New York Times lawyer slaps down Republican over conspiracy theory spread

A top New York Times lawyer smacked down Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) for pushing a conspiracy theory that Gray Lady reporters were mixed up in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, as seen in a letter released Friday.

"As I am sure you agree, the spread of disinformation and incendiary rhetoric threatens the health of our democracy," wrote David McCraw, the Times' deputy general counsel. "Sadly, your letter to The New York Times of November 9 exacerbates those very problems."

Cotton, according to McCraw, stated in his letter that he had heard of "reports" that employees for the paper had ties to the attack, that has led to a rapidly expanding war, or some sort of advance warning — which McCraw stated emphatically was not the case.

"In fact, you are merely parroting disinformation harvested from the Internet based on a website that has conceded it had no evidence for its claims," wrote McCraw.

"No employee of The Times was embedded with Hamas, or had advance knowledge of the attack, or played any role in the savage massacre of that day. Falsehoods circulated on the Internet are many things, but they are most certainly not 'reports.' They also should not be abused by a U.S. Senator to falsely accuse fellow Americans of crimes."

Ultimately, the letter concluded, "the only connection The New York Times has to Hamas is that we report on the organization fearlessly and at times at great risk."

The original rumor Cotton was relying on came from the Israeli media watchdog organization HonestReporting, which speculated some Palestinian photojournalists had advance warning to be able to shoot images of the attack. The group has subsequently admitted they have no evidence of this.