Clinton's Russia Attack On Trump Immediately Debunked By...The New York Times
For someone who likes to admonish her opponents for pushing "conspiracy theories" every time she finds herself embroiled scandal, Hillary Clinton seems to be more than willing to don the occasional tinfoil hat herself.
In her latest efforts to distract the public from the FBI's recent bombshell announcement, Clinton is claiming that GOP nominee Donald Trump maintains a "secret server" that privately communicates with Russia.
On Monday evening, Clinton tweeted out several "serious questions" about Trump's "secret server":
It's time for Trump to answer serious questions about his ties to Russia. https://t.co/D8oSmyVAR4 pic.twitter.com/07dRyEmPjX
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 31, 2016
Clinton's accusations against Trump were based on a story from left-wing Slate magazine entitled "Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?" The story cites "a group of computer scientists" who supposedly uncovered a private server meant to communicate with a Russian bank with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Several other left-leaning outlets including Mother Jones and NBC News published similar articles on Trump's supposed covert communications with the Kremlin-backed financial institute.
Unfortunately for the conspiracy-theorists, The New York Times debunked the story within a day.
In an article entitled "Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia" published on Tuesday, The Times reported:
F.B.I. officials spent weeks examining computer data showing an odd stream of activity to a Trump Organization server and Alfa Bank. Computer logs obtained by The New York Times show that two servers at Alfa Bank sent more than 2,700 “look-up” messages — a first step for one system’s computers to talk to another — to a Trump-connected server beginning in the spring. But the F.B.I. ultimately concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts.
The Washington Post published a similar article entitled "Flood of scoops about Donald Trump and Russia adds up to…not much", which reported that investigations into a so-called secret server had come up empty.
So just how bad was this story?
According to reporter Sam Biddle of The Intercept, the flimsy secret server story had been shopped to various outlets for a month, with at least five different outlets passing after deciding that the details didn't add up:
FWIW at least five outlets including The Intercept have been looking at this for weeks and decided it didn't add up https://t.co/iU19ejgIVW
— Sam Biddle (@samfbiddle) November 1, 2016
Noah Shachtman, executive editor of The Daily Beast, made a similar statement on his outlet passing on the story:
@pwnallthethings that's why we ultimately passed on it.
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) November 1, 2016
Swing and a miss, Hillary.
Meanwhile, a real secret server continues to inflict damage Hillary Clinton's campaign.
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