A CNN producer just admitted that the Russia story is mostly “bullish*t”, but it’s bringing in ratings. Their ratings are through the roof. This producer will probably join the recently fired CNN reporters on the bread line.

This is what CNN’s John Bonifield said in a rare moment of honesty.

“Could be bullsh*t. I mean, it’s mostly bullsh*t right now. Like, we don’t have any big giant proof. (…) I just feel like they don’t really have it but they want to keep digging. And so I think the President is probably right to say, like, ‘Look, you are witch hunting me. You have no smoking gun. You have no real proof. (…) And the CEO of CNN said in our internal meeting, he said, ‘Good job, everybody, covering the climate accords. But we’re done with it, let’s get back to Russia.’”

CNN just retracted another fake Russia story – sort of

On Thursday of last week, CNN published a “bombshell” investigative report linking people close to President Donald Trump with a Russian investment company. By Friday night, the story had been replaced by an editor’s note saying the story had been removed.

It was later retracted after they were hounded on social media for trying to ignore it. CNN was hammered relentlessly, forcing them to retract it.

But now CNN is suggesting the fake facts in the story could be true. That makes Stelter very dishonest because the “facts” are completely and demonstrably wrong.

Brian Stelter said it hurt CNN’s reputation but, that’s not true, it didn’t. CNN already has a reputation as a fake news organization.

It took a while for the retraction, which read:

On June 22, 2017, CNN.com published a story connecting Anthony Scaramucci with investigations into the Russian Direct Investment Fund.

That story did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted. Links to the story have been disabled. CNN apologizes to Mr. Scaramucci.

That’s not true either, the story actually did meet CNN’s low editorial standards.

The fake story

The retracted story had said the Senate intelligence committee was looking into a January 16 discussion between Anthony Scaramucci and Kirill Dmitriev, whose Russian Direct Investment Fund guides investments by U.S. entities in Russia. Scaramucci, in the story, said he exchanged pleasantries in a restaurant with Dmitriev.

CNN’s fake story used a single anonymous source. The story is completely bogus. It was demonstrably fake. This senate investigation doesn’t exist and there was no meeting. It was a conspiracy theory spread by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

Sneaky, sleazy CNN

CNN’s Brian Stelter admitted that the whole situation has harmed CNN’s reputation. In his daily email, Stelter said, “Determining what went wrong this time will help prevent future damage to the news organization…”

Furthermore, according to reports out last night, CNN has fired three journalists. The report’s author, one-time Pulitzer Prize-finalist Thomas Frank, Eric Lichtblau, an editor in the network’s investigative unit and Lex Haris, who oversaw the unit, have all left CNN, according to Stelter.

Additionally, CNN gave one of their phony apologies to Anthony Scaramucci, the subject of the fake story. We say the apology is phony because CNN now suggests the facts could be true.

“In a staff meeting Monday afternoon, investigative unit members were told that the retraction did not mean the facts of the story were necessarily wrong,” Stelter reported. “Rather, it meant that “the story wasn’t solid enough to publish as-is,” one of the people briefed on the investigation said.”

Finally, it must be said, CNN just can’t tell the truth. They take the fake story back and then say it could be true.