Joel B. Pollak 4 Sep 2020
The Atlantic published a story Thursday evening that claimed President Donald Trump called the fallen American soldiers in a World War I cemetery “suckers†and “losers†in 2018. The author, Jeffrey Goldberg, cited four anonymous sources.
Nearly a dozen current and former Trump administration officials disputed the story. One, notably, was John Bolton, the former National Security Advisor who says he will not vote for Trump. “I was there,†he said, and “I didn’t hear that.â€
the Atlantic story are refuted by documentary evidence. The article claims, for instance, that Trump refused to visit the cemetery because the rain would ruin his hair. Bolton’s tell-all book said otherwise; so do official documents.
What is more interesting than the details of the story is how it was produced, and how it was rolled out. It has the appearance of a well-coordinated, well-executed campaign of disinformation, utilizing the full toolbox available to the Democratic Party.
The article was published Thursday evening. By Friday morning, a left-wing group called Vote Vets had not only produced an ad based on the article, but had aired it on Morning Joe — MSNBC’s early-morning flagship news and opinion show.
Meanwhile, the article spread across social media like a brush fire in a derecho. It trended at the top of Twitter; it was shared widely on Facebook, all without any of the “fact checks†that typically accompany disputed news reports on such platforms.
The Biden campaign issued a statement Thursday night — “If the revelations in today’s Atlantic article are true†— and held a press call Friday morning. The call featured, among others, Khizr Khan — the Gold Star father who attacked Trump in 2016.
A short time later, Biden himself held a press briefing on the U.S. economy. Though he was expected to discuss the August jobs report — which came in better than expected, at 1.4 million jobs added — he led with an angry tirade about the article.
more
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/09/04/pollak-the-stunning-synergy-of-the-atlantics-anonymous-attack-on-president-donald-trump/