Perhaps most damaged were the individual anchors and reporters who bet their careers on proving that President Donald Trump conspired with a foreign power to steal an election. These journalists authored fake stories, gave breathless coverage to the alleged scandal and ultimately misled the public.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019ve compiled a list of some of the worst offenders.<\/span><\/p>\n Rachel Maddow. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has been one of the most prominent voices on the Russian conspiracy, spending more time on the collusion narrative than any other issue, according to The Intercept<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Between Feb. 20 and March 31, 2017, Russia coverage accounted for 53 percent of Maddow\u2019s broadcasts.<\/span><\/p>\n Maddow was so devastated<\/strong><\/span><\/a> by the news that Mueller wasn\u2019t indicting the president or his family last Friday that she was holding back tears during her opening monologue. Maddow\u2019s viewers were apparently unhappy as well \u2014 she dropped half-a-million<\/strong><\/span><\/a> viewers the week after the Mueller report dropped.<\/span><\/p>\n Raju and Herb were responsible for a fake news story<\/a><\/strong><\/span> at CNN claiming that Donald Trump Jr. had advance access to stolen Democratic documents and emails from WikiLeaks. According to the duo\u2019s reporting, Trump Jr. received an email with an encryption key for the documents on Sep. 4, 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n As other outlets later clarified, Trump Jr. received the email on Sep. 14, one day after WikiLeaks had already released the documents publicly.<\/span><\/p>\n These two reporters were also behind another CNN story that required a major update, regarding former Trump attorney Michael Cohen\u2019s 2017 testimony to Congress and alleged edits made by Trump\u2019s legal team. (RELATED: CNN Adds Major Update To Michael Cohen Story<\/span>)<\/a> <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Bernstein and Sciutto reported in August 2018 that Michael Cohen was prepared to tell Congress that Trump knew about his son meeting with Russians in Trump Tower<\/strong><\/span><\/a> before the meeting occurred.<\/span><\/p>\n The story flew in the face of Cohen\u2019s prior testimony that he did not know about the meeting in advance. Cohen\u2019s attorney at the time, Lanny Davis<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, later said that he was a source for CNN\u2019s story and made a mistake by claiming Cohen had any information regarding the Trump Tower meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n CNN has refused to retract the story.<\/span><\/p>\n Bertrand authored a story<\/a><\/strong><\/span> in February 2018 that made a big to-do about Roger Stone\u2019s \u201csecret messages\u201d with WikiLeaks, suggesting that Stone was an intermediary between WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n The full communications between Stone and WikiLeaks, which occurred over Twitter DM, are relatively innocuous<\/a><\/strong><\/span> and show WikiLeaks chastising Stone for public perception that they had a relationship with one another. Stone was never charged for allegedly lying about his communications with WikiLeaks. \u00a0(EXCLUSIVE: Roger Stone\u2019s Full WikiLeaks Conversation<\/span>)<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe content of the exchange with WikiLeaks shows neither any claim by me to have any information beyond what Assange himself had said publicly and reiterates the statement by WikiLeaks that I had not communicated with them prior to the release of the DNC emails that were both accurate and so damaging to Hillary,\u201d Stone told The Daily Caller.<\/span><\/p>\n Dilanian claimed in an August 2017 report that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort\u2019s notes<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0during the infamous Trump Tower meeting referenced political \u201cdonations\u201d to the Republican National Committee (RNC).<\/span><\/p>\n A spokesperson for former Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley disputed the report, and Dilanian\u2019s sourcing quickly fell apart. One source said they actually saw the word \u201cdonor\u201d instead of \u201cdonation,\u201d and the other source would only offer that he saw a vague reference to political contributions.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt is 100 percent false \u2026 Mr. Manafort provided the Senate Intelligence Committee with the facts and his notes so this speculation and conjecture is pointless and wrong,\u201d a spokesperson for Manafort told NBC News.<\/span><\/p>\n Dilanian also \u201cindependently confirmed\u201d CNN\u2019s bunk story<\/strong><\/span><\/a> claiming Trump Jr. had advance access to WikiLeaks documents.<\/span><\/p>\n MSNBC host Chris Hayes told late-night comedian Stephen Colbert in March 2018<\/strong><\/span><\/a> that the simplest explanation for the behavior of Trump and the people around him is that they\u2019re all \u201csuper guilty\u201d of collusion.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy is everyone lying to investigators? Why is everyone making stuff up? Why are people acting super guilty? They\u2019re acting super guilty because they\u2019re guilty,\u201d Hayes offered.<\/span><\/p>\n Hayes also floated impeachment<\/strong><\/span><\/a> in January 2019 over a Mueller-disputed BuzzFeed News report that claimed Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about potential business deals in Moscow.<\/span><\/p>\n Harding published a questionable report in November claiming that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met secretly with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n The report was partially sourced by an Ecuadorian journalist who has a history of faking documents, and both Assange and Manafort have vehemently denied the story. (RELATED: Alleged Fabricator Contributed To The Guardian\u2019s Assange, Manafort Report<\/span>)<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The Intercept\u2019s Glenn Greenwald also spotted red flags<\/a><\/strong><\/span> in the report, noting that there is not a whiff of physical evidence that Manafort visited the Ecuadorian Embassy to see Assange and that the sourcing on the story seems quite thin.<\/span><\/p>\n Harding is also the best-selling author<\/strong><\/span><\/a> of the book \u201cCollusion,\u201d an accomplishment cloaked in irony now that Mueller has found none.<\/span><\/p>\n Foer, who now writes for The Atlantic, wrote an explosive piece<\/strong><\/span><\/a> for Slate shortly before the 2016 election that grappled with the idea that a server from the Trump campaign was linked to a Russian bank. After Hillary Clinton tweeted about the tenuous connection, other news outlets began picking apart Foer\u2019s reporting.<\/span><\/p>\n The Washington Post noted<\/strong><\/span><\/a> that the connection between the servers could be because of spam emails or random internet bugs. The New York Times, who had also been looking into the servers, said that the FBI investigated<\/strong><\/span><\/a> the issue for weeks and could find nothing beyond innocuous explanations for the issue.<\/span><\/p>\n Foer acknowledged the issues with his original report in a follow-up piece in The Atlantic<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, admitting, \u201cNearly two years have passed since the publication of that piece \u2014 and there\u2019s rarely a week when I don\u2019t think about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The FBI relied on an Isikoff article to obtain a surveillance warrant against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, according to a memo released<\/a><\/strong><\/span> by House Republicans in February 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n Isikoff\u2019s article, which claims Page had secret meetings with Kremlin insiders, was based on the unverified dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. Isikoff said he was stunned to find out his article was used to justify a surveillance warrant, especially considering the warrant application already cited the dossier elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s self-referential,\u201d he said of the article and its reliance on the dossier. \u201cMy story is about the FBI\u2019s own investigation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Isikoff could very well be responsible for the confusion. The Daily Caller News Foundation\u2019s Chuck Ross reported that<\/a><\/strong><\/span> Isikoff used \u201cvague sourcing\u201d in his article on Page and failed to indicate that his reporting was the result of the Democratic-funded research in the dossier.<\/span><\/p>\n Corn was responsible for another article<\/a><\/strong><\/span> that relied on the unverified Steele dossier. Shortly before the election, Corn reported that a \u201cveteran spy\u201d gave the dossier to the FBI and that the spy is \u201ca credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The FBI later cut ties with Steele when they found him to be unreliable.<\/span><\/p>\n Former FBI official James Baker told Congress in October that Corn, his longtime friend, was \u201canxious\u201d to provide him with the dossier so that the FBI could \u201cauthenticate\u201d its contents.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI was merely doing what a journalist does: trying to get more information on a story I was pursuing,\u201d Corn claimed.<\/span><\/p>\n Corn and Isikoff co-authored a book titled<\/strong><\/span><\/a> \u201cRussian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin\u2019s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump,\u201d which alleges<\/strong><\/span><\/a> that Trump and Putin have been\u00a0\u201cstriving to collaborate for years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Bensinger obtained the Steele dossier from\u00a0David Kramer, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, and published the entire thing<\/a><\/strong><\/span> on BuzzFeed without attempting to verify any of the claims in the document. BuzzFeed justified the decision by noting that the document is of public interest and that president-elect Trump had been briefed on its contents.<\/span><\/p>\n BuzzFeed\u2019s publication of the dossier warned readers that the document contained<\/strong><\/span><\/a> unverified and flat-out false information, but it was the first time Americans read the absurd allegations that Trump had hired Russian hookers to give him \u201cgolden showers.\u201d (RELATED: MacCallum Grills Swalwell For Standing By Debunked Dossier<\/span>)<\/a> <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n BuzzFeed News editor-in-chief Ben Smith defended the outlet\u2019s decision to publish the dossier.<\/span><\/p>\n Leopold and Cormier published a story in BuzzFeed claiming that President Donald Trump instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress in 2017 about efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n In an unprecedented move, special counsel Mueller\u2019s office disputed the report<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, stating, \u201cBuzzFeed\u2019s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel\u2019s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen\u2019s Congressional testimony are not accurate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Cohen later testified to Congress in March 2019 and further undermined<\/a><\/strong><\/span> BuzzFeed\u2019s report when he said Trump never \u201cdirectly\u201d told him \u201cto lie to Congress.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Miller withheld evidence<\/strong><\/span><\/a> he obtained through his own reporting that could have debunked one of the key claims in the Steele dossier.<\/span><\/p>\n The dossier alleges that Michael Cohen visited Prague in\u00a0August 2016 to meet with Kremlin officials, which Cohen has repeatedly denied in testimonies to Congress and elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n Miller quietly revealed that CIA and FBI sources told him that they don\u2019t believe the trip ever happened during an event in October 2018. The event did not air on television until December on C-SPAN.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve talked to sources at the FBI and the CIA and elsewhere \u2014 they don\u2019t believe that ever happened,\u201d Miller, a Pulitzer-prize winner, said.<\/span><\/p>\n The information was never reported in The Washington Post and was not detailed in Miller\u2019s book, \u201cThe Apprentice: Trump, Russia, and the Subversion of American Democracy<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Ross temporarily tanked the stock market in December 2017 when he erroneously reported that candidate Trump ordered then-national security adviser Michael Flynn to make contact with the Russians prior to his election. Ross cited a single anonymous source who claimed Flynn was prepared to testify about Trump\u2019s order.<\/span><\/p>\n Subsequent, accurate reporting revealed that it was actually President-elect Trump who asked Flynn to contact Russians about issues they could work on together when Trump took office, including targeting ISIS.<\/span><\/p>\n ABC News suspended Ross<\/strong><\/span><\/a> for his massive error.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Maddow.jpg\")
<\/a>Rachel Maddow (MSNBC)<\/h3>\n
Manu Raju \/ Jeremy Herb (CNN)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Carl Bernstein \/ Jim Sciutto (CNN)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Natasha Bertrand (The Atlantic)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Ken Dilanian (NBC News)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Chris Hayes (MSNBC)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Luke Harding (The Guardian)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Franklin Foer (Slate)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Michael Isikoff (Yahoo! News)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
David Corn (Mother Jones)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Ken Bensinger \/ Ben Smith (BuzzFeed News)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Jason Leopold \/ Anthony Cormier (BuzzFeed News)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Greg Miller (The Washington Post)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Brian Ross (ABC News)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Greg Gordon \/ Peter Stone (McClatchy)\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n