Yesterday, CNN's Jim Sciutto, the network's Chief National Security Correspondent, reported, based on a discussion he claims to have had with "an official from the United States Secret Service," that "it has spoken with the Trump campaign regarding those comments."
Reuters says otherwise.
The reference to "those comments" has to do with Trump's recent statement about "Second Amendment people." In context, normal humans understand Trump to have said that those who believe that the Constitution's Second Amendment should remain intact as an individual right, as confirmed by the Supreme Court in its 2009 Heller ruling, could aggressively act in the political arena to stop Hillary Clinton from successfully nominating a fifth gun-grabbing jurist to the Court should she win the presidency. Of course, that's not how the left and the press interpreted Trump — which isn't surprising, because they also won't admit that the Second Amendment's "shall not be infringed" means "shall not be infringed."
But now, Reuters has specifically refuted CNN by name, reporting that "a federal official familiar with the matter told Reuters that there had been no formal conversations between the Secret Service and the Trump campaign."
Here is what Sciutto told the network's Brooke Baldwin yesterday:
Transcript (bolds are mine):
BROOKE BALDWIN: ... with our Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto, who has some breaking news on, uh, the Trump campaign meeting with the Secret Service.
JIM SCIUTTO: That's right, Brooke. An official from the United States Secret Service tells me that it has contacted, has spoken with the Trump campaign regarding those comments, those comments yesterday on the Second Amendment. In fact, I'm told there has been more than one conversation with the campaign since the candidate made those comments. In addition, I'm told by the Secret Service that the Trump campaign's response was that Donald Trump did not mean to incite violence.
But I'll tell you Brooke as well, I've been speaking to former United States Secret Service agents who say a couple of things. One, if a private citizen, you or I, were to make comments like this, we would certainly be interviewed by the Secret Service, with this added detail, and that is that someone like Donald Trump, because of the following he has and the many public events he has, uh, there is greater concern with comments coming from a public figure like that, because it is possible, whether it's a deranged person, uh, th- th- that someone could be influenced by those comments. And that helps inform why, uh, the Secret Service would have a conversation with the Trump campaign following public comments like this.
BALDWIN: Okay, okay. Jim Sciutto.
Note that Sciutto is claiming that there has "more than one conversation."
But at Reuters (HT Gateway Pundit), Alana Wise, in a remarkable break from the tradition of one media outlet covering the other's keister, asserts that there were zero conversations:
A federal official on Wednesday said the U.S. Secret Service had not formally spoken with Republican Donald Trump's presidential campaign regarding his suggestion a day earlier that gun rights activists could stop Democratic rival Hillary Clinton from curtailing their access to firearms.
Following Trump's comment at a rally on Tuesday in which he suggested that gun rights activists could stop Clinton from appointing liberal anti-gun justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal official familiar with the matter told Reuters that there had been no formal conversations between the Secret Service and the Trump campaign.
Earlier CNN had reported that there had been multiple conversations between the campaign and the agency.
... The campaign denied that inciting violence had been the intent of Tuesday's remark, and on Wednesday said there had been no conversations with the Secret Service about it.
"No such meeting or conversation ever happened," Trump wrote on Twitter, accusing CNN of having made up the report.
Well, since I have written "Second Amendment people" here, I guess I need to fire up the coffee pot for the imminent Secret Service visit. What rubbish.
Unfortunately, both outlets are spinning the Trump campaign's response to make it look as if the campaign acknowledges that Trump's comments have the potential to "incite violence," even though they didn't "mean to." Horse manure. The campaign has recognized no such thing, nor should it, nor should any person who understands English. The words "Second Amendment people" don't incite violence any more than the words "First Amendment people" or "Constitution-following people" would.
The press and the Clinton campaign (but I repeat myself) are engaging in yet another attempt at language suppression. It's another example of what George Orwell's 1984 referred to as Newspeak, the modern version of which in this instance is trying to brainwash people into believing that any time a person says the magic words "Second Amendment," that person is himself or herself violent or is encouraging others to take violent action.
Don't wait by the TV waiting for CNN to retract its report about what Reuters has asserted didn't happen.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
