By Becket Adams

August 29, 2019 "Information Clearing House" -  Lawrence O’Donnell’s “apology” Wednesday evening for his idiotic Russia “scoop” was not really an apology at all.

The MSNBC host did the bare minimum to avoid legal consequences. Despite having no evidence for the conspiracy theory he propounded, he left open the door the possibility that Russian oligarchs with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin co-signed loans given to President Trump by Deutsche Bank.

In other words, he is “sorry, not sorry” for spreading conspiracy theories tying the president of the United States to Putin.

"Last night on this show, I discussed information that wasn't ready for reporting. I repeated statements a single source told me about the president's finances and loan documents with Deutsche Bank saying 'if true'—as I discussed the information – was simply not good enough," he said. “I did not go through the rigorous verification and standards process here at MSNBC before repeating what I heard from my source. Had it gone through that process, I would not have been permitted to report it. I should not have said it on-air or posted it on Twitter. I was wrong to do so."

Had O'Donnell left it at just admitting that it was wrong for him to go live with such a thinly sourced story, his retraction and apology would have been fine. But he is too greedy and proud.

"We don't know whether the information is inaccurate. The fact is we do know it wasn't ready for broadcast and for that I apologize," he said.

Let me remind you that O’Donnell’s since-retracted “scoop” was based entirely on the say-so of a single anonymous source who admitted he had not actually seen the evidence of Trump’s financial ties to Putin. I think it is safe to say the story is just plain inaccurate. The only reason O’Donnell is attaching qualifiers to his supposed apology is that he is too arrogant to admit he did a very, very stupid thing.

On Tuesday, a beaming O’Donnell “revealed” to his colleague Rachel Maddow that he had a possibly major story in development.

“I may have some information, in this next hour, which would add a great deal to their understanding of that, if true, and I’ll be discussing it here,” O’Donnell said. "I stress ‘if true,’ because this is a single source who has told me that Deutsche Bank obtained tax returns ... this single source close to Deutsche Bank has told me that Donald Trump’s loan documents there show that he has co-signers. That’s how he was able to obtain those loans and that the co-signers are Russian oligarchs."

He added, “Now, I want to stress, that’s a single source. This has not been confirmed by NBC News. I have not seen any documentation from Deutsche Bank that supports this and verifies this. This is just a single source who has revealed to me, and that’s where that stands at this point. It’s going to need a lot more verification before that can be a confirmable fact.”

On Wednesday, Trump’s legal team demanded a retraction from NBC, threatening legal action otherwise. By that afternoon, O’Donnell was making the rounds on social media, clarifying and retracting his unverified “scoop.” In the evening, the cable host came close to apologizing for being an idiot as he issued a full retraction. However, he missed the mark by that much.

This article was originally published by "Washington Examiner" - -  

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