Media jump gun on branding Trump claim on Clinton birther role 'false'

Donald Trump’s claim Friday that Hillary Clinton and her 2008 campaign “started” the Obama birther controversy touched off a series of instant fact-checking from media outlets who branded the claim “false” – but it seems they may have jumped the gun.

“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it,” Trump said in Washington, D.C. Friday, referring to theories President Obama was not born in the United States. “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period.”

Media outlets immediately branded his claim about Hillary Clinton's involvement as an outright falsehood.

“Trump admits Obama born in U.S. but falsely blames Clinton for starting rumors,” declared The Washington Post.

“Trump drops claim but falsely accuses Clinton of starting it,” said The New York Times.

However, that assertion was itself cast into doubt when former McClatchy D.C. Bureau Chief James Asher tweeted that long-time Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal had encouraged him to investigate the rumor that Obama was not born in America.

#CNN says #Hillary team in 2008 never raised #birther issue. #SidBlumenthal, long-time #HRC buddy, told me in person #Obama born in #kenya
— James Asher (@jimasher) September 16, 2016

@HillaryClinton So why did your man #sidblumenthal spread the #obama birther rumor to me in 2008, asking us to investigate? Remember?
— James Asher (@jimasher) September 16, 2016

His version of events raises questions about the Clinton campaign’s denials that it had anything to do with the controversy, but media outlets didn’t suggest any gray area.

Clinton 2008 campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle seemed to muddy the waters even further when, in denying that there was a connection, admitted that there was an Iowa volunteer who forwarded an email promoting the conspiracy.

“There was a volunteer coordinator, I believe in late 2007, I think in December, one of our volunteer coordinators in one of the counties in Iowa. I don't recall whether they were an actual paid staffer, but they did forward an e-mail that promoted the conspiracy,” she said on CNN, adding that Clinton herself made the decision to fire the person “immediately.”

Trump’s campaign immediately jumped on the Doyle interview, saying it vindicated Trump.

“With Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager admitting on national television and on Twitter that they promoted the rumors surrounding now-President Obama’s heritage, Mr. Trump has been fully vindicated,” spokesman Jason Miller said in a statement

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/09/16/media-jump-gun-on-branding-trump-claim-on-clinton-birther-role-false.html

MSNBC, Politico, Bloomberg, CNN, McClatchy and More Confirm: Hillary Clinton's 2008 Campaign Spread 'Birtherism' About Barack Obama - Breitbart

NOTE FROM SENIOR MANAGEMENT: Andrew Breitbart was never a “Birther,” and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of “Birtherism.” In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.

NEW YORK CITY, New York — The mainstream media, from Bloomberg News to MSNBC to Politico to the Washington Post and more, have all confirmed: Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 campaign for president did substantially further the birther movement.

Sean Hannity, the nationally syndicated radio host and Fox News anchor, said on his radio program during an appearance this reporter made on Friday evening:

The only time I ever, in my life, had any contact with Hillary Clinton supporters—you know what message I was getting, in 2007 and 2008, I was kind of a lone voice out here in talking about the radical roots of Obama and Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright and Frank Marshall Davis and Black Liberation theology and [Bill] Ayers and [Bernardine] Dohrn and I was trying to warn the country that it was going to be a disaster, I wish I turned out to be wrong but it’s probably even worse a disaster than I ever thought—well, guess which campaign was encouraging me back in the day to do all of this?

“The Hillary Clinton campaign,” Hannity replied, answering his own question just after this reporter answered it the same way.

“Word was getting back to me [that they were saying] ‘you’re the only one, we really admire your work,’” Hannity said. “Pretty interesting, right?”

LISTEN TO BREITBART’S WASHINGTON POLITICAL EDITOR MATTHEW BOYLE ON ‘HANNITY’

It’s not just Hannity, who’s opposed to Clinton’s election and is a supporter of GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, who has confirmed that Clinton’s 2008 campaign and its allies pushed this.

In fact, Politico, in 2011, published a piece from two of its top reporters at the time—Ben Smith and Byron Tau, who have gone on respectively to BuzzFeed and the Wall Street Journal—specifically detailing how the Clinton campaign was behind birther rumors spreading.

Smith and Tau wrote in the Politico piece:

Just when it appeared that public interest was fading, celebrity developer Donald Trump has revived the theory that President Barack Obama was born overseas and helped expose the depth to which the notion has taken root—a New York Times poll Thursday found that a plurality of Republicans believe it. If you haven’t been trolling the fever swamps of online conspiracy sites or opening those emails from Uncle Larry, you may well wonder: Where did this idea come from? Who started it? And is there a grain of truth there?The answer lies in Democratic, not Republican politics, and in the bitter, exhausting spring of 2008. At the time, the Democratic presidential primary was slipping away from Hillary Clinton and some of her most passionate supporters grasped for something, anything that would deal a final reversal to Barack Obama.

Tau and Smith detailed in a lengthy four-page-long investigation how in April 2008, when Clinton was slipping in her battle against Obama for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, “Clinton supporters”—as they say—circulated an anonymous email chain that pushed the theory.

“Barack Obama’s mother was living in Kenya with his Arab-African father late in her pregnancy. She was not allowed to travel by plane then, so Barack Obama was born there and his mother then took him to Hawaii to register his birth,” the email that Clinton supporters circulated read.

Those anonymous people were hardly the only ones. In fact, as Joshua Green reported in The Atlantic in August 2008, a March, 19, 2007 strategy memo from longtime Clinton adviser Mark Penn proves that the Clinton campaign itself was pushing the conspiracy theory. Penn, in the memo, advocated that Clinton target Obama’s “lack of American roots.”

In fact, Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle confirmed that Penn wrote the memo via Twitter on Friday of this week—and also appeared on CNN to confirm that he did while working for the campaign and that he was fired for it.

During her CNN appearance with Wolf Blitzer, Doyle made it clear that Penn was a staffer and was fired by Clinton herself for spreading the rumor:

BLITZER: Someone supporting Hillary Clinton was trying to promote this so-called Birther issue? What happened?

DOYLE: So we — absolutely, the campaign nor Hillary did not start the Birther movement, period, end of story there. There was a volunteer coordinator, I believe, in late 2007, I believe, in December, one of our volunteer coordinators in one of the counties in Iowa — I don’t recall whether they were an actual paid staffer, but they did forward an email that promoted the conspiracy.

BLITZER: The Birther conspiracy?

DOYLE: Yeah, Hillary made the decision immediately to let that person go. We let that person go. And it was so, beyond the pale, Wolf, and so not worthy of the kind of campaign that certainly Hillary wanted to run.

That’s not all. In fact, former Washington, D.C., McClatchy newspapers bureau chief James Asher on Twitter directly confronted Clinton questioning why her close friend and adviser Sidney Blumenthal was personally pitching him the story on Obama’s birthplace back in the 2008 election.

@HillaryClinton So why did your man #sidblumenthal spread the #obama birther rumor to me in 2008, asking us to investigate? Remember?

— James Asher (@jimasher) September 16, 2016

NBC News’ Mark Murray seemed to confirm that detail as well.

If someone shopped the story — and no media outlet ran with it — is that really "starting" it? Not how I see it. https://t.co/ZUL42Luna8

— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) September 16, 2016

As of Friday evening, Clinton’s campaign has not responded to a request for comment from Breitbart News. CNN’s Dan Merica says that Blumenthal has denied the accusation.

former McClatchy DC bureau chief @jimasher tweeting that Sid Blumenthal pushed birther lie to him in 2008. Asking for comment

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 16, 2016

Sid Blumenthal tells @danmericaCNN: "This is false. Period."

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 16, 2016

Not only that, though, but as MSNBC’s Chris Matthews detailed back in 2008, Hillary Clinton herself refused to put the rumors to bed.

“Hillary Clinton seemed to pass up an opportunity to once and for all put to rest the false rumor that Barack Obama is a Muslim,” Matthews said on his show on March 3, 2008.

Chris Matthews 3/4/08: "Why wouldn‘t she say, of course, he‘s not a Muslim. He‘s a Christian." https://t.co/ATnJrNokmE

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 16, 2016

Matthews said that Clinton was “going after him [Obama] on this Muslim issue” and that it was clear she had given up on “a clear chance to dismiss these bad stories being pushed by bad people that he‘s not the religion he clearly [is] to try to disturb people. She had a clear opportunity on ’60 Minutes’ to clear that up and she didn‘t take it.”

Specifically, Matthews was referring to how Hillary Clinton said on 60 Minutes with Steve Kroft regarding Obama, the transcript a courtesy of now BuzzFeed editor then Politico reporter Ben Smith:

KROFT: “You don’t believe that Senator Obama’s a Muslim?”

CLINTON: “Of course not. I mean, that, you know, there is no basis for that. I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn’t any reason to doubt that.”

KROFT: “You said you’d take Senator Obama at his word that he’s not…a Muslim. You don’t believe that he’s…”

CLINTON: “No. No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know.”

KROFT: “It’s just scurrilous…?”

CLINTON: “Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors, that I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time.”

Smith, writing in Politico, noted that Clinton’s “denial seems something other than ironclad, and the interviewer goes back at her on the question.” He also calls it a “weird moment of TV.”

In fact, Smith’s then-Politico colleague Roger Simon then appeared on Matthews’ program on March 3 to discuss it—saying he thought what Clinton said was a “bad way to put it.” Simon said:

I think it was exceptional what she said. I think it was a bad way to put it. You can say things on television that we all regret, as we all know, but this was the last thing she said. She could have made her answer more clear and less divisive, but instead she went the other way. He‘s not a Muslim, as far as I know. I don‘t think that was a good thing to say. Maybe she didn‘t want to make it that way. But when she was asked today to explain it, she went back to her victimhood thing. Look, I‘ve been the subject of unfair attacks. Let’s talk about me. I don‘t think that cleared the air.

Simon still works at Politico.

Margaret Carlson, a Bloomberg News journalist, said on that MSNBC Hardball episode with Matthews and Simon that Clinton did not have “enough sympathy” to once and for all put an end to the birther issue.

“She did say, I am the victim of scurrilous rumors, and so, I have sympathy,” Carlson said. “But she doesn‘t have enough sympathy to say, of course he‘s not a Muslim. This is rumors. This is Internet stuff that‘s been spread.”

Bloomberg’s John Heilemann—the co-author of the 2008 campaign book Game Change—and MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough also confirmed that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was behind mainstreaming the birther theories.

“For Hillary Clinton to come out and criticize anybody for spreading the rumors about Barack Obama when it all started with her and her campaign passing things around in the Democratic primary,” Scarborough said. “Now, listen, the Republicans are wrong for doing what they’re doing. But it started with Hillary Clinton. And it was spread by the Clinton team.”

After some debate when others on the program challenged Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski—who agreed with Scarborough and pointed back to the 2008 60 Minutes interview that Clinton did—Heilemann was consulted and confirmed “it was the case” that Hillary Clinton’s campaign spread the rumors around.

There are countless more examples, but everyone in the media now saying that Donald Trump is wrong for stating truthfully that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was behind furthering these rumors is factually inaccurate. And since Solis Doyle let the cat out of the bag on CNN, Trump campaign senior communications adviser Jason Miller blasted everyone.

SIREN: Former McClatchy DC Bureau Chief speaks out: https://t.co/DBzNEtewqy

— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) September 16, 2016

CLINTON’S 2008 CAMPAIGN MANAGER ON WHETHER THEY PROMOTED RUMORS ABOUT PRES. OBAMA’S HERITAGE: “YEAH” https://t.co/BxcSYXRcGz

— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) September 16, 2016

Finally admitting it!!! https://t.co/EuqFHniJbJ

— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) September 16, 2016

“With Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager admitting on national television and on Twitter that they promoted the rumors surrounding now-President Obama’s heritage, Mr. Trump has been fully vindicated,” Miller said. “Not only was a Clinton campaign worker blamed and fired over the activity, we have now been informed that Secretary Clinton was aware of what was going on, with Clinton’s campaign manager even apologizing to Obama’s campaign manager. This still does not explain why Hillary Clinton failed to fire her chief strategist Mark Penn on the spot over the memo he sent her advocating she portray Obama as ‘fundamentally’ foreign. Hillary Clinton didn’t tell the truth about her emails and she didn’t tell the truth about her campaign’s role in pushing these rumors in 2008. This pattern is never going to change, and it’s why nobody trusts Hillary Clinton.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/16/msnbc-politico-bloomberg-cnn-mcclatchy-confirm-hillary-clintons-2008-campaign-spread-birtherism/
*Embedded Links *

Somebody in the Clinton camp needs to grow a brain!

Journalist: Sidney Blumenthal Raised Obama Birther Issue in 2008

The former Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Co. claimed on Twitter Friday that longtime Hillary Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal raised the issue of President Barack Obama's birthplace with him in 2008.

Asher is now the Washington editor for Injustice Watch, an investigative nonprofit organization.

Here is his post, which was first reported by Mediaite:

#CNN says #Hillary team in 2008 never raised #Obama's birth in #Kenya. Who is closer to #HRC than #SidBlumenthal, who told me face-to-face.
— James Asher (@jimasher) September 16, 2016

http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/sidney-blumenthal-obama-birther-issue/2016/09/16/id/748733/

Bombshell: ‘Washington Post’ Confirms Hillary Clinton Started the Birther Movement


by John Nolte 26 Sep 2015 (notice the date.... last year!)

New analysis from the Washington Post removes any doubt that the anti-Obama Birther movement was started in 2007 and 2008 by Hillary Clinton, her campaign, and her Democrat supporters.

As Breitbart News reported earlier this month, other left-wing media outlets, like Politico and the Guardian, had already traced the Birther movement back to Democrats and Ms. Clinton. Using his wayback machine on Wednesday, the Post‘s David Weigel took an in-depth look at the origins of the false rumors that President Obama is a practicing Muslim who was not born in a America. Weigel’s reporting contains the final pieces of a very disturbing puzzle.

What Weigel found and re-reported was astounding, details many of us had forgotten or never heard of, including a 2007 bombshell memo from the Clinton campaign’s chief strategist.

What the left-wing Weigel left out of his reporting was even more astounding, including a documented confrontation between Clinton and Obama over the Birther issue, and video of Hillary herself stoking doubt about Obama’s Christian faith.

Because the Washington Post‘s primary job is to protect Democrats, Weigel’s headline and conclusion are an objective lie. Despite the fact that what he uncovered (and chose to not cover) points directly to Ms. Clinton and her campaign, Weigel concludes she had nothing to do with the Birther movement.

Naturally, Weigel’s own facts support the exact opposite conclusion.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/09/26/washington-post-confirms-hillary-clinton-started-the-birther-movement/

Chicken coming home to roost,hmm?

All the CRAP going on with HRD & then she says ' DJH should apologize, for birther accusations '

I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.
Did she/ they think people forgot?
Or that if they repeat something enough, the masses will buy it? .... Yes they did.

Aaachh!

The debates will be rigged because if they weren't Clinton wouldn't even have to show up to lose, and a good moderator will back up her dump truck full of dirt and dump it on her!

Trump's no angel, but he hasn't done anything yet to jeopardize our country. He'll get his chance hopefully since the only other real choice is Hitlery

September 16, 2016

 Hillary Clinton on Twitter  (Rant)

http://www.libertywritersnews.com/2016/09/right-trumps-epic-press-conference-today-hillary-something/
*Embedded Links , video & tweets *

This makes Kanye West look Smart!



    What Trump just did is a disgrace.

    — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 16, 2016

    The birther lie is what turned Trump from an ordinary reality TV star into a political figure. That origin story can’t be unwritten.

    — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 16, 2016

    Trump has spent years peddling a racist conspiracy aimed at undermining the first African American president. He can’t just take it back.

    — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 16, 2016

    Expressing zero regret for years of pushing a racist conspiracy theory, Trump again appointed himself judge & jury on @POTUS‘s citizenship.

    — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 16, 2016

    When Trump tries to deflect blame for denying that @POTUS was born in America, he is lying. https://t.co/lje3lKrZQypic.twitter.com/yq9IWnvXUc

    — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 16, 2016


Yep. Every Single one of those babies is an authentic Hillary Clinton tweet. Never before has she ever blown up on the internet like that. Hell, she doesn’t even know how to use her emails!

Former Pro-Hillary Journo Describes Sid Blumenthal's Slimy Rumor-Mongering in 2008

Another journalist --the second one in two days -- came out Saturday to confess that Sid Blumenthal aggressively shopped the rumor to him in 2008 about then-Senator Barack Obama being born in Kenya. Meanwhile, former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau spent some time on Twitter today trying to stamp out the new narrative.

That Jon Favreau is a funny guy. A wordsmith who, it turns out, is also a jokesmith.

Here he is, for instance, yucking it up with a Hillary Clinton cut-out at a party after the 2008 election:

john-favreau-hillary-clinton.

Funny stuff. That's Favreau on the left by the way -- years before the GOP #WarOnWomen, so no harm, no foul.

Favreau's rakish sense of humor made another appearance last May on the Charlie Rose show when he, along with two other former Obama speechwriters, Jon Lovett and David Litt, were on the PBS program to gush about Obama and the art of speechwriting. When the subject of Obama's infamous, oft-repeated false health-care promise came up, they all had a good laugh at the taxpayers' expense.

“Lovett wrote the line about, ‘If you like your insurance, you can keep it,’” Favreau grinned with a gleam in his eye. “How dare you!” Lovett responded, as the room erupted with laughter.

Over five million individual health plan holders lost their insurance in the fall of 2013 after Obama promised they wouldn't. Tens of millions more have been clobbered with skyrocketing premiums. Six and a half years after the unpopular law passed and three years after it was launched, it remains unpopular. The RCP polling average shows only 39.2 percent of the American people like ObamaCare and 48.8 percent are against it.

But it's pretty funny how Team Obama pulled the wool over everyone's eyes, I guess. Like they did with "shovel ready jobs" (#LOL), "an anti-Mohammed YouTube video caused the Benghazi attack" (#ROTFL), "ISIS is the jayvee team" (#LMAO), and so many other witty whoppers over the years.

You would think a guy with Jon Favreau's particular talents would be able to recognize a lie when he saw one, but when he saw former press secretary for George W. Bush Ari Fleischer tweet that Hillary Clinton ought to apologize to Obama because her 2008 campaign was the originator of “birther” theories, he was indignant. How dare Ari Fleischer say such a thing. Why, that's a shameful, disgusting lie!

Via Twitchy:

.@AriFleischer you're lying, Ari - and you're smart enough to know you're lying, which makes it even worse.
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) September 16, 2016

.@AriFleischer you're lying, and you know it, and it's disgusting.
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) September 16, 2016

As PJ Media reported Friday, a McClatchy Washington Bureau chief claimed Sid Blumenthal shopped that rumor to him in 2008. Another (former) Clinton loyalist in the media made the same claim on Saturday but with much more juicy detail.

In "Confessions of a Hillary Insider," Larry Johnson of No Quarter said that he is "shocked at the audacity of Hillary Clinton to decry Donald Trump as a birther because her campaign not only pushed that item in a bid to discredit Barack Obama, but mounted a sustained campaign attack Obama on a broad array of issues."

How do I know? I was part of that effort and was in regular email and phone coordination with Sidney Blumenthal. Sidney was the conduit who fed damaging material to me that I subsequently posted on my blog.

In some cases Sid Blumenthal actually provided a draft piece that I would slightly modify and publish under my name. Most of the time, however, Sid provided background information and researched material that I would use to craft pieces. How many? I am providing the links to 63 blog articles that I posted (and in one case was posted by Susan Hudgens, who assisted with the blog) between January 2008 and June 30, 2008.

Here is simple summary of material (in writing or through a verbal briefing) that I received from Sid?

Information surrounding the corrupt business relationship between Barack Obama and Tony Rezko.

Information about Barack Obama’s ties to Palestinian radicals.

Information concerning Barack Obama’s longstanding ties to the American terrorist, Bill Ayers.

Information concerning Barack Obama’s close ties to radical clerics–i.e., Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger.

Information concerning allegations that Barack Obama was not a natural born citizen.

Information concerning Barack Obama being adopted by Indonesian Muslim Lolo Soetoro.

The big Kahuna of the anti-Obama dump was the allegation that Republicans had a tape of Michelle Obama in which she used the disparaging term “Whitey.” I published that after being told about the “tape” by Sid Blumenthal. (I learned a few weeks later that the story of the tape actually originated with Media Matter’s David Brock and he confirmed its existence to me in person).

Johnson continues:

Listening to Hillary Clinton cry crocodile tears over Trump’s questioning Obama’s birth place and eligibility to be President in 2011 as a “racist” attack is the ultimate example that Hillary is cynical and dishonest. Yes, it is true that the words, “Obama is a muslim” or “Obama is not a natural born American” never passed her lips. But it is also true that that people very close to her, such as Sidney Blumenthal, were pushing those stories and trying desperately to promote those memes.

Hillary knew about all of these lines of attack on Obama. In fact I was told by Sid on one occasion in the summer of 2008 that the Big Dog (Bill of course) was very pleased with the pieces going up at NoQuarterUSA and thought they were helping Hillary.

Blumenthal denies it all, of course:

Statement from Sid Blumenthal to @foxnews, denies starting #Birther rumor. pic.twitter.com/EugA5QsKIZ
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) September 17, 2016

Whom to believe? The two journos who are finally willing after eight years to speak out about this, or Sid Blumenthal, David (Bouffant) Brock, and of course Jon Favreau, who is still splitting a gut over the "you can keep your plan" Obamacare lie?

<continue
http://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/09/18/former-pro-hillary-journo-describes-sid-blumenthals-slimy-rumor-mongering-in-2008/?singlepage=true

DOES HILLARY HAVE A SID BLUMENTHAL BIRTHER PROBLEM?

“Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign Monday of ‘shameful offensive fear-mongering’ by circulating a photo as an attempted smear,” the Politico reported in February of 2008. “Plouffe said in a statement: ‘On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election. This is part of a disturbing pattern that led her county chairs to resign in Iowa, her campaign chairman to resign in New Hampshire, and it’s exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world,’ said Plouffe.”

As the McClatchy News Service reported yesterday, during the 2008 campaign, “former McClatchy Washington Bureau Chief James Asher tweeted Friday that Blumenthal had ‘told me in person’ that Obama was born in Kenya…‘Blumenthal and I met together in my office and he strongly urged me to investigate the exact place of President Obama’s birth, which he suggested was in Kenya. We assigned a reporter to go to Kenya, and that reporter determined that the allegation was false.’”

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/244157/

It's amazing the actions being taken on the left to crucify Trump for his actions on this when it was the Clinton campaign of 2008 that started it

The wicked witch and her VP are now calling their own media liars as the facts are being checked and aired to the public after she has raged that Trump is racist and should apologize to Oblowme and the public.... for something she started.... as usual