Asks Eric Wemple (at WaPo).
“According to the three sources, some of the most crucial planning conversations between top rally organizers and Trump’s inner circle took place on those burner phones,” wrote investigative reporter Hunter Walker. The contacted associates included White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Trump campaign consultant Katrina Pierson, and Eric and Lara Trump, the article alleged....
Although [January 6th] committee investigators took pains to scrutinize the Rolling Stone report, they failed to corroborate it.... Failing to corroborate a claim isn’t the same as disproving it, but the committee’s interview with [Scott] Johnston torched the account of Rolling Stone’s main source.
Asked about the implications of the committee’s report, the magazine said in a statement: “Three sources alleged in November, 2021 that a key Jan 6 rally organizer used burner phones to communicate with Team Trump. Rolling Stone reported those allegations. Since then, one of those sources has gone on the record. We’ve reviewed the reporting in the original story, and it’s solid.”
Not good enough. Rolling Stone published a juicy story, bursting with clandestine implications, and then basked in the digital reverberations. Now that the sourcing looks suspect, the magazine publishes an unattributed statement and seeks to move on....
Details at the link. The torching of the Johnston account has to do with his naming a particular store where he bought burner phones. The store has no record of the purchase.
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94 comments:
We all know how this sausage gets made, right?
'Three sources' = Three dooshbags I used to work with in the office
'We're reviewed the reporting in the original story and it's solid' = Yep, it was three dooshbags I used to work with in the office, all right...
Like Hunter Biden did to keep his Burisma corruption hidden? There is proof of that. Everything the left claims about Trump has been debunked already.
Rolling Stone hasn't gotten anything right in any of their hit pieces on Trump.
Fun fact: The Reichstag Fire allowed the Nazis to consolidate one party rule by clamping down on free speech and freedom of assembly and removing restrictions of police powers, which created the Gestapo.
Rolling Stone magazine burned again?
Here's what the media considers "good reporting."
If 3 sources tell you essentially the same story, then they go with that. That's solid reporting.
But they won't tell you WHO the sources are. If say, the 3 sources are all Deep State FBI agents with criminal hatred of Donald Trump, you'd never know that because of course they won't tell you who the 3 sources are so that you can evaluate their motives. Maybe they're lying.
But the media doesn't care, so long as they all tell the same basic story. They call that "good, solid reporting."
You have to trust them. And so since they're asking for your trust, you should evaluate ... "Is Rolling Stone reporting something that is trustworthy?"
And no, of course it's not. Just ask students at the University of Virginia.
Rolling Stone frequently publishes long, heavily sourced and mightily reported stories that are just pure BULL SHIT. They are not an organization that are trustworthy; so no, you cannot trust them when they claim sources are telling them things.
Rolling Stone prints what they WANT the story to be; not what the story IS.
Apart from Matt Taibbi's reporting, Rolling Stone reporting has been a dumpster fire. They were also responsible for the UVA "A Rape on Campus" hoax.
wendybar: "Rolling Stone hasn't gotten anything right in any of their hit pieces on Trump."
On the contrary, Rolling Stones's serial knowing lies in support of democratical hoaxes have been "right on the money" in terms of intent.
Wemple suddenly standing for truth …. That’s a howler. These guys lie and smear then, when the time is right, their smear having worked, they go righteous.
But as Harry Reed once said, “Well it worked, didn’t it?”
Rolling Stone doesn't seem to be a very reliable source these days.
evidence? in a Rolling Stone article? This Makes NO sense
When does Rolling Stone lose their credibility? How many lies does it take?
Asked about the implications of the committee’s report, the magazine said in a statement: “Three sources alleged in November, 2021 that a key Jan 6 rally organizer used burner phones to communicate with Team Trump. Rolling Stone reported those allegations. Since then, one of those sources has gone on the record. We’ve reviewed the reporting in the original story, and it’s solid.”
Our host on several occasions has diagrammed sentences to illuminate writing strengths and weaknesses
Can someone smarter than me, deconstruct this paragraph and find a salient fact?
Jesus Christ. How many chances does Rolling Stone get before people quit accepting their stories as Real Life Gotchas? If I committed this much fraud in my old work, I'd have been fired a dozen times and by now would be taking up a hotel room in San Francisco waiting for my daily ration of fentanyl and needles.
While Trump is still on the front burner for most of our Journalist! class, Joe Biden has had a dozen classified doc parties around 3-4 locations and made boodles of cash from numerous players who came in from numerous countries. Still waiting for Chuck Todd to realize the Russia Collusion case was an entire fraud. A fun hoax that he spent years promoting.
Bechh. That's not even a word. It's the sound that came up my throat when I thought of the disgust I have for the lot of these 'reporters'.
Did these “journalists” at Rolling Stone Magazine not learn their lesson from the false rape allegations at the University of Virginia that they published in the last decade? Apparently not…
Rolling Stone also published the Duke University fraternity rape hoax and then paid a settlement in 2018.
https://thefederalist.com/2018/02/13/settlement-fraternity-rolling-stonerape-hoax-saga-officially/
The quality of their reporting declined in conjunction with the decline of founder Jann Wenner as he aged / loosened control circa 2016. Compare to aging Neil Young's crusade against Spotify. Compare to Whoopi Goldberg's recent rants. Compare to Biden-Pelosi-Schumer-McConnell-Feinstein staying around too long.
Rolling Stone? Isn’t that the publication that got absolutely crushed in a libel suit for its “reporting” on the UVA fraternity (non) rape story a few years back? I’m surprised they’re still in business. Probably being propped by a Prog zillionaire…
tim in vermont said...
The Reichstag Fire allowed the Nazis to consolidate one party rule by clamping down on free speech and freedom of assembly and removing restrictions of police powers, which created the Gestapo.
Well? They NEEDED to do SOMETHING; about all the Disinformation, and LIES being told about the fire!
What were they Supposed to do? Just LET people spread DISINFORMATION, about the LIE that the Nazis set the fire? That sort of disinformation and LIES are what you'd get with an "objective Press"
“Objectivity Has Got To Go”: News Leaders Call for the End of Objective Journalism
As to the Gestapo.. Here's some Cheerful news, about the Shield and Sword of The Party
Planned New FBI HQ Is Twice the Size of the Pentagon 60 or 70 acres! That's a LOT of Shields and Swords
A lot of people use burners when they travel (especially abroad).
so it was haven monahan, the uva accuser right,
The torching of the Johnston account has to do with his naming a particular store where he bought burner phones. The store has no record of the purchase.
Per Hunter Biden, did they try the 7/11 or CVS?
Given their record of getting big stories wrong, I'm astonished that anybody cares what Rolling Stone says. They were founded to write music news, not real news, and it shows.
Has Rolling Stone gotten anything right since their phony store about a rape at the University of Virginia? Anything at all?
The Rolling Stones MAGAzine. By default and by reputation a lying democrat propaganda outlet. Another propaganda outlet that would serve our country best by going out of business.
Quite frankly, we should ALL be using burner phones.
A lot of people use burners when they travel (especially abroad).
and ... ?
Whenever I want to read reliable magazine articles, I turn first to Rolling Stone.
WendyBar says: Like Hunter Biden did to keep his Burisma corruption hidden? There is proof of that.
Was thinking about Burisma this morning. There was nothing hidden in the corruption -- it was right out in the open the whole time. Hypothetical alert! In Baltimore a few years ago a government official (Mayor?) was caught in a scam where local hospitals paid her bribes via large purchases of a childrens book she wrote. I forget what the hospitals got in return. Imagine someone is put in charge of an investigation of these hospitals, and one of the hospitals hires the head investigator's son for a no-show job paying $50,000 a month. Wouldn't that be corruption per se? Biden, as VP, was in charge of US efforts re: corruption in Ukraine. Burisma was part of his remit. Burisma paid large sums of money to Hunter Biden. What more is needed to show corruption?
"A fact too good to check" used to be a joke reporters told on themselves. Now, it's SOP. And they're proud of it, having come to the conclusion that objectivity is a vestige of some pre-enlightened age.
In Washington, "three sources" is one source and the two other persons the one source briefed on the matter. Heck, for all we know the main source was the reporter. It is really fun when another reporter "independently corroborates" the story, probably by contacting the original anonymous source of the original story.
Anonymous sources is one of the flags that the story itself is not worth reading, along with the phase "without evidence" and the ever popular "experts say." Either provide evidence or go away.
I'm not sure why anyone reads The Rolling Stone for news stories or, for that matter, any reason. Their relevance to the music industry ceased decades ago. The only reason I knew that existed was the Dr. Hook song, which is at least very entertaining, unlike this garbage.
In criminal law don't past offenses figure in the sentencing process. The Rolling Stone has been caught up in some past whoppers. When it comes time to settle damages for the next libel or defamation suit, shouldn't that be a factor in assessing damages?....You've got to hand it to the insurrectionists. They plotted to import thousands of people to Washington to overthrow the government and didn't leave a paper or digital trail behind. These people are fiendishly clever. I wish they, with all their organizational skills, had plotted our withdrawal from Afghanistan.
I too have been bursting with clandestine implications. Perhaps Gas-X can help.
When it comes to Rolling Stone (or the NY Times, or Washington Post, or CNN, or NBC, or CBS, or ABC) the following hard and fast rules shall apply:
If the story makes a Republican look bad: they're lying.
If the story makes a Democrat look good: they're lying.
"Here Endeth the Lesson."
--Jimmy Malone
Aren’t you supposed to buy burners with cash?
"Anonymous source" is short hand for "we're just making sh*t up to promote our propaganda."
The ability to believe what is written in Rolling Stone, much like belief in the scripture, requires the will to believe.
Rolling stone is a leftwing organization that is dishonest and lies whenever it wants to damage anyone they dislike. This is not "Sloppy" reporting. This is not "Dumbness". THis is NOT "incompetence".
This happens in one story after another attacking Trump or some Republican or anyone they don't like. But for some reason, people keep believing them, or pretending RS is an "Objective news organization" that Gosh darn it, just makes a few errors.
The MSM reporting on the J6 insurrection is just Part II of the attempt to destroy Trump and the Right. Part I was Russiagate. Both are lies.
DC is full of cell stingrays and interceptors that let the government monitor all phones. Even Snowden released this. If there were “burner phones” the NSA/FBI would have recorded all the calls, it’s likely they had agents in visual contact with Trump’s team anyway. It is inconceivable that the calls would not have been leaked. Burner phones are useless in spy tradecraft today, it’s reported that they can even turn on a powered down phone to get your gps data.
It was a riot. Why would such communication even be necessary?
Usually when I see stories like this, I wonder which Democrats have been using Burners to get around the law and to do planning. A lot of Projection of bad behavior onto Trump by Democrats happens.
Biden, as VP, was in charge of US efforts re: corruption in Ukraine. Burisma was part of his remit. Burisma paid large sums of money to Hunter Biden. What more is needed to show corruption?
What is needed is for Joe or Hunter to become a threat to Democratic power, which by the way I fully expect to happen, and I fully expect the Democrats and MSM to throw them to the wolves.
Quite frankly, we should ALL be using burner phones.
Some of us don't use mobile phones at all.
Everyone knows Trump is a liar.
No further evidence is necessary.
If you are selling burner phones, why would you keep records?
this a shaggy dog with too many fleas, schiff for brains has admitted to altering text messages, maybe they made some out of whole cloth,
I know I'd be delighted to have more reporting on this entire issue.
I carry no brief for Rolling Stone; whether their reporting was accurate or not is not the end of the world for me. I would just like to have the truth. There are known gaps in White House call records for January 6, 2021. Trump has said that he knows nothing about burner phones and in fact wasn't even aware of the term, while John Bolton says that he personally discussed the subject of burner phones (apparently in general, and not any Presidential use of burner phones) with Trump.
This is a pure Rolling Stone problem, right? The J6 Committee didn't report anything in error. And here we have a writer for the TrumpWorld-loathed Washington Post doing the follow up.
"Fake News" is pretty damned complicated in TrumpWorld.
Maybe Rolling Stone will discover the burner phones were destroyed when the insurrectionists used then to beat Officer Sicknick.
(That's a joke.)
I was over on Turley's blog earlier and came across a comment on his recent post on journalists' abandoning objectivity. This commenter - who unfortunately goes by Anonymous, along with (apparently) several others - advanced the theory that because Trump "lied" so much and "only" scored an Electoral College victory, he had therefore torpedoed all norms and it was appropriate, indeed protective of society, for journalism to set aside all norms as well.
I started to reply, asking if this person remembered Clinton's popular-vote plurality back in the day and his history of actual, demonstrable lies (as opposed to exaggerations and humorous hyperbole and so forth), to say nothing of Biden's actual, demonstrable lies (ditto), and then if this person believes that those circumstances should also have resulted in journalists' setting aside journalism's long-honored norms. But would it have been worth it?
Anyway, then the tech came to tell me my car was ready, so.
"Aren’t you supposed to buy burners with cash?"
That's how Saul Goodman sold them when his law license was suspended.
If you buy a burner phone, even with cash, you better wear a disguise that makes you not distinguishable by software, they use not only the face, but your gate, because you are going to be on surveillance tapes, and if you pay cash, there will still be a record of where and when the phone was bought, and burner phones are not invisible to network surveillance, and if calls were going to Trump officials with known locations, on burners, which, BTW, are easy to spot due to the numbering schemes of the phone numbers, from the crowd, for example, this would be known.
Crystal Gail Mangum was not available for comment.
"Rolling Stone said Jan. 6 leaders were using 'burner phones'..."
Were they also skulking around alleys, wearing black wide-brimmed hats, and flipping/catching half-dollar pieces with their right thumbs/hands?
Almost certainly bullshit.
"If you are selling burner phones, why would you keep records?"
LOL. The FBI knows the provenance of every phone used in the vicinity of the protests. A "burner phone" is just a cell phone, like any other, and is not magical in any way. Google "IMSI tracker" and "IMEI tracker" if you have any doubt of this. If anybody around Trump used a "burner phone," the FBI would know it.
I have to assume that people who express such desperation to believe obvious lies are probably fake accounts set up for propaganda purposes, or people who have swallowed the J6 psy-op so deeply, that the hook is in their stomach, and any questioning of it causes them pain.
"Did these “journalists” at Rolling Stone Magazine not learn their lesson from the false rape allegations at the University of Virginia that they published in the last decade? Apparently not…"
The question presupposes the Rolling Stone considers its job is to report facts. The Rolling Stone's job, which they understand quite well, is to fabricate stories that their fellow travelers can use to further their agenda.
Be careful, people. The big deal is not the phones. The big deal is whether there was co-ordination with Trump.
This story may be a set-up for a future story will find a store where phones were purchased. Then, leap from phones being purchased to being proof of co-ordination.
Easily imagine getting a cheap burner when going into a big crowd where your phone, with lots of numbers, photos, and personal stuff might get lost.
"Per Hunter Biden, did they try the 7/11 or CVS?"
LOL, that was some email, wasn't it? Had a lot of detail about how the US viewed political developments in Ukraine, too, for a known crack head. It's almost as if Hunter cribbed it off of those classified documents that were stored in a cardboard box next to the Corvette that Hunter has been photographed driving.
One more thing re burner phones. Any security that you get might get from them comes from randomness, nobody will have a trigger set in their surveillance system to notify of and record those conversations, the way they might with a known phone number, but in a case like this, the NSA will cast a wide net, and even the best practice of using the phone only once and throwing it away is not going to help, and you would have to have confederates buy the several phones from random stores all over the place so that they can't be associated with each other. Even with the GPS disabled, they will be able to triangulate the phone, in an urban area, to a pretty tight circle, and follow it around, if it is kept on, and if you only turn it on to make a call, well, the protocol is that the phone will send out its complete identifying information to the network, which will be intercepted. The phone does this because no network is going to let a phone attach to it without knowing that it is going to be paid.
Burner phones are like speed bumps to network surveillance.
LLR Chuck's faux-conservative/"reasonable man" while pushing lefty talking points schtick was used up 7 years ago.
It's amazing he thinks it will work now.
You really can't teach old lefty dogs new tricks.
If Democrats are accusing Republicans of using burner phones it is more than likely the Democrats are using them for something. It's become a pretty safe bet that anything a Democrat accuses a Republican of is what they are doing. Even a flatworm knows this by now.
Everything makes so much more sense when you come to the realization that everything they say in the media is a lie designed to maintain the power of a tiny elite.
Blog post about origination of using anonymous sources as reliable.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2005/05/25/tracing-use-of-anonymous-source/?trashed=1&ids=628178
Un-verified anonymous sources
tim in vermont said...
Everything makes so much more sense when you come to the realization that everything they say in the media is a lie designed to maintain the power of a tiny elite.
This is the problem I was pointing out in my previous comment, before yours.
So the Rolling Stone article is problematic. But the reason that you know anything about the Rolling Stone article being problematic is because the Washington Post's Media Critic, Eric Wemple, looked into the story in detail. And Wemple's original-source material prominently included materials, including transcripts, that were developed and then released to the public by the J6 Committee.
It's hard to keep up on who the proper TrumpWorld enemies are.
Rolling Stone? A media enemy. That's easy.
The Washington Post? Another media enemy, for sure. But maybe not, when questioning Rolling Stone's reporting on TrumpWorld burner phones.
The J6 Committee? Another enemy! But maybe not, when the investigative work of the Committee, released to the public, is the basis for attacking Rolling Stone reporters.
Rolling Stone Reporter:
1. We looked into every email and phone message to the White house on Jan 6th and found nothing.
2. So, how can we keep saying they did somthing wrong? And destroy Trump. Hmmm....
3. I know, we'll say the Trump white house was coordinating the J6 protest by using communications that CANNOT be traced. They are guilty even though there is NO record. It cannot be proved -but it can't be disproved either. Clever no?
RS Editor: yeah, lets go with that. Go find a "source" who will say they used "burner phones". Tee hee, we'll damage Trump with this one!
It’s not like Rolling Stone has ever published made up stories with fake sources before.
I will say that I liked the scene in the Bourne films when the soon-to-be-dead Journalist gets a phone call on the burner phone Bourne slipped in his sportscoat jacket.
Ut ohhhhhh....
"General Michael Flynn: “Vice President Biden… I don’t think most people know but Vice President Biden, I think in his last year that he was the Vice President, he visited Ukraine like 12 or 13 times. It’s an incredible amount of times. First of all, there’s only 12 months in a year and for the Vice President of the United States spending that much time in the Ukraine, you have to ask why?"
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/general-flynn-vice-president-biden-visited-ukraine-12-13-times-last-year-vp-trips-need-investigated-audio/
When the police sweep was over, 25 individuals had been arrested for plotting to overthrow the German government. They stood accused of plotting to storm parliament, arrest lawmakers, and declare the restoration of the country’s monarchy by force, led by aristocrat Heinrich XIII Reuss.
However, a closer examination of the police action and its timing raises serious questions about the legitimacy of the alleged coup, and whether the German security state played a role in instigating it. If so, it would fit within the historical pattern of the government’s infiltration of extremist movements since the post-war period. In 2003, a German court was forced to abandon a case against a notorious neo-Nazi group when it determined the organization was at least partially, if not wholly, controlled by state assets.
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/02/02/state-security-germanys-far-right-coup/
"Fake News" is pretty damned complicated in TrumpWorld.
Only if you are an idiot, Chuck. You had better stick to MSDNC for your news, Chuck. Reality can be confusing.
A burner phone is a cell phone, often bought with a prepaid plan, used for privacy, a dedicated purpose, or to prevent damage to a primary device.
Nobody buys a burner phone with a credit card. It's all cash. No records. That's the entire POINT of a burner phone. So it can't be traced to you as an individual.
The entire story is ludicrous on its face and is written for people too dumb to realize they're being scammed.
Rolling stones. Look out for the tree!
the realization that everything they say in the media is a lie designed to maintain the power of a tiny elite
The democratic/dictatorial duality. But as for me in a republic with a constitution that limits authority and recognizes individual liberty I believe.
If Democrats are accusing Republicans of using burner phones it is more than likely the Democrats are using them for something.
Breaking news... next week, next month, next trimester, when they get caught with their hands on the baby. DIE (pun intended), "burden" (the audacity), DIE (out, out, damned spot), NOW (me, too).
Sue and put RS out of its misery for good.
RS got busted on an ivermectin story, even clumsier than the UVa rape hoax.
"It's all cash. No records."
Except for video in the store where you bought it, facial recognition, gate recognition, and the cash register which is hooked to the inventory and contains a time stamp, geolocation of the phone itself when it is on, etc, etc.
As I've said before, if you keep blaming people for shit they didn't do, eventually some of them are going to figure they've got nothing to lose.
Haven Monahan was the source. He left his burner phone on a glass table inside a UVa fraternity.
"Not good enough."
Why not? Progs still lie with abandon about the "deadly" "insurrection." In the larger prog scheme of things, what's another lie about a minor detail?
Too many spy novels.
Who is Rolling Stone's audience these days? Are they one of those media sources that's primarily read by other media sources or do they have otherwise popular, worthwhile content and then occasionally the political/news item?
I honestly don't know.
Let me interpret Chuck the Shit Head for everyone who bothered to read his comments:
Chuck wants the Rolling Stone story to be true and supported by actual evidence. If Althouse had simply linked to the RS story directly rather than to Wemple's dissection of the story, Chuck would have been very, very happy. Had Althouse linked to the exact same dissection of the RS story done by, let's say, a writer at Breitbart News, Chuck would have mocked it and claimed that the writer was just trying to cover up for the January 6th "conspirators". However, Chuck finds himself stifled because Wemple seems to have done a good job of dissection, but Chuck can't criticize the critique because Wemple is anything but a Trump supporter. Because Wemple is on the Left, and writing for a paper that is quite anti-Trump, Chuck is fuming and trying to mock those of us who already knew the RS story was likely horseshit, and didn't need Wemple to tell us that it was.
A rolling stone gathers no evidence.
In the meantime, there is a Chinese spy balloon hovering over Montana for a few days, and "After evaluating the threat, the U.S. Military along with the White House opted not to shoot down the balloon. Debris from the floating device could possibly injure a civilian."
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/biden-refuses-shoot-suspected-chinese-spy-balloon-hovering-montana-days/
Bill Zhang: "The entire story is ludicrous on its face and is written for people too dumb to realize they're being scammed."
LLR Chuck, I believe that is your cue....
“In the meantime, there is a Chinese spy balloon hovering over Montana for a few days, and "After evaluating the threat, the U.S. Military along with the White House opted not to shoot down the balloon. Debris from the floating device could possibly injure a civilian."”
Have they ever been to Montana? The only thing keeping them from surpassing WY as the 2nd least densely states are sera smallish cites. Our county averages fewer than one person per square mile.
In the meantime, there is a Chinese spy balloon hovering over Montana for a few days, and "After evaluating the threat, the U.S. Military along with the White House opted not to shoot down the balloon. Debris from the floating device could possibly injure a civilian."
From what I recall of Montana, it's pretty sparsely populated for most of it. I call bullshit... this is just Biden obeying his paymasters.
It's like Chomsky's claim about Putin's control of the '16 election--it was done by undetectable means.
How many chances does Rolling Stone get before people quit accepting their stories as Real Life Gotchas?
Rolling Stone's readers are like Fox Mulder: they want to believe. (Indeed, they already do!)
Yancey 4:55 - I think you nailed it.
Worst insurrection ever.
More shots fired into Joementia's brain juice port.
Sources said Chuck said... I am afraid you are mistaking me for someone who has an interest in fair treatment of Donald Trump. I'm not your guy. I am interested in smearing him, hurting him and prejudicing people against him.
But you can buy some reprieve with a donated big ass bottle of gin.
--
How're we doing on the 1/6 pipe bomb installer(s)?
Jan 6 was all lies and deception since day 1
Ahem--Chuck. The purpose of having Wemple "criticize" the Rolling Stone piece was to make sure that everybody hears about the Rolling Stone piece. "Trump used burner phones" being the intent here.
But you know that already.
Are you guys sure the Rolling Stone didn't say the Duke lacrosse team purchased burner phones?
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