Letter to Mother Jones on Russia Gate

On February 23, 2024, at 9:40am, Honest Media sent our second letter to the top executives at Mother Jones regarding inaccuracies in the reporting from Kiera Butler and David Corn in regards to the Russiagate controversy, as well as WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

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To the attention of Clara Jeffery and Monika Bauerlein:

David Corn recently wrote a piece published in Mother Jones targeting the American Values 2024 (AV24) Super PAC, which supports Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the next President of the United States. I am writing to you as the managing editor of Honest Media, which is a project of AV24. The tone of Corn’s report clearly lacks journalistic ethics, using over-exaggerated terms such as “fierce anti-vaxxers,” that are “conspiracy mongering,” and exist in “Kennedy’s anti-vaxx cosmos.” All of this clearly maintains zero sense of journalistic neutrality.

While it is clear Corn’s tone is extremely biased, we have a much greater concern that came up in his reporting – a concern we attempted to address with you back in December 2023, and directly with Corn himself just last week. That is Mother Jones’ coverage of Russiagate.

In Corn’s latest report targeting AV24, he makes it clear that he, and Mother Jones, stand by the reporting and position you have long established on Russiagate. His and Mother Jones' reporting on the Russiagate topic has now been refuted. The Washington Post has quite ironically pulled down their Pulitzer Prize winning reporting on the topic, according to journalist Chris Hedges, because they were rightly embarrassed to keep it published.

Mother Jones utilized the Hamilton 68 dashboard which was a scam to deceive the American people. Chris Hedges stated David Corn “dined out on (Russiagate propaganda) for five years.” Mother Jones and Corn have somewhat adjusted course from stating that Trump directly colluded with Russia to claiming that he and WikiLeaks benefited from materials obtained by Russian hackers, which Honest Media recognizes as a sleight-of-hand. And to our knowledge and research, you have never accurately retracted past Russiagate inaccuracies, which represents a serious violation of journalistic standards.

On December 21, 2023, I contacted both of you by email with concerns regarding Russiagate reporting by Mother Jones. In that instance, it was a report published by Kiera Butler. The concern was over Butler’s use of Ben Dubow as a source where Dubow had relied on Hamilton 68. The German Marshall Fund claimed their Hamilton 68 dashboard was tracking “Russian disinformation” but in fact it was doing no such thing. Reporter Matt Taibbi has proven that Hamilton 68 was not tracking Russian disinfo, but rather was producing unverified disinformation itself.

We never received a response to our email, so on January 4, 2024, Honest Media sent our letter to your San Francisco headquarters via FedEx; still no response.

Based on these facts and recent developments, we ask Mother Jones to do the following:

1. In Kiera Butler’s piece “Pro-Putin Disinformation on Ukraine Is Thriving in Online Anti-vaxx Groups,” we have previously pointed out to you that Ben Dubow is repeatedly referenced, and his work relied on the now thoroughly debunked Hamilton 68 dashboard. We ask again, for the second time, that you make clear that Butler relied on reporting based on a now-discredited source.

2. David Corn was forced to admit in his February 2, 2023 report at Mother Jones (though reluctantly) that the Steele Dossier and the notion of Trump directly colluding with Russia have both been discredited. This is significant considering the reporter who first broke the story of the Steele Dossier was none other than Corn himself. In his report, Corn attempts to refute an extensive 24,000 word Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) 4-part series that holds a mirror up to mainstream reporting on Russiagate. 

3. In his report Corn states it is irrelevant that these long-held themes in his and Mother Jones’ reporting are now discredited and simply pivots his attention to false accusations against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Corn states, “WikiLeaks dumped thousands of documents and emails Russian hackers had pilfered from the servers of the Democratic National Committee.” This claim is incorrect, or at the very least it is critically misleading. While the CJR report says it can’t rule out Russian hacking of the DNC, it also states in part 4 that Robert Mueller’s team “did not develop sufficient admissible evidence that Wikileaks knew of - or even was willfully blind to” [emphasis added] the fact that any Russian hacking efforts were underway at all at the time. So to maintain that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks were tied to Russia which was tied to Donald Trump is false, as it has never been established. 

4. Despite the CJR reporting that refutes his claim, Corn has no problem making a false statement about leaked Clinton and DNC emails coming from a Russian hack through WikiLeaks with no citation. This needs to be retracted and corrected.

5. Persecuted journalist and political prisoner Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has always maintained that Russia played no role in the troves of documents released by WikiLeaks that Corn references and connects to Russia with no evidence or citation.

6. In addition to these Russiagate concerns, please refer to the December 21, 2023 email sent to you by Honest Media detailing four other areas of inaccuracies in Kiera Butler’s reporting that should be addressed as well for the sake of journalistic integrity.

Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to hearing back from you.

Sincerely,

Michael Kane
Managing Editor Honest Media