Earlier this month, CNN published a gripping report on the Libyan slave trade after its reporters in Tripoli recorded migrants and refugees being sold at auction for the equivalent of a few hundred dollars. Libyan authorities promptly launched an investigation into the country's underground slave market, although the political instability accompanying that country's ongoing civil war will probably make that effort a logistical impossibility. While the story has sparked outrage across the world, some media outlets in Libya have raised doubts about the authenticity of CNN's reporting, citing to the network's well-known reputation for spreading "fake news."

The primary basis for these familiar-sounding claims? Tweets authored by President Donald Trump.

On Saturday afternoon, the president launched one of his standard-issue social media attacks against CNN International, calling the network "a major source of (Fake) news" and asserting, without further explanation, that "[t]he outside world does not see the truth from them!" Shortly thereafter, as first noted by Al Aan TV's Jenan Moussa, a Libyan free-to-air satellite channel published an article on the comments, insinuating that they cast doubt on the veracity of the entire story. Google Translate results are always a bit rough around the edges, but the upshot here is difficult to miss.

It is reported in international political circles that many of the reports broadcast by the American channel often come as "collusion" to serve political objectives in certain parts of the world, and here the possibility arises that the channel has published the report of slavery in Libya to raise a political objective that is still hidden, That the president of the world's largest country in terms of political and intelligence influence can not be charged of this kind to a channel operating within the United States without "intelligence bases" on how the channel works, and its hidden goals.

Because CNN's journalism is "often" part of an agenda, the article reasons, it is therefore possible that CNN published this particular report in order to promote some "political objective that is still hidden." Trump probably wouldn't make such claims flippantly, since he commands the world's most robust intelligence-gathering operation. Plus, the tweet in question followed closely on the heels of CNN's Libya investigation, which perhaps suggests a direct link between the two events. While it's not clear whether the author actually believes that Trump has correctly identified some murky conspiracy, he or she concludes that the president's actions, at the very least, have opened a "big hole" in the story, and that it should be regarded with a healthy degree of skepticism until proven otherwise.

Most of the coverage of Donald Trump's perpetual war with the media focuses on how that process is dangerous to American democracy: It erodes public trust in the independent press that is designed to function as a check on those in power, regardless of party affiliation. But while fighting back against negative stories by dismissing the outlet as "fake" might be an effective political strategy, he fails to realize that his words have consequences that reach far beyond his Twitter beef du jour. He thought he was attacking a media outlet he doesn't like. Now, those same words are providing a defense for people who have been exposed for promoting slave labor. Donald Trump probably didn't anticipate this result, and he certainly didn't intend it. But it's happening anyway.

For political leaders in Libya—people who might have a vested interest in keeping international organizations and criminal investigators out of the country's business, and who might be willing to look the other way if it means that they get to keep their positions of authority—the president's tweets are a godsend. Libyans have every right to be angry about the existence of an underground slave trade in their country, and to hold their leaders accountable for allowing such a thing to exist. When President of the United States offers good reason to doubt the story, though, it suddenly becomes far less likely that the news generates the type of public outcry that eventually brings the perpetrators and enablers of this practice to justice. Not because Libyans don't care about slavery, of course—but because the most powerful man in the world logged onto Twitter and accidentally assured them that the slavery might not even exist.