Last week. the left-leaning news site Politico released a report claiming that Israel planted “mysterious” spy devices near the White House during Trump’s presidency.
But several pundits have highlighted just how problematic the credibility of this report is. The Lid blog notes that ‘Stingrays’, the devices used to allegedly spy on Trump according to the report, are considered obsolete making a high-tech powerhouse like Israel unlikely to ever use them saying: ““StingRay is old technology, U.S. police forces have been using it since 2006 or earlier. In technology years, StingRay is ancient. If Israel were to mount an operation to spy on the pro-Israel Trump administration after eight years of the anti-Israel Obama White House, there is no way they would use ancient technology which can be easily detected. Israel is one of the leading sources of cell phone technology.”
Meanwhile, the Washington Examiner notes the odd timing of the report. That’s because although these devices were discovered last year, the sources decided to reveal this information less than a week before Israel’s election. In his column, Quin Hillyer notes that: “American experience shows that if a news story toward the end of a close campaign seems outlandish, odds are that’s because it’s not true.” Hillyer uses Dan Rather’s fake news story about George Bush Jr. dodging the draft.
Conservative radio show host and Fox News commentator Mark Levin weighed in calling Politico a “left-wing news site that Obama officials love to leak to.”
Levin takes it a step further adding that since the sources in the article are “three former senior US officials, in other words – Obama appointees. Obama appointees planted this. They planted it in an American news site in order to try and create hostility between our president Trump and Prime minister Netanyahu who are very close.”
Author of the book Trump and the Jews, David Rubin, also expressed skepticism saying: “Apparently, the rumor about Israel spying on the US was a falsehood concocted by Netanyahu’s opponents to smear him before Tuesday’s election. The relationship with Trump remains solid. He is a great friend of Israel.”
“This story in my view was planted by former Obama officials” Levin added.
