Dumpster Fire: NBC Reporter Thinks This Explanation Will Resolve Why They Sat on Account That Gutted Kavanaugh Accuser’s Claim
NBC News is taking some flak after it appears it sat on an account that torpedoes the sexual misconduct allegations lobbed by Julie Swetnick. She alleges that Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee who endured a brutal confirmation battle, was involved in a gang rape ring in high school. . .
Well, in September, NBC apparently knew Swetnick’s allegations were straight trash, but decided to sit on them—but went ahead and published the unverified gang rape claim. Now, that Kavanaugh has been confirmed and Swetnick, along with her attorney, Michael Avenatti, have been referred for criminal prosecution for submitting false statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee, NBC News is finally coming clean. It related to the second woman Avenatti claimed corroborated Swetnick’s tale. It turned out that wasn’t the case. . .
Was this an intentional attempt to mislead our reporters? Evidence points that way… https://t.co/MOxE8WiGK4
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) October 26, 2018
Kate Snow and Anna Schecter wrote the NBC News piece. Snow took to Twitter to explain why they decided to publish the article, which seems to be another footnote in the annals of liberal media bias. Our friends at Twitchy caught it. In all, Snow says that they ran out of time—but went ahead with Swetnick’s loony tale anyway, while saying that it was unverifiable. Yeah, maybe that’s where the red flags should have gone up. The New York Times didn’t do an original story on Swetnick precisely because they couldn’t confirm anything. The Times also didn’t run one on Deborah Ramirez, the second Kavanaugh accuser, who says he exposed himself at a college party. All the allegations against Kavanaugh were baseless, unsubstantiated gossip, dropped at the last minute and weaponized by Democrats to try and take down this nomination. They failed.
Important context to my and @annaschecter’s story regarding a second woman Michael Avenatti put forward to corroborate Julie Swetnick’s claims about Brett Kavanaugh 1/8
— Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) October 27, 2018
My interview with Ms. Swetnick aired on October 1. She was making serious claims, so we took care to provide viewers the full context around her allegations and our reporting with a 13+ min piece 2/8
— Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) October 27, 2018
We also made clear – in the interest of full transparency – that NBC News had not been able to independently verify her claims. 3/8
— Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) October 27, 2018
After repeated requests to Avenatti for corroboration of Swetnick’s story, he had conferenced us in to a call with a woman. The day after our Swetnick intvw aired, Mr. Avenatti tweeted out a sworn statement from that other woman. It was inconsistent with what she had told us. 4/8
— Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) October 27, 2018
By the time we were able to find the woman independently from Mr. Avenatti, who declined to give us her full legal name and phone number, and fully report and vet her story, the Kavanaugh confirmation process was over and the news value was limited. 5/8
— Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) October 27, 2018
To be clear – we did NOT have enough reporting to publish the second woman’s account until after Justice Kavanaugh secured enough votes for confirmation. 6/8
— Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) October 27, 2018
When Senator Grassley cited my interview with Swetnick this week when making a criminal referral, the second woman’s story became newsworthy again, so we published right away. 7/8
— Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) October 27, 2018
We always want to be clear and fully transparent around our reporting, and that’s what we’re doing here. 8/8
— Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) October 27, 2018
(Read more from “Dumpster Fire: NBC Reporter Thinks This Explanation Will Resolve Why They Sat on Account That Gutted Kavanaugh Accuser’s Claim” HERE)
Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.
