet with the Iranians in Paris to arrange for the hostages to remain captive until after the election to facilitate the election of Reagan.”
“Gary Sick, a University of Columbia professor, wrote an entire book on this,” Limbaugh continued. “It was a total lie. It was a total fake. It was totally made up. And Tom Foley, the Speaker of the House — Democrat — at time, said, ‘Well, the seriousness of this charge, even though there’s no evidence, mandates that we conduct an investigation.’ And it’s the same thing here. This is a variation of that.”
During a press conference in New York on Jan. 11, Trump called CNN a “terrible organization” and “fake news.”
“I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out,” Trump said. “I think it’s a disgrace.”