David Dayen

Starts with "a progressive website": check. Obviously anything partisan is untruthful. We've been around 32 years FWIW.

Next, notice the jump. Starts by saying our story suggested that "CNN aired a 'staged' migrant crossing," and then says "Obviously, CNN did not stage the crossing." Nobody said they staged it themselves, just that they got duped. Something @CNN never answered. All assertions.

Then the killer evidence: the Border Patrol said they didn't stage anything! I'll leave to you whether the Border Patrol is trustworthy. But this also wasn't what we suggested. We suggested right wing forces put it together, with possible participation of CBP.

And we suggested that because, among other things, there's a tape shot at the same scene where you hear the right wing guys behind the camera talk about paying off smugglers to create scenes of border crossings.

But in addition, as @oliverdarcy knows because I asked him about it, Henry Cuellar, the Democrat who shared the right wing video, told us that he got it *from the Border Patrol.* The ones who said they had nothing to do with it.

We're going to have more on this in a followup. But it is so sleazy of @CNN to duck us for a week, then have their "media" "reporter" run a BS story that lumps us in with conspiracy theorists. With the "evidence" that an untrustworthy agency said so.

And what really pains me is that this smears a young reporter, @Marcia_Brown9, who has spent years on the immigration beat, was just at the border, and knows a ton more than @oliverdarcy about what's really happening there. It's disgraceful.