CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter attempted to do damage control for CNN on Thursday by claiming that the network never suggested that the U.S. bombings in Iran were a “failure.”
CNN’s Natasha Bertrand obtained leaked information from a preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) which alleged that the bombings only set Iran’s nuclear program back by months. Stelter claimed on “The Situation Room” that CNN “did not” report this information as fact and highlighted that it was preliminary.
“This is a very complex matter, even though Trump tried to make it sound simple on Saturday night,” Stelter said. “It’s really important to note what CNN did not report, it did not report that this mission was a failure. Far from it. It may have turned out to be a tremendous success. We just don’t know all the facts yet and neither does the U.S. government.” (RELATED: CNN’s Kate Bolduan Insists Network Did Nothing Wrong In Reporting Trump’s Iran Strike. The Records Say That Is A Lie)
WATCH:
CNN did not use the terms “low confidence” or “preliminary” in its initial coverage of the DIA’s information, according to a review of the original version of the report. Those words did not emerge in its coverage until Wednesday afternoon when they updated the piece to quote Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth criticizing the press’ coverage of the assessment.
“Hegseth, who is also at the NATO summit, said Wednesday the assessment was ‘a top secret report; it was preliminary; it was low confidence;’ adding that there were political motives behind leaking it and that an FBI investigation was underway to identify the leaker,” CNN later wrote in the piece.
Bertrand told CNN on Tuesday that while the intelligence assessment was still “ongoing,” she appeared to give credibility to the information by not mentioning that she reported “low confidence” information.
The DIA, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Iranian government all disputed the leaked information given to CNN, stating that the report contents were “low confidence” and that other assessments are contradicting the findings reported in the CNN story. A senior DIA official confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation that the findings were “preliminary” and “low confidence” information.
President Donald Trump and Hegseth have repeatedly stated that the strikes “completely obliterated” the nuclear facilities. He called CNN and MSNBC “gutless losers” and “scum” for downplaying the success of the bombings.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that the FBI has opened an investigation into who leaked the early assessed information. CNN said in a Wednesday statement that it stands by Bertrand’s reporting and argued it is not “reasonable” to criticize their reporters “for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment.”
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