US President Donald Trump, centre, at the Congressional Picnic on the South Lawn of the White House earlier this month. Credit:Alex Brandon Breitbart News' Matthew Boyle bombed the CNN piece as baseless. Sputnik News published a refutation, indicating that the fund was not a part of Russian state bank Vnesheconombank, as the CNN report had claimed. This detail mattered a great deal, considering that Vnesheconombank was listed in a set of sanctions issued by the US government. According to the CNN report, the Senate Intelligence Committee's probe into this matter was linked to the meeting between top Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and Vnesheconombank chief executive Sergey Gorkov during the presidential transition. Scaramucci himself chimed in, tweeting: "It's ok. I did nothing wrong. They like hitting friends of @potus who are loyal advocates on his behalf." CNN issued a retraction late on Friday. An appreciative Scaramucci tweeted:

Anthony Scaramucci, a member of Donald Trump's presidential transition team, speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. Credit:Keystone via AP "@CNN did the right thing. Classy move. Apology accepted. Everyone makes mistakes. Moving on." Now for the consequences. CNN announced on Monday afternoon that three network officials are leaving their jobs over the incident: Frank, the reporter on the story; Eric Lichtblau, a recent CNN addition from The New York Times who edited the piece; and Lex Haris, the executive editor of CNN Investigates. The moves follow an investigation carried out by CNN executives over the weekend, with the conclusion that longstanding network procedures for publishing stories weren't properly followed. "There was a significant breakdown in process," says a CNN source. "There were editorial checks and balances within the organisation that weren't met."

The official CNN statement said: "In the aftermath of the retraction of a story published on CNN.com, CNN has accepted the resignations of the employees involved in the story's publication." A compelling wrinkle in the saga of the story springs from the careful language in the editor's note. "That story did not meet CNN's editorial standards and has been retracted. Links to the story have been disabled. CNN apologises to Mr Scaramucci," it reads. CNN is not bailing on all the factual representations in the story, however. "We pulled it down not because we disproved it," says a CNN source, adding that there was "enough concern" on some factual points that "given the breach in process, we decided to pull it down". The event is a cataclysm accentuated by the peculiar bind in which the 24-7 network has found itself. CNN tops Trump's list of objectionable news outlets, one that he famously claimed in a January transition press conference was "fake news", even though the reporting he was referring to - about high-level intelligence briefings - was 100 per cent correct.

Trump fans everywhere have taken up the fight, hammering the network every time it equivocates or otherwise over-reports the Russia-Trump line of inquiry. In the regular White House briefings, press secretary Sean Spicer carries on a sneering and long-running feud with CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, perhaps the press corp's most outspoken detractor of the White House's no-camera and no-audio briefings. Sean Spicer takes a question during a White House press briefing in May. Credit:Bloomberg That context explains the speed and severity of CNN's personnel moves over the Russia-Scaramucci story. An organisation of nearly 4000 news professionals; an organisation that has spent huge sums recruiting ever-greater reportorial muscle; an organisation that promises both sides a fair shake; an organisation that values right-on-the-money exclusives - it just cannot abide getting shamed by Sputnik and Breitbart. A CNN source rejected the notion that the company does anything differently because of the pressure coming from the commander-in-chief and his supporters. "We don't feel hemmed in by the administration or the words that they use at all," says the source.

Nor is the Russia-Scaramucci story the only recent CNN black eye. CNN anchor Jake Tapper interviews US President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. Credit:CNN In advance of former FBI director James Comey's Senate testimony, CNN used four bylines - Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper and Brian Rokus - to report that Comey would contradict Trump's claims that the fired FBI chief had told him that he wasn't a target of an investigation. A CNN source insists that the Comey prediction screwup was "not connected" to its handling of the Russia-Scaramucci episode. "That said, we have to play error-free ball," says the source.

Haris, according to CNN, was named the executive editor of CNN Investigates in January. He was previously the executive editor of CNNMoney. "On Friday, CNN retracted a story published by my team. As Executive Editor of that team, I have resigned," Haris said in a statement. "I've been with CNN since 2001, and am sure about one thing: This is a news organisation that prizes accuracy and fairness above all else. I am leaving, but will carry those principles wherever I go." At a panel discussion on Friday afternoon hosted by the Washington Press Club Foundation, CNN senior congressional reporter Manu Raju addressed these difficult journalistic times. "You just cannot screw up in this environment because they'll use every small mistake to come after you and suggest that you have some nefarious motive in your reporting," he said. Journalism mills presiding over acts of misconduct have a patented approach to juggling the public demand for punishment with their preference for keeping their beloved colleagues: the suspension. That this case didn't end that way underscores the stakes for mainstream media outlets reporting on the Trump administration. Critics will long cite this episode as evidence that CNN is precisely what Trump has called it - "fake news".

Yet the departure of three journalists immediately following a mangled story provides a counterpoint to this particular slander. Purveyors of fake news, after all, don't take drastic personnel moves following a bogus story. They rejoice in it. Washington Post, USA Today