Eleven data points tracking CNN's Russia "fake news" story – and its retraction – concluded on Tuesday with a gleeful President Donald Trump going after other news media for their Russia coverage, too.
1. CNN publishes a story on June 22 that connects Anthony Scaramucci, a longtime Trump supporter, to a $10 billion Russian investment firm, per the Washington Examiner. The investment firm was supposed to be owned by a Kremlin-connected bank. The story tying Scaramucci, who played an important role in Trump's White House transition team, to the Russian firm was built around a single anonymous source.
The story charged that the Senate Intelligence committee was interested in a "$10-billion Russian investment fund whose chief executive met with a member of President Donald Trump's transition team four days before Trump’s inauguration," per the New York Post.
2. Scaramucci posts a Twitter message saying he did nothing wrong, followed by others who called the story "fake news."
3. CNN retracts the story on Friday and takes it off its website, determining that editorial processes were not followed. The network also issued an apology to Scaramucci.
4. Reporter Thomas Frank resigns. He wrote the story for CNN. Frank was an on-air reporter for "CNN Investigates" and a longtime newspaper writer, per Variety.
5. Executive Editor Lex Harris resigns. He was in charge of CNN's new investigative unit, per CNN. He had worked at CNN since 2001 and was hand-picked to lead the new investigations unit.
6. Editor Eric Lichtblau resigns. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his work at the New York Times in 2006 and joined CNN as an editor a few months ago, per Variety.
7. CNN issues new publishing rules for online articles involving Russia, per an internal email obtained by BuzzFeed News. The email went out on Saturday morning from Rich Barbieri, CNNMoney's executive editor, saying: "No one should publish any content involving Russia without coming to me and Jason (Farkas, a CNN vice president). This applied to social, video, editorial, and MoneyStream. No exceptions. I will lay out a workflow Monday."
8. Trump responds on Twitter on Tuesday to the CNN retraction.
9. CNN responds to Trump’s tweet on the social media site.
10. Trump goes after other news media for their Russia coverage in a following tweet on Tuesday.
11. James O'Keefe's Project Veritas published an undercover video online Tuesday purporting to show a CNN producer saying Trump is "probably right" in claiming Russia investigations are a witch hunt.
"I just feel like they really don't have it, but they want to keep digging," the man says.
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