My day with Snopes

[Valin]

Power Line

Scott Johnson

Aug. 22 2019

I originally posted this personal account of my experience with the left-wing dopes at Snopes earlier this year on March 26. I thought it might be of interest to some readers in light of the ordeal of the Babylon Bee, recounted here by John Hinderaker yesterday. This is my March 26 post:

Over the weekend I came across the Snopes fact check: “Did U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar Marry Her Brother?” It rates the allegation, originally raised by me on Power Line, “Unproven.” Published on February 15, it stated in its conclusion that neither Omar nor Power Line had responded to a list of questions. Before writing Snopes I searched the Power Line gmail account for any email from Snopes. It turned up nothing. I emailed Snopes stating that we had never received a list of questions and asking for a correction.

Around noon yesterday we received a “forwarded” email with a list of questions from Snopes reporter Bethania Parma dated February 15, the same date as Snopes’s Omar post. It read:

(Snip)

In Faulknerian terms, I rate the Snopes post four Flems.

UPDATE: Our publisher reports: “Can’t find any evidence that she sent this email to Power Line Feedback on the date claimed. If it was tagged as spam, it was automatically deleted 30 days later, on March 15. If it was deleted, the trash would have been emptied automatically 30 days later as well. One thing she can easily do to help prove that she asked PL for comment on February 15 would be to go into her email, find the message that was sent on February 15, and send us the full headers of the email.”

[Valin]

Jan. 16 2020

 

[Valin]

David Steinberg reports: The Omar investigations

Scott Johnson

1/17/20

Minnesota state representative Steve Drazkowski is the gentleman who filed the complaint against Ilhan Omar with the state campaign finance board. The board found Omar responsible for numerous infractions and released its investigative file early this past June. Thanks to the board investigation, we learned that Omar filed joint tax returns with Ahmed Hirsi (to whom she was not married) while she was “legally” married to her brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.

Trying to embarrass the Star Tribune into covering the revelations of the board investigation, we explored the board file in depth on Power Line. The Star Tribune finally got around to it in the June 23 story “New documents revisit questions about Rep. Ilhan Omar’s marriage history.” . It was the Star Tribune’s most-read news story of 2019.

Rep. Drazkowski is a persistent gentleman. Drawing on David Steinberg’s work at PJ Media and on Power Line, he has contacted the United States Attorney for Minnesota and presented it for investigation of possible criminal misconduct by the FBI. David is of course the genius researcher who has established himself as the foremost investigative reporter on Omar’s tangled life.

Rep. Drazkowski met with the FBI to present his file and request an investigation this past October 10. (Like David, I declined an invitation to attend, in my case because of the need to protect the confidentiality of my sources.) David reports on Drazkowski’s October 10 meeting and subsequent events in the Blaze column “Finally. The Feds — including ICE — appear to be investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar.”

(Snip)