Wonkette Mortal Enemy/New York Times Hack Eric Lichtblau To 'Raise Questions' For CNN

I bet New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau is a fine guy. He got a Pulitzer for breaking stuff about George W. Bush spying on regular Americans with the NSA. He ... probably wrote other good stuff too. It's not his fault that every time we note his byline, it's on top of stories so outrageous and one-sided we actually run out of words and just start typing aksjflkasjflkasdjfklsdj riwuriownropiweuriej;alksden uedoiweuriowpwodufn.

Oh wait. It's exactly his fault. There are two stories Eric Lichtblau has written -- and really, for essay's sake, we should have a third but we do not -- that are so wildly off the mark while emitting the New York Times's peculiar brand of brook-no-dissent Voice of Godism, well. Just take a look for yourself.

The Time Eric Lichtblau 'Raised Questions' That Will Make You Want To Punch A Baby

Did "Emails Raise New Questions About Clinton Foundation Ties to State Dept,” Eric Lichtblau? Oh, apparently they did. We learned:

WASHINGTON — A top aide to Hillary Clinton at the State Department agreed to try to obtain a special diplomatic passport for an adviser to former President Bill Clinton in 2009, according to emails released Thursday, raising new questions about whether people tied to the Clinton Foundation received special access at the department.

Gee, that sounds bad. Is it bad?

Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign said that there was nothing untoward about the request and that it related to an emergency trip that Mr. Clinton took to North Korea in 2009 to negotiate the release of two American journalists. Mrs. Clinton has long denied that donors had any special influence at the State Department.

Oh, guy was going on a diplomatic mission of mercy, so he asked for a diplomatic passport. That sounds pretty terrible. Also, nice way to shoehorn in "Mrs. Clinton has long denied that donors had any special influence at the State Department," since neither Doug Band nor North Fucking Korea were "donors," fuck you very much. 

The request by the adviser, Douglas J. Band, who started one arm of the Clintons’ charitable foundation, was unusual, andthe State Department never issued the passport.

FUUUUUUUUCK YOUOUUUUUUUUU. Fuck you Eric Lichtblau for "questions raised about a dude asking for some sort of bad favor (not a bad favor) which he then DIDN'T EVEN GET." And fuck you Dean Baquet for printing this crap alongside an ACTUAL STORY about Hillary Clinton NOT HAVING THE PROPER PERMITS FOR HER KITCHEN RENOVATION. 

We see you, scumbags.

Now! Compare those "questions raised" with no fucking story behind them with New York Times editor Dean Baquet calling the New York Times public editor an idiot for being like "hey wait, why'd you guys blow it on that FBI Trump Russia piece?"

FBI Trump Russia piece? Oh yes. Let us recap.

Questions Apparently Asked And Answered When They Are About Trump And Russia

On Halloween, both David Corn at Mother Jones and Franklin Foer at Slate published long, reported pieces on "what is this secret server between Alfa Bank and Trump Tower" and "did Donald Trump watch Russian hookers make pee-pee shows? A gentleman spy says yes!"

Within an hour, Lichtblau had pooh-poohed both stories, announcing that while the FBI had looked at the server, they no longer thought there was anything to it, and while they'd looked at Trump's ties to Russia, they hadn't found any. None. As so often happens at the Times, the piece was later updated with absolutely no indication, to narrow its conclusion considerably to "direct" "conclusive" ties to election tampering specifically.

Were "questions raised" about Mr. Trump's ties to Russia? Certainly not! Questions were PUT TO BED! GO TO BED, QUESTIONS, and no you can't have a glass of water first!

Law enforcement officials say that none of the investigations so far have found any conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government. And even the hacking into Democratic emails, F.B.I. and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump. […]

The most serious part of the F.B.I.’s investigation has focused on the computer hacks that the Obama administration now formally blames on Russia. That investigation also involves numerous officials from the intelligence agencies. Investigators, the officials said, have become increasingly confident, based on the evidence they have uncovered, that Russia’s direct goal is not to support the election of Mr. Trump, as many Democrats have asserted, but rather to disrupt the integrity of the political system and undermine America’s standing in the world more broadly.

Baquet, in his interview with the Wemple blog that smeared his own paper's ombudsman, explained that they couldn't just go putting up stories with no facts to back them up, like Corn and Foer did! He ignored the question of why, then, his paper's conclusions were stated so very emphatically when they were so very wrong.

Oh, and by the way, the FBI is still investigating the Alfa Bank server too. 

Eric Lichtblau will now lead investigations at CNN. 

Congratulations, New York Times.