The scandal surrounding CNN’s mishandling of a very fake news hit piece on President Donald Trump and his associates grows bigger on Sunday night as the network’s president Jeff Zucker and public relations team is refusing to comment to anyone — even to CNN media reporter Brian Stelter — about what happened.

Stelter, in his Sunday evening newsletter named for the television program he hosts Reliable Sources, credited a Breitbart News investigation with forcing what he admitted is an embarrassing retraction for his employer CNN.

“On Friday evening CNN.com fully retracted a story after questions were raised about the accuracy of the reporting and sourcing,” Stelter wrote:

The story, by Thomas Frank of the investigative unit, said Congress was investigating a “Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials.” It didn’t get TV airtime, but it was shared on the web, where it was spotted and scrutinized by Breitbart. On Friday night the story was replaced by an editor’s note: “That story did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted. Links to the story have been disabled.” The editor’s note included an apology to Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci, who was named in the story. The next morning Scaramucci responded via Twitter: “CNN did the right thing. Classy move. Apology accepted. Everyone makes mistakes. Moving on.” Some prominent conservative figures, like Donald Trump Jr. and Sean Hannity, seized on the story as an example of anti-Trump bias and anonymous source malfeasance…

But then, after calling this episode “an embarrassing moment for CNN,” Stelter dropped a neutron bomb on his own employer: He revealed that CNN is refusing to comment on or explain the matter, even to CNN.

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