Washington Post should show work on anonymous sources used against Sessions, or be ignored

July 24, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting the Washington Post for its use of unverified, anonymous sources for its July 21 hit piece against Attorney General Jeff Sessions:

“It is unacceptable for supposed news outlets like the Washington Post to continue a war on the Trump Administration using anonymous sources reading from top secret documents that the reporter never even sees to check the veracity.  It is clear that in the case of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, that he is making substantive changes at the Justice Department that many Obama holdovers despise.  The Attorney General has clearly stated under oath what the content of various conversations he has had are, and has vigorously denied ever talking to the Russian ambassador about the election campaign.  It is normal for opposition campaigns to provide counter narratives, but if the Washington Post wants to maintain even a shred of journalistic respectability, they need to show their work, or they should be ignored.

“The Post put out another of their unsourced, somebody read something to me over the phone so it must be true, stories on Friday evening attacking Attorney General Sessions over his brief contacts with the Russian ambassador that occurred during the course of business last year. Attorney General Sessions has vigorously denied, under oath, that these conversations were in any way related to the election. Yet, a deep state unnamed U.S. intelligence source continues to feed false information to the Post in an attempt to stop Sessions’ efforts to root out these bad actors who have repeatedly fed fake news to the anti-Trump media.

“The Post has a new slogan, ‘democracy dies in darkness,’ which they hang their hats on while pretending to be the neutral light. The irony of course is that they report out of darkness when they continue to use anonymous sources which have embarrassed them time and again when the full truth comes out, and not just the filtered spin they are being fed.

“Attorney General Sessions is doing a great job in restoring faith in the rule of law and cleaning up the mess left behind by the politicized Obama Justice Department.  He is going after the MS-13 illegal alien gangs that Obama allowed to infiltrate our nation, and deporting them. He is working hard to refocus the Justice Department to actual criminals rather than being at the vanguard of trying to Administratively change our national culture.  I strongly encourage him to keep up the good work, and not be deterred by Jeff Bezos’ political gnats working under the pretense of journalism.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 100 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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