Now The Podesta Group Gets Involved: Claims Story Of Saudi Funding For Hillary Was "A Hack"
By Tyler Durden
In what may have been the most surprising news yesterday, we cited a report by Middle East Eye, which caught a release posted on the official Jordan News Agency (Petra), which was subsequently promptly taken down, according to which Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made various traditionally diplomatic statements about the US ahead of his visit to the US, which also included the stunning claim that Riyadh has provided 20% of the total funding to the prospective Democratic candidate’s campaign, something which is considered illegal.
This is what bin Salman was quoted as saying:
“Saudi Arabia always has sponsored both Republican and Democratic Party of America and in America current election also provide with full enthusiasm 20 percent of the cost of Hillary Clinton’s election even though some events in the country don’t have a positive look to support the king of a woman (sic) for presidency.“
Many questions emerged: was this true; why did the Saudi prince say this; but most notably, why was it taken down so fast?
In a bizarre explanation, MEE reports today that the official Jordan news agency said on Tuesday that it was hacked when, over the weekend, when the story briefly appeared on its website.
As we reported yesterday, while this stunning report was hosted by Petra for a few hours, the report did not remain on the website for long. In the meantime, the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs later re-published an Arabic version of it, which quoted Prince Mohammed as having said Saudi Arabia had provided with “full enthusiasm” an undisclosed amount of money to Clinton.
The story quickly made the rounds, and prompted Donald Trump to post the following note on his Facebook page: “Crooked Hillary says we must call on Saudi Arabia and other countries to stop funding hate. I am calling on her to immediately return the $25 million plus she got from them for the Clinton Foundation!”
At this point the big guns had no choice but to get involved
According to an update by MEE today, on Monday a spokesperson for American public relations firm the Podesta Group contacted MEE to say that they work with the Saudi Royal Court and to request a correction to the earlier story that said the Jordanian news agency had deleted the quotes from Prince Mohammed.
Senior global communications specialist Will Bohlen – who, prior to joining Podesta, was chief researcher for a best-selling history of Bill Clinton’s presidency – sent a link to a clarification issued by the Petra News Agency which said it was “totally false and untrue” that they had published then deleted the quotes from Prince Mohammed about funding the Clinton campaign.
“A technical failure on Petra ’s website occurred for a few minutes on Sunday evening, 12 June 2016,” the Jordanian news agency said. “Protection systems at the agency as well as the technical department noticed that and therefore, they suspended the transmission system and the electronic site and moved to the alternative …read more
Source: Now The Podesta Group Gets Involved: Claims Story Of Saudi Funding For Hillary Was "A Hack"
