One of the secrets of pulling a successful con, most especially a long con, is finding a willing mark, an eager sucker, someone who is just dishonest enough not to ask any serious questions about all this easy money. For Claude Taylor, a former staffer in Bill Clinton’s White House, and Louise Mensch, who has contributed to the New York Times and appeared with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, the currency of the realm is dirt on President Donald Trump. And boy oh boy, did these willing dupes get duped.
Primarily through Twitter and the website Patribotics, Mensch and Taylor — who describe themselves as co-writers — have become high-profile foot soldiers in the national media’s relentless war against Trump, primarily through a number of wild criminal allegations both have publicly made against the 45th president. There is just one problem: both were reportedly conned by a hoaxer pretending to be a source within New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office.
The Guardian, which first reported the story, reports that:
The source’s false tips included an allegation, which has been aggressively circulated by Mensch and Taylor, that Trump’s inactive fashion model agency is under investigation by New York authorities for possible sex trafficking.
The hoaxer, who fed the information to Taylor by email, said she acted out of frustration over the “dissemination of fake news” by Taylor and Mensch. Their false stories about Trump have included a claim that he was already being replaced as president by Senator Orrin Hatch in a process kept secret from the American public.
“Taylor asked no questions to verify my identity, did no vetting whatsoever, sought no confirmation from a second source – but instead asked leading questions to support his various theories, asking me to verify them,” the source said in an email.
It is also worth mentioning that just a few months ago this very same Guardian gushed over Mensch’s awesome journalism skills.
For his part, Taylor has apologized for spreading the false claims.
Mensch, however, who used the sex trafficking story to blast Trump as #PIMPOTUS, still claims the story is accurate. Of course, she also claims Senator Orrin Hatch secretly replaced Trump as president back in May, that upwards of 210 Americans and organizations are under the influence of the dirty Russians, and that Vladimir Putin had Andrew Breitbart murdered to ensure Donald Trump and Steve Bannon ended up in the White House.
Mensch also served as editor-in-chief of Heat Street, a site owned by Rupert Murdoch.
To no one’s surprise, the duped duo and/or their fans have raised money off of this nonsense, as much as $18,000 just a few months ago, plus whatever readers have donated through the prominently placed “donate” button on the Patribotics home page.
The full Guardian report is a must-read, a pathetic story of how easy it is to con those who hide and reside in the hate-filled fever swamps, those who are willing to not only believe anything that supports their twisted and desperate worldview, but willing to spread that poison, if only because they so want it to be true.
Mensch and Taylor are not alone, however. Based on terrible sources they also wanted to believe, CNN and the Washington Post have both published and/or aired numerous anti-Trump stories that turned out to be fake news.
The entire complex known as the liberal mainstream media is a giant fake news factory, which is why Mensch is more than welcome at the New York Times and MSNBC primetime.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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