The New York Times has issued a correction four days too late for its flap of a Russia story Monday. In a piece entitled, "Trump's Deflections and Denials on Russia Frustrate Even His Allies," the editors published some inaccuracies. In particular, the writers suggested that 17 intelligence agencies had signed off on a report noting that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election. In reality, only four had come to that conclusion.
In fact, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee exactly that last month.
"Only three agencies" were directly involved in the assessment, "plus my office," Clapper told Sen. Al Franken (D-MN).
Obviously, the Times editors were briefed, because they released this correction Thursday.
A White House Memo article on Monday about President Trump's deflections and denials about Russia referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment that said Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during last year's presidential election. The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.
The Times was also recently forced to issue a correction for suggesting Sarah Palin had anything to do with the 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona, when Jared Lee Loughner targeted Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
That wasn't enough for Palin - she is suing the paper.