Since the bombshell Wall Street Journal story dropped last night detailing President Donald Trump's lewd birthday letter to deceased financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, some MAGA activists are seeking to discredit the authenticity of the reporting.
Susan Crabtree, a reporter with the right-wing site RealClearPolitics, along with the Gateway Pundit, a right-wing site notorious for poorly-researched claims and conspiracy theories, came out with a new effort to smear Joe Palazzolo, one of the reporters behind the story — and it has already been picked up by some members of Congress.
"The Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the 'blockbuster' story alleging a letter Trump wrote to Epstein for his 50th birthday included some tawdry elements previously worked for Main Justice (his only prior reporting experience listed in his bio). Main Justice was Glenn Simpson’s wife’s publication. Simpson founded Fusion GPS, which was paid by Hillary Clinton/the DNC (through Perkins Coie) to produce the Steele Dossier at the center of the Russian hoax against Trump.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) swiftly picked up this claim, copying much of Crabtree's post verbatim in her own, attacking Palazzolo.
But media observers quickly laughed off this attack as absurd.
"Impressively convoluted conspiracy theory here: one of the Journal reporters on the Trump-Epstein story apparently worked 15 years ago for a trade publication owned by the wife of the guy who founded FusionGPS, the intelligence firm that produced the Steele Dossier. Sure why not," wrote Mediaite editor in chief Aidan McLaughlin.
"This is ludicrously dumb, not least because the reporter left the trade publication *the year before* before its founder's husband founded FusionGPS," wrote Media Matters fellow Matt Gertz.
However, he noted, it's possibly Trump's best chance of quelling his base's rage over his lack of transparency about the files from the Epstein prosecution.
"Much of MAGA media seems eager to target the Journal on Trump’s behalf ... What is less clear, however, is whether those influencers — or their audience — will be willing to allow the Epstein story to fade away altogether."
Trump is reportedly planning to sue the Wall Street Journal, one of many publications under the conservative Rupert Murdoch media empire, for reporting on the Epstein letter.