Current Events > Shep Smith explains why Uranium One scandal is fake news, fake users protest

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WaPo link, fuck Gamefaqs character limits:

http://tinyurl.com/ybq64zu8

Fox News anchor Shepherd Smith debunked what his own network has called the Hillary Clinton uranium scandal, infuriating Fox viewers, some of whom suggested that he ought go work for CNN or MSNBC.

Nine people involved in the deal made donations to the Clinton Foundation totaling more than $140 million. In exchange, Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton approved the sale to the Russians, a quid-pro-quo. The accusation first made by Peter Schweizer, the senior editor-at-large of the website Breitbart in his 2015 book Clinton Cash. The next year, candidate Donald Trump cited the accusation as an example of Clinton corruption.

He then played a video of Trumps version of the scandal in which he claimed:

Hillary Clintons State Department approved the transfer of 20 percent of Americas uranium holdings to Russia. Well, nine investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.

Smith called the statement inaccurate in a number of ways, noting that the Clinton State Department had no power to veto or approve that transaction. Rather, it must be approved by an interagency committee of the government consisting of nine department heads, including the Secretary of State.

Most of the Clinton Foundation donations in question, he pointed out, came from Frank Giustra, the founder of the uranium company in Canada. But Giustra, Smith noted, says he sold his stake in the company back in 2007, three years before the uranium/Russia deal and a year and a half before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state. He added:

. . . The accusation is predicated on the charge that Secretary Clinton approved the sale. She did not. A committee of nine evaluated the sale, the president approved the sale, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and others had to offer permits, and none of the uranium was exported for use by the U.S. to Russia.

What's most interesting is not the debunking of a story that will never lead to any criminal convictions, but the responses, which are mostly from twitter users that are a year old or less. Accounts that, in all honestly, have a very high probability of originating at the "Internet Research Agency." They clearly follow the same tactics: tweeting highly similar messages over and over, often amplifying them with bots which retweet continuously, until "affiliated news" picks them up (Breitbart, Russia Today), and eventually they leak into real news.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html

The agency's influence is so widespread at this point that anytime you EVER hear of claims of boycotting a company for some anti-conservative action or "outrage" over someone telling the truth, you should really be assuming there's very few real people behind it, and just a mix of professional and amateur trolls amplifying their voices with bots.

Over 15% of twitter is bots. That's 48 million accounts.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/10/nearly-48-million-twitter-accounts-could-be-bots-says-study.html
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how is he still employed by fox

Shep is too pure for that network
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Shep nuked his own network...takes balls to do good journalism these days.
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disagreeing with the network narrative isnt really nuking it

his statements are almost certainly approved by leadership
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You have to wonder why Shep hasn't yet gotten the hell out of FNC. MSNBC would love to have him.
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Darkman124 posted...

disagreeing with the network narrative isnt really nuking it

I don't argue your point, but there's a huge difference between disagreeing with the network you work for and disagreeing with Fox News pundits...that takes a lot of guts in this current atmosphere.
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Super Saiyan 3 Goku posted...

You have to wonder why Shep hasn't yet gotten the hell out of FNC. MSNBC would love to have him.

Have you seen the set he has to work with? It's like a starship command center.
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Super Saiyan 3 Goku posted...

You have to wonder why Shep hasn't yet gotten the hell out of FNC. MSNBC would love to have him.

I'd say he can still believe in the conservative mission and want to make things better at his own home base.

Than go to another liberal network and then be disgusted with how they run their ship.

courier_nv posted...

how is he still employed by fox

Fair and balanced.
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Super Saiyan 3 Goku posted...

You have to wonder why Shep hasn't yet gotten the hell out of FNC. MSNBC would love to have him.

he's one of the highest paid anchors on the network, why shop around when the network lets you do your job anyway?
still, he might have a sense of "I can try and get through to these people"
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Instead of getting rid of the seemingly reasonable voices, maybe we should try to get rid of the lunatics.
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That agency sounds like a CEman paradise.

You get paid to shitpost and troll.
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I saw the clip last night and was surprised, but the bot thing is also very interesting. 15% of Twitter users? That's insane.
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Shep Smith is the only thing remotely 'fair and balanced' on that network.
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Redhats really want Clinton to be guilty of something, so they'll take crap that doesn't matter and spin it so hard.
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Anteaterking posted...

I saw the clip last night and was surprised, but the bot thing is also very interesting. 15% of Twitter users? That's insane.

i am amazed it's not more
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A Mississippian who works for Fox who somehow avoids being a partisan hack?
damn son where'd you find this?
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

Shep Smith is the only thing remotely 'fair and balanced' on that network.

No he is not. He's just a Nevertrumper.
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