Claims and counterclaims fly around Guardian Manafort-Assange scoop
By Jon Allsop, CJR
NOVEMBER 29, 2018
... Both Manafort and WikiLeaks strongly denied that the meetings took place. Manafort called The Guardian’s story “deliberately libelous” and said he was weighing his legal options. WikiLeaks, meanwhile, tweeted that it was willing to bet The Guardian a million dollars and “its editors head” that the paper was wrong, then started to crowdfund a lawsuit (as of this morning, it posted $33,000 in donations). No other news outlet has yet been able to confirm The Guardian’s reporting ...
... yesterday .. Politico published an article by “Alex Finley,” who was identified, at the bottom of the post, as a former CIA officer writing under a pseudonym. “Finley” suggests, without citing any real evidence, that malicious actors—Russia, perhaps—may have fabricated the Manafort–Assange story, then planted it to discredit The Guardian ...
... The Mueller beat has always been characterized by uncertainty: even excellent reporting has relied on a very incomplete picture. And what we do know sits within a vipers’ nest of double-crossing and deception. Just before The Guardian story broke this week, Mueller’s team alleged that Manafort lied to them after striking a deal to help them; then it emerged that Manafort’s lawyer had repeatedly contacted Trump’s legal team during that period of cooperation. Manafort is angling for a presidential pardon, some speculated. Yesterday, in an interview with the New York Post, Trump refused to rule that out.
Only time will tell if The Guardian successfully navigated this thicket of lies. For the time being, its story should at least be taken seriously, despite legitimate doubt. Just because other outlets can’t verify it does not make it untrue, as New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt noted eloquently on his paper’s podcast, The Daily, yesterday. “We’re at a stage in the Mueller–Trump story where we’re sort of looking to see whether there is another shoe to drop,” Schmidt says. “Whether there is another big story here that moves the narrative forward, or if we simply know as much as we’re going to know” ...
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/guardian_manafort_assange_mueller.php