Pete Hegseth Blasts CNN's RussiaGate Disinformation Whore Natasha Bertrand for Her False Reporting About the Iran Strike, Then CNN Lies to Cover Up Betrand's Lies

Natasha Bertrand, along with "Fusion Ken" Dilanian, were the chief disinformation peddlers for Christopher Steele and FusionGPS's completely-fake Russian hoax "dossier."

Bertrand was also one of the earliest and most vigorous proponents of the Biden "51 Intelligence officials" lie falsely claiming that Hunter Biden's laptop was a RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION OPERATION.

She has never apologized for her role in constantly pushing out "stories" about complete fabrications. Always from the same crew of corrupt Democrat hacks, always with the intention of interfering in elections by injecting disinformation into the national dialogue.

She once again had a fanciful "scoop" provided to her by a partisan burrowed-in political operator: The Iran strikes, she claimed, did not destroy Fodrow or Isfahan. They only did some superficial damage.

She said she was quoting from a Pentagon report.

But she wasn't quoting the whole report. She selectively quoted negative claims from it while hiding the fact that the report said it had only a "low confidence" in its findings because it would take WEEKS to conduct a proper bomb damage assessment. She also failed to disclose the report was marked as "preliminary" and was not done in coordination with our intelligence agencies. Or Israel's, for that matter.

In an unsurprising move, CNN -- which a jury found is literally fake news -- is "stand[ing] 100% behind" the so-called "journalism" of one its biggest propagandists: Natasha Bertrand.

On Wednesday afternoon, the left-wing outlet issued a statement in defense of Bertrand amid criticisms the media hoaxer is facing over a recent report she co-authored about the U.S.-led strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. Published on Tuesday, this "exclusive" contained anonymous claims about a preliminary defense intelligence assessment that these unnamed sources said shows the "strikes on three of Iran's nuclear facilities ... did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program and likely only set it back by months."

President Donald Trump and members of his cabinet have since come out refuting the accuracy of Bertrand and Co.'s article. This includes statements by CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, the latter of whom wrote on X, "New intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran's nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities ... entirely, which would likely take years to do."

Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway has additionally reported that "multiple knowledgeable sources" have said "the intel assessment being bandied about specifically notes it was done the day after the strike, needs weeks' more analysis, was not done in conjunction with other intel agencies, and was given a low confidence rating."

But none of that has stopped CNN from rushing to Bertrand's side. In its statement, the propaganda outlet said it "stand[s] 100% behind Natasha Bertrand's journalism and specifically her and her colleagues' reporting of the early intelligence assessment of the U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities."

"CNN's reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence," the statement reads. "We have extensively covered President Trump's own deep skepticism about it. However, we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest."

CNN has spent the day falsely claiming that they did report that this was a "preliminary" report made with "low confidence."

But this is a lie: A simple check of the Internet Wayback machine shows that the serial liar Betrand excised these caveats from her reporting.

CNN is even claiming that Hegseth's accusation against CNN for deliberately omitting vital information (the report is "preliminary" with "low confidence," etc.) actually confirmed their false reporting.

You can watch her false reporting here. She never says that this "assessment" was rated as "low confidence." The only mention of the word "low" comes when she mentions Karoline Leavitt's statement that this was leaked by a "low-level loser."

CNN is now going back to their 51 Intelligence Liars for support:

Jake Tapper claimed the strikes did nothing, and then was contradicted by his guest. This did not change his "reporting" at all.

Over at dying network CBS, Stephen Colbert literally did a dance to celebrate the false claim that Iran still had nukes and could still destroy Tel Aviv or US cities.

It's time for Trump to file another billion dollar lawsuit.

posted by Ace at 05:38 PM

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