White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders attacked CNN for saying she cited something that has been proven incorrect in a tweet on Wednesday night.
.@CNN was NYT “falsely” reporting Lee Hamilton of 9/11 Commission when he said “Leaks can be terribly damaging. In the late 90’s, it leaked out…the U.S. was using Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone to track his whereabouts. Bin Laden stopped using that phone; we lost his trail.” https://t.co/CifK2yhgqg
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) August 2, 2018
The New York Times article Sanders referenced in her tweet quoted Lee H. Hamilton, the vice chairman of the Sept.11 commission, who said, “Leaks, for instance, can be terribly damaging. In the late 90’s, it leaked out in The Washington Times that the U.S. was using Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone to track his whereabouts. Bin Laden stopped using that phone; we lost his trail.”
“The media routinely reports on classified information and government secrets that put lives in danger and risks valuable national security tools,” Sanders said at Wednesday’s press briefing. She then cited the situation about bin Laden’s phone to prove her point, and CNN reported that her claim had been proven false previously.
“That assertion is false and it has previously been debunked years ago,” CNN’s Jeremy Diamond reported.