Bloomberg Falsely Claims Breitbart Did Not Cite Independent Sources

President Barack Obama speaks on the phone in the Oval Office of the White House October 8
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

Bloomberg News claimed Sunday that Breitbart News and conservative radio host Mark Levin had not cited “independent” evidence to back up the claim that the Obama administration had conducted surveillance on Donald Trump’s aides in the 2016 campaign.

Bloomberg claimed:

Breitbart, the media outlet previously run by White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, published a story Friday outlining actions supposedly taken by the Obama administration to monitor Trump Tower in New York during the campaign. The story, which claimed the moves were aimed at undermining Trump’s candidacy, referenced commentary by radio host Mark Levin that made similar claims.

Neither Breitbart News nor Levin cited independent reporting to back up the assertions.

However, Levin cited several independent news sources in his Mar. 2 broadcast. Several of these, plus others, were also cited by Breitbart, including:

In a subsequent report on Sunday morning, Breitbart News cited additional independent, mainstream sources, including:

The “without evidence” talking point has been ubiquitous this weekend, repeated by mainstream media outlets and Democratic Party representatives alike, though the evidence has been in plain sight for weeks — and was duly cited.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.