After I made a comment in a thread here saying that Jason Leopold had been accused of fabricating stories in the past, he sent me an email saying that he had never been accused of any such thing. I won’t disclose any further detail of his email, except to say that he raised the issue of redemption and second chances.
It looks like another writer had a much more difficult interaction with Mr. Leopold than I did. Joe Lauria, a freelancer who often works for the Times of London, discovered that Leopold was impersonating him in phone calls to Karl Rove’s office.
I met Leopold once, three days before his Rove story ran, to discuss his recently published memoir, “News Junkie.”…
…Three days later, Leopold’s Rove story appeared. I wrote him a congratulatory e-mail, wondering how long it would be before the establishment media caught up…
More after the flip…
But by Monday there was no announcement. No one else published the story. The blogosphere went wild. Leopold said on the radio that he would out his unnamed sources if it turned out that they were wrong or had misled him. I trawled the Internet looking for a clue to the truth. I found a blog called Talk Left, run by Jeralyn Merritt, a Colorado defense lawyer.
Merritt had called Mark Corallo, a former Justice Department spokesman who is now privately employed by Rove. She reported that Corallo said he had “never spoken with someone identifying himself as ‘Jason Leopold.’ He did have conversations Saturday and Sunday . . . but the caller identified himself as Joel something or other from the Londay [sic] Sunday Times. . . . At one point . . . he offered to call Joel back, and was given a cell phone number that began with 917. When he called the number back, it turned out not to be a number for Joel.”
A chill went down my back. I freelance for the Sunday Times. My first name is often mistaken for Joel. My cellphone number starts with area code 917.
I called Corallo. He confirmed that my name was the one the caller had used. Moreover, the return number the caller had given him was off from mine by one digit. Corallo had never been able to reach me to find out it wasn’t I who had called. He said he knew who Leopold was but had never talked to him.
I called Leopold. He gave me a profanity-filled earful, saying that he’d spoken to Corallo four times and that Corallo had called him to denounce the story after it appeared.
When he was done, I asked: “How would Corallo have gotten my phone number, one digit off?”
“Joe, I would never, ever have done something like that,” Leopold said defiantly.
I’m not going to say that it is beyond the capabilities and deviousness of Karl Rove’s operation to set Leopold up. I’m just going to say that Leopold’s credibility is shot. Everyone (well, almost everyone) deserves a second chance. Leopold appears to have blown his. In the field of journalism, it’s bad enough to get the story wrong. It’s much worse to impersonate other reporters and to make misrepresentations to sources under the guise of being someone else. That’s flatly unethical…whether you get the story or you do not.
And, if Leopold was set up, he was set up good. Because no one is going to believe him.
I’d really like to hear from Truthout at this point on who Leopold’s sources were.
I fear that the entire Truthout site ( and liberal blogs in general) will be smeared by this.
So I’d really like to know what editorial control over Leopold was exercised on his stories.
Their response so far has been totally inadequate.
Inadequate response is a nice way of putting it. They never acknowledged that we have good reason to question the truth of their stories. And their stories sounded weak in the first place. Now, they’re almost like science fiction.
What happened to TruthOut? We’re they always so flimsy and I just didn’t know it?
They never acknowledged that we have good reason to question the truth of their stories.
Here:
Much as people don’t want to hear this, I’m afraid we’re simply going to have to be patient & wait to see what is going on.
What happened to TruthOut?
We don’t know & it doesn’t help clarify anything when people jump to judgement. According to Leopold (on radio last week) it’s not his decision to out anyone. Truthout has been been put in a really lousy situation & are appropriately acting cautiously. While many might say they should have done so before publishing, I’m willing for now to give editor Marc Ash the benefit of the doubt ’til we get more info. Some people have gone so far as to accuse of Leopold (& implicitly Ash) of making stuff up wholesale. I’m willing to give them credit that there are indeed sources who told them what they printed. Whether those sources, lied, misled, were misled or confused, or plain wrong themselves, we simply don’t know at this point in time.
We’re [sic] they always so flimsy and I just didn’t know it?
This is one story by one reporter– a story shrouded in a lot of confusion at the moment.
That said, TO is mainly a reprint site (both mainstream & indie — no one gets compensated for their work tho) and the majority of articles that appear under their imprint are analytic/opinion pieces, not primary reporting. One weekly author there, Marjorie Cohn, is someone whose work I always make a point of reading.
Jason may well have totally trashed his rep as a reporter with this story. Let’s at least recall his groundbreaking work on the Enron story.
Today’s piece strikes me just like any other drive-by shooting does — leaves me wondering, wtf was that for?
Also seems worth asking the quesstion who benefits from having the WaPo smear Leopold today? It’s not liek they take any interest in his reporting. One run of the printingpress has all sorts of people jumping on the tsk tsk or smear wagons. Kinda like trained rats.
I fear that the entire Truthout site ( and liberal blogs in general) will be smeared by this.
Of course they will. They were doing it before this story. Recall that “great” piece on MOSin WaPo? Assume Leopold is flat out wrong; so what? The perfect retort is Judy Miller & WMD in Iraq, which every major media outlet in the country ran with. Feverishly. Big as his fuck-up is (if it is one — I’m witholding judgement — see reply to katieb), its magnitude isn’t even remotely comparable to enabling a war of aggression.
Good point.
Judy, Judy, Judy.
Yes I read a characteristically unpleasant thread on on the Leopold business over at DK this AM in which DHinMI repeatedly attacks you, Boo. (I’m not entirely sure about what but he certainly seems to be)
hardly surprises me. DHinMI continues to misrepresent what I say, per usual.
I asked him why he posted a diary accusing Leopold of using sockpuppet accounts without checking with an easily contacted source to verify one of his central allegations. After all, that is the kind of sloppy reporting that he upbraids Leopold and Madsen for engaging in.
Somehow, he turns that into me be a defender of Leopold. All I pointed out is that DH is a hypocrite.
Pay no attention, Booman.
DHinMi is just upset because Jerome Armstrong has been charged by the SEC for touting stocks online–and DHinMi thinks it’s a backdoor way to smear Kos:
So whose fault is this? It must be…erm, let’s attack BOOMAN!
You sure are a powerful guy, Booman. Taking down Daily Kos without even trying to, or wanting to…you’re not secretly working on a death ray that will destroy the Moon, too, are you?
i don’t see the logical connection you are making.
It’s deflection.
DHinMi is the master of CHANGING THE SUBJECT.
Let’s review:
Armando has withdrawn from blogging, after it was revealed that he is a corporate attorney who represents Wal-Mart…and that he blogged in favor of the Supreme Court’s odious “Kelo” decision, which directly benefits corporations like Wal-Mart.
Now Jerome finds that his balls are in a wringer over his stock touting…after Jerome got Warner front-and-center at YearlyKos and has pressured Kos to endorse Warner (and indeed, Kos is writing favorable things about Warner now).
Wonder why DHinMi would want to stir up a controversy and focus attention on you? Because he sure as hell doesn’t want attention on Kos’ right-hand man, Armando, nor does he want attention focused on the co-author of “Crashing the Gates” and Warner’s top blog advisor.
Deflect, deflect, deflect.
Now…Booman:
How is Lauria’s claim against Leopold (which you describe as discovered) with no actual Proof provided except some vague suspicions on his part any more nor less a conjecture? And why should his connect-some-disparate-dots on a supposed charade to impersonate him have any bearing on the issue of whether IN FACT an indictment exists? (And an indictment is a separate matter from a prosecutor filing Charges!)
I sent Mr. Lauria a letter and query on this and we will see if he responds.
😀
Could be most interesting.
It’s conceivable, but hardly likely, that Rove’s spokesman knew that Leopold met with Lauria (and obtained his phone number), that he knew to extend his name to Joel for plausible deniability, that he had the phone number of Lauria and changed the number by one to read back to Lauria.
Think about it.
It’s also possible — though extremely unlikely — that someone other than Leopold called Rove’s spokesman and pretended to be Lauria.
Assuming that Leopold did call Rove’s spokesman and identify himself as Lauria — which I believe is the case — Leopold’s credibility is gone.
Eiher way, questions remain about the sources for Leopold’s story about Rove’s so-called indictment and the marathon meeting at Luskin’s law firm.
If there were no sources, did Leopold fool his colleagues into believing they existed? How?
If there were sources, who were they? What information did they provide? When? Why? Were they mistaken? Did they intentionally mislead Leopold and his colleagues? Were they themselves misled by someone — say from team Rove?
I hope the folks at Truth Out will shed some light on this miserable mystery.
I know they published a ‘stand down’ memo but as of right now, if you go to their site and click “Fitzgerald Calling” in mid-page it STILL says Rove was indicted. I have emailed them to try to get them to update this.
Booman:
You miss my point entirely – Lauria is making an unsubstantiated claim of some ethical lapse on Leopold’s part to claim a discredti of all the issues- unconnected to the actual story. He “claims” a misuse of his name and nom-de-plume …tying it to Leopold on a fimsy suspicion and saying this affects the entire credibility of Leopold’s reporting on the indictment issue.
First it’s unproven as matter of Lauria’s Suspicion, but EVEN if true has no bearing on the validity of the report. What Lauria has spun ia a tale (narrative) of lack of credibility on various aspects of Leopold as a reporter – without challenging the actual substance of his report or even attempting to answer any of the real issues on this matter.
I’ll give you an analogy to explain it. When Dear ole Judith Miller agreed to cite Libby not as connected to the WH…but as a Former Hill Staffer to further obscure her anonymous source – but Knowing this to be a False and Disingenuous attribution – that is an ethical lapse on her part as a reporter to have done so. But it has no actual bearing on WHAT Libby may or may not have told her on the NIE contents or about mentioning Plame during that meeting or other meetings. This kind of action may be sloppy, reprehensible, not up to journalistic snuff – but does not dela with the content of the report.
Likewise, Even IF true…that as Lauria Suspects (but has no PROOF or actual evidence of what he claims in the WaPo) that Jason Leopold is capable or did impersonate him to obtain information from Corello…it has no bearing on the substance of the indictment story as reported by Leopold. It’s pure obfuscation as to the meat of the issue.
And this is the crux of Lauria’s assertion – that since (in his past) Leopold acknowledged conduct unbecoming, he must be guilty of the conduct Lauria suspects him of, and further – that this demonstrates his reporting is also suspect. A guilty-by-past-action scenario without any actual proof…just a nice little narrative by Lauria to discredit the whole thing. But, sorry, that doesn’t necessarily follow nor answer all the the issues covered or already known in this case.
Okay. Let’s go with your argument.
Leopold calls Rove’s office claiming to be Lauria.
He gets a denial that Rove has been indicted.
He says (falsely) that Fitz’s spokesman has gone on the record saying otherwise.
He gets another denial.
How is this information contradicted by Leopold’s reporting? Technically, it is not contradicted. Leopold never claimed that Rove’s office had confirmed an indictment.
Rove will not be indicted in this case. That is, he won’t unless something changes.
Now, how is Lauria’s claim of unethical behavior ‘unsubstantiated’?
In order to believe it is wrong you have to believe the following:
That Corello knew that Leopold met with Lauria three days prior to the publication of the article. AND that he knew that Leopold had obtained Lauria’s phone number. AND that Corello concocted a story to tell to TalkLeft, wherein he indicated that no one named Jason Leopold had contacted him, but someone named Joel from the Times of London did. And then when Joe Lauria took the bait and called Corello, he was read back his own phone number (with one number changed), all to discredit Leopold. Slap bang bam. Leopold is finished.
But, how likely is the above scenario? I think it is unlikely enough to give substance to Lauria’s accusations.
And therefore, Leopold is screwed either way. No one will believe him AND he got the story wrong anyway.
That is, unless, Rove does get indicted, or it becomes clear that he cut some big deal.
It’s not pure obfuscation. What we know is that Rove has been told that Fitz has no current intention of indicting him. What we don’t know is …why that is.
All of that is based on the assumption that Corello-Rove’s spokesman-exDoJ is absolutely truthfull in all of this AND that Lauria, of controversial stories past is also 100% truthful.
They have much more to gain by twisting a situation than Leopold has. Besides, Leopold’s claims have never, and will never be proven false. For the admin to prove them false, the truth would have to be revealed and I assume it’s worse.
…plenty more examples of Corallo’s character out there. He was instrumental in covering for Ashcroft-DoJ and BushCo until 2005.
Ooops..sorry bout the typos (I am the Queen of Typos)…but I think you can tease out the corrections where they apply.
;-D
And call it “woman’s intuition” – but IF I could ever be certain that we’d one day learn the unvarnished (and unsealed) facts in this matter…I’d be willing to wager my “suspicions” are much closer to the Truth and would be bourne out in the end.
But Alas…Secrecy (and hide the facts) is everything to this administration’s inner workings- never to see the light of day.
Since Truthout is really not much more than a reprint site, Leopold’s plight won’t have much effect on how I use the site. I probably will be more cautious about any original reporting that comes from the site, unless the reporter is someone who already seems to have an iron-clad reputation (Dahr Jamail comes to mind).
“…That Corello knew that Leopold met with Lauria three days prior to the publication of the article. AND that he knew that Leopold had obtained Lauria’s phone number. AND that Corello concocted a story to tell to TalkLeft, wherein he indicated that no one named Jason Leopold had contacted him, but someone named Joel from the Times of London did. And then when Joe Lauria took the bait and called Corello, he was read back his own phone number (with one number changed), all to discredit Leopold. Slap bang bam. Leopold is finished.”
I would agree that good old Occam’s Razor would suggest that this is the simplest explanation. However, let s look at some alternatives:
The most difficult items to explain are
(1) Corello having Lauria’s phone number;
(2) Corello saying to Talkleft that he never talked to Leopold but `Joel’ from the London Sunday Times
The alternative hypothesis that Leopold did not pose as Luaria requires either of the following to have occurred:
(a) Corella – or someone in the Bush Camp – knew that Lauria and Leopold met recently. This of course is difficult because it would have to be in a public place where both were recognized. However, Lauria is well known (see his post at the Huffington Post) and given his writings over the years (rather liberal and certainly skeptical if not disapproving of the Administration) probably easily recognized.
Or in the alternative
(b) Leopold in speaking to Corollo mentioned that he’d recently met with Lauria.
The phone number issue is no big deal. I myself found Lauria’s number on the web in about 5 minutes with a google. Furthermore, since Lauria is well-known his phone number is certainly in the address book of most press liaisons in DC (again see his Huff Post article – Bolton’s press attaché certainly knows him,).
Again I’ll say that the simplest explanation is that Leopold did pose as Lauria. However, the admittedly less believable explanation would suggest a disinformation campaign exacting in keeping with what Rove’s pulled off many times in the past.
Consider the following:
It is not the simplest explanation to assume that Leopold just concocted the inducement story. This is belied by the involvement of Turthout and other others how heard similar rumblings in DC. The simpler explanation is that Leopold could not adequately confirm, and went with it anyway – or – his sources misinterpreted what they saw or what there were told – or – the story was in substance true but something changed. Its also possible – but less likely that Rove and his minions orchestrated the whole thing.
Two items for me stand out. (1) The comment that 2 network news crews were staked out at the Patton Boggs location and (2) Luskin’s story of his cat.
First off, why were they staked-out there that day? Stakeouts are done by network crews (maybe on staff – more often today stringers). The assignment desk does NOT waste crews. Just because you never see their face doesn’t mean these folks don’t know more than anyone in DC – know the faces – know the players. I surmise that the crews – not the “talent” – saw something and reported up the chain. I wouldn’t be surprised if Leopold has a source or sources with the shooters and field producers and techs. I surmise that Leopold got confirmations from people who either work in the building or in the general vicinity. (Its not like were talking Area 51 here. That’s’ a pretty well-to-do area of DC – couple of 5 star hotels – you cannot hide stuff.
Regarding the latter, well I just don’t believe that a high price DC attorney like Luskin takes the “day off” to tend to a sick cat or wait for a tech to come and fix his home computer – the other story we’ve heard. Heck, think of the man’s billable rate per hour? His kindly concern for his cat could have easier cost him $5000-$7500 for the day (assuming I’m not way low on his rate.) Mr. Luskin said one doesn’t call people in DC after 10 on a Saturday? Assuming for the sake of argument that’s true, its also true that professionals who bill at that rate hire someone to run this kinds of errand (and DC has sitters and errand runners galore). I bear no ill will towards Luskin. If I was in a pickle I’d want him to be my advocate in the same aggressive way that he’s handled Rove’s representation. But the cat story – while maybe true – is so ludicrous as to demand to be laughed at.
Putting aside the issue of Leopold’s character or lack thereof, you have to step back and look at the big picture. For the past 30 or so year, one political philosophy has essentially gained control of the traditional sources of information dissemination. This was mainly done through the FCC (elimination of Fairness Doctrine, loosening of cross-ownership restrictions, one to a market rules, number of stations any one entity can own etc). Billions have been spent. But the ability to control the message all will come to naught eventually because of the internet. (Heck, many have argued that the Soviet Union fell because of the fax machine). While correlation is not causality you could make a damn fine argument that the low poll ratings for the President and Congress have been strongly influenced by the maturation of the Web and the continuing increase in penetration of high speed access. The internet is just a gigantic nueral net and can stamp out disinformation. They have to discredit it to provide another excuse that will lead to control. The fight over “net neutrality” – in my opinion – is not an accident