The journalist behind a new report that Russian President Vladimir Putin had potentially compromising information on former President Donald Trump and “personally authorized a secret spy agency operation” to support Trump’s 2016 candidacy reportedly has a history of writing false stories.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted Thursday that The Guardian’s Luke Harding has “published many false stories” as his latest report about Russian blackmail circulated this week.
“It was Harding who published one of the most sensationalized stories of the Trump era: that Manafort repeatedly met Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy,” he said, referring to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was in exile at the embassy in London at the time.
“It was utterly fabricated. Everyone knows it’s bulls***, never happened. yet the Guardian has never corrected or retracted it.”
Greenwald also said Harding “championed the Steele Dossier and claimed Trump was long a Russian agent.”
WARNING: The following tweet contains vulgar language that some viewers may find offensive.
It was Harding who published was one of the most sensationalized stories of the Trump era: that Manafort repeatedly met Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy. It was utterly fabricated. Everyone knows it's bullshit, never happened. Yet the Guardian has never corrected or retracted it pic.twitter.com/v86Xzr7hHt
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 15, 2021
In a new report for The Guardian, Harding wrote that Russia’s three spy agencies were ordered to find ways to support Trump’s presidential campaign to cause “social turmoil” in the United States.
“Now suddenly, Harding claims he obtained leaked highly sensitive Kremlin documents that just so happen to prove the lies he’s been peddling for years, that not even Mueller’s huge team found,” Greenwald tweeted, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller, who led the effort to investigate the Trump-Russia claims.
“Because it advances liberals’ interests, journalists are uncritically spreading it,” he said.
The Kremlin papers, according to The Guardian, said Trump was “the most promising candidate” even though he was described as “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced.”
“It is acutely necessary to use all possible force to facilitate [Trump’s] election to the post of U.S. president,” the documents reportedly said.
They said a Trump win would “definitely lead to the destabilization of the U.S.’s sociopolitical system,” according to The Guardian.
Greenwald pointed out that the journalists are circulating the information without fact-checking it.
“They have no idea if the documents are real. They know [Harding] is one of the west’s most dishonest, reckless reporters. They don’t care,” Greenwald tweeted.
“The story helps their political agenda. That’s all that matters.”
I'm watching now as one journalist after the next spreads this Luke Harding story. They have no idea if the documents are real. They know he is one of the west's most dishonest, reckless reporters. They don't care. The story helps their political agenda. That's all that matters.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 15, 2021
The Guardian said it showed the documents to “independent experts” who said they were authentic.
However, when the news outlet contacted the Kremlin, Putin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said the idea that Russia had sought to support Trump prior to 2016 was “a great pulp fiction.”
