Sarah Sanders fired back on Twitter at CNN for its criticism of her statements in a White House press briefing Wednesday that the press compromised surveillance of Osama bin Laden, a claim from 2005 widely regarded as debunked.
.@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
Sanders made the claim at the daily press briefing while speaking in defense of the President Trump supporters who had heckled CNN journalist Jim Acosta, a frequent target of the president’s criticism, the night before at a campaign rally in Florida.
“The media routinely reports on classified information and government secrets that put lives in danger and risk valuable national security tools,” Sanders said. “One of the worst cases was the reporting on the U.S. ability to listen to Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone in the late ’90s. Because of that reporting, he stopped using that phone and the country lost valuable intelligence.”
[Also read: Trump: I enjoy seeing the ‘totally unhinged’ fake news media ‘going crazy’]
The CNN story details how the claims of media reports from 1998 discussed bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone and cellphone, but did not say they were under surveillance. In 2005, President George W. Bush and members of the 9/11 Commission made the since-debunked assertion that the reports interfered with surveillance of the al Qaeda leader.
