NBC News is spreading an unfounded conspiracy theory that claims President Trump and newly retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy cut a secret deal that ensured Brett Kavanaugh would be chosen as Kennedy’s replacement.

Here is how NBC’s Capitol Hill reporter, Leigh Ann Caldwell, spread this conspiracy Tuesday morning. Her first tweet read:

On Kavanaugh pick Kennedy and Trump/WH had been in negotiations for months over Kennedy’s replacement. Once Kennedy received assurances that it would be Kavanaugh, his former law clerk, Kennedy felt comfortable retiring, according to a source who was told of the discussions.

Then she tweeted this:

Furthermore, the five names Trump added to his list of Federalist Approved judges last November was to get Kavanaugh on that list. The other four names were considered cover, per source. In other words: the decision has been baked for a while[.]

Then she got around to the truth, which is that this is nothing less than a conspiracy, a rumor, something told to her by one person — and, most importantly, that she has not even bothered to try and confirm this prior to spreading it:

To be clear: This is from one source and dont have any info on whether potus talked to kennedy about a possible replacement.

First off, there is no journalism here. Once again, NBC News is irresponsibly and maliciously passing along something they were told by someone, something no one has bothered to even try to confirm.

Spreading gossip is not journalism. “This is what I heard” is not journalism.

What’s more, this is a deliberate and partisan attempt on NBC’s part to not only mislead and misinform the public but to throw a monkey wrench in Kavanaugh’s confirmation process — and to gin up even more left-wing hate against Trump and Kennedy.

Time and again, over the last three years, we have seen this same fake news cycle play out.

A so-called journalist drops a bombshell based on what they were told by a single source, the rest of the establishment media goes nuts over it for 48 hours, and then we find out it was all a lie, a bunch of fake news…

And then the media get mad when we point out just what a bunch of left-wing liars they all are.

UPDATE: The now familiar cycle of fake news just took its next turn. Caldwell deleted here conspiracy theory tweet, but only after her fake news went all around the world. But…

Her NBC News colleague Geoff Bennett still has not deleted his conspiracy theory tweet.

And so, NBC News is still spreading this lie, but looking for cover by having the source of it deleted her tweets while others remain live.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.