In particular, they highlighted one of the letter’s most lurid sections, which claimed that “our president” (Trump was president in 2019) shared a “love of nubile young girls.”
The Wall Street Journal published a post on the social media platform X just before 1 p.m. that treated the letter as gospel.
A social media post from Forbes also published the quote before acknowledging “the Justice Department has disputed claims” about Trump.
TMZ, the celebrity news site that occasionally makes forays into real news when it suits its target audience (like the relations of the Reiner family before Hollywood legend Rob Reiner and his wife were killed, allegedly by son Nick), also treated the letter’s existence as an unquestioned fact.
[snip]
Yet by mid-afternoon Tuesday, the DOJ had published a post declaring in no uncertain terms that: “The FBI has confirmed this alleged letter from Jeffrey Epstein to Larry Nassar is FAKE.”
The post listed reasons to conclude that the letter was not from Epstein at all, including that it was postmarked three days after Epstein’s notorious death in a federal prison cell in Manhattan.
It was postmarked in Virginia — not exactly close to Epstein’s last known — and very publicly documented — place of residence at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
[snip]
To be fair, all three of the posts cited here contained links to coverage by the media outlets that did contain reservations, or reasons to at least doubt the veracity of the “Epstein letter,” but the percentage of readers who actually click on links versus simply reading posts has to be minuscule.
So the damage was out there, and the damage was done.
[snip]
Online news outlets with social media accounts care about getting it first. “Getting it right” is almost optional. When the governing ethos of generating news does not include ensuring facts are true before publication, fiascos are going to happen.
But there’s also no questioning the fact that it was Donald Trump at issue had something to do with the recklessness involved.
[snip]
If it had been Barack Hussein Obama, Americans would never have heard about it — from any establishment news outlet.
Coverage now should turn to the origin of the letter. Who was it that was well placed enough, and hated Donald Trump enough, to go to such pains to plant “incriminating” evidence as some kind of time capsule of malice to damage the 45th and now 47th president? (Maybe it was the same person who did the supposed Trump-Epstein “birthday” present.)
[snip]
If nothing else, the years have proven that when Trump is involved, clearly, there are some stories that are too good to check.
* Original Article:
Breaking: FBI Confirms Epstein Letter to Larry Nassar Implicating Trump Is a Complete Fake