On Monday morning, Bloomberg reporter Eli Lake published a report that former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice was involved in the “unmasking” of Donald Trump campaign and transition team officials who were swept up in NSA surveillance. The news has been dominating headlines in right-leaning media outlets ever since.
Unbeknownst to many mainstream news consumers, that scoop, published on April 3, had already been written up the day prior on the Medium blog of Mike Cernovich. Cernovich is a prominent alt-right influencer and former men’s rights activist, and on April 2, he reported the same news—that Susan Rice was allegedly behind requesting the names of Trump officials.
Susan Rice, who served as the National Security Adviser under President Obama, has been identified as the official who requested unmasking of incoming Trump officials, Cernovich Media can exclusively report.
The White House Counsel’s office identified Rice as the person responsible for the unmasking after examining Rice’s document log requests. The reports Rice requested to see are kept under tightly-controlled conditions. Each person must log her name before being granted access to them.
Cernovich went on to claim that he was certain New York Times White House reporter Maggie Haberman had been also aware of the information but withheld it to protect the former Obama staffer as well as the president.
This reporter has been informed that Maggie Haberman has had this story about Susan Rice for at least 48 hours, and has chosen to sit on it in an effort to protect the reputation of former President Barack Obama.
Donald Trump Jr., tweeted that Cernovich was the one who broke the original report and that he was worthy of a Pulitzer.
Congrats to @Cernovich for breaking the #SusanRice story. In a long gone time of unbiased journalism he'd win the Pulitzer, but not today!
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 4, 2017
That is the second bit of praise in the past few days for the conservative journalist, who was recently featured on a 60 Minutes segment, a link to which White House counselor Kellyanne Conway tweeted out.
A must-see ratings bonanza: @cernovich @scottpelley @60Minutes: Watch this entire exchange or read full transcript. https://t.co/3FLZG1HrJD
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) April 3, 2017
Many on Twitter were quick to note that two people with prominent access to the president were praising the words and actions of a man who had made many claims they found extremely objectionable.
https://twitter.com/AlexMLeo/status/849250582749642757
https://twitter.com/VicBergerIV/status/849252903894339584
.@DonaldJTrumpJr you mean this dude? pic.twitter.com/yDAEsG42KS
— Justin Kanew (@Kanew) April 4, 2017
https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/849257879941132290
Cernovich also writes the blog Danger and Play, where he wrote such pieces as “What is Rape,” claiming women cry rape at every encounter, back when the blog was more men’s rights-focused, and “Podesta Spirit Cooking Emails Reveal Clinton’s Inner Circle as Sex Cult with Connections to Human Trafficking,” which said that Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair was involved in a group that practiced “symbolic cannibalism.”
In a subsequent article, Cernovich accused Eli Lake of plagiarizing his work and refusing to give him credit.
Cernovich did not respond to a request for comment for this story.