CNN's Anderson Cooper is a fraud

A few months ago, after appearing on the Glenn Beck show, I was admittedly a bit amused to watch the fallout unfold as the left-wing media from George Soros' Media Matters to MSNBC's Fonzie-esque Rachel Maddow dedicated their efforts to attack me.

I've never had a shred of confidence in such leftist media outlets, but I have to admit I was still quite shocked at the shamelessness with which these so-called reporters purposefully lie to their audiences.

For most observers of the daily news cycle, this is all simply par for the course. But until you yourself have been personally attacked and lied about in the national media, it's hard to truly grasp how outright evil some of these people really are.

As far as the attacks against myself, I've never felt the need to respond. But when CNN's Anderson Cooper and Drew Griffin aired an outright hatchet-job against my friend, Walid Shoebat, I knew I had to speak up.

To keep it simple, there were three primary accusations leveled against Walid, and all were completely bogus.

First, Cooper and Griffin made great efforts to infer that Walid was not actually using his foundation's monies to help rescue persecuted Christians, as he claims. Both reporters concluded their show by whining that neither Walid nor his manager would reveal exactly how their monies were spent for this cause. When asked about this, Walid rightly responded by saying, "It's none of your business."

I would have said the same thing. These "gotcha" reporters have proven themselves to be entirely unworthy of compliance. Griffin specifically was exposed by Bill O'Reilly as blatantly lying about Sarah Palin. And so, as the proverb of Jesus says, "Do not cast your pearls to the swine."

But in light of the doubts this hit piece will surely sow in the minds of the more gullible of watchers, I do have a few things to say to this issue.

Last year, I was personally involved in the advent of Walid's Rescue Christians project. What began as a cry for help from a man in Pakistan became a major project that occupied both Walid and his manager for well over a year. I was also personally involved in this effort.

I spent hours on the phone vetting this man. I also spent multiple hours networking with Christian missionaries and safe houses in foreign countries with Walid and his manager, as they both worked tirelessly and thanklessly to help this man and his family. I heard the frustration in their voices when ministry after ministry would offer no more than a willingness to "pray about it." And I can also testify that tens of thousands of dollars were spent by Walid and his foundation on this one family.

So when Anderson Cooper and his partner in crime suggest that Walid is a "fraud" for not using funds properly, I can only shake my head in utter disgust.

Another of Cooper's charges was that Walid never spent any time in Mascubia Prison. The primary basis for Cooper's claims of fraudulence were the words of one man who claimed to be Walid's fourth cousin. But not only was this man a distant relative, he is also demonstrably the uncle of two infamous terrorists.

If relying on such a dubious source were not pathetic enough, what is truly embarrassing is that another left-wing hit piece written only three years ago, which is easily available online, included an interview with another much closer relative who openly stated that Walid spent time in Mascubia Prison, exactly as Walid has said all along.

The reporter was Eileen Fleming, who wrote a piece for Op-Ed news, the motto of which is "Progressive Tough Liberal News and Opinion."

In this article, Fleming includes an interview with one of Walid's closer relatives, Kamal Younis, who Fleming acknowledges had checked his facts with several other of Walid's relatives.

According to Younis: "In 1977 Walid ... was arrested and held for about two weeks in Mascubia Prison. ... When he was in jail, he met someone who invited him to join a group against Israel."

But Cooper creates the clear impression that Walid is lying about his stay in Mascubia Prison. Cooper claims triumphantly that CNN checked the records at Mascubia and there was no record of anyone named "Walid Shoebat" having ever been there.

This is both sloppy and deceitful reporting in the extreme. First, "Walid Shoebat" is not even Walid's actual legal name, and any reporter worth his salt would have known this. Second, if Cooper had simply done some simple due diligence, he would have easily found Fleming's interview with Younis. So is Cooper an utter amateur incapable of using Google, or is he simply an agenda-driven liar? I see no other options.

Next, Cooper and Griffin attempted to cast Walid as a liar regarding his claims to have planted a bomb at the Bethlehem branch of Bank Leumi. Griffin claims to have personally called the bank. The problem is that this bank hasn't existed for years. Called to task, the shoddy reporting team changed its story and claimed to have called the Tel Aviv branch. The problem again is that the Tel Aviv branch doesn't even have records from the Bethlehem branch for the years in question. Finally, Griffin claimed to have spoken to the Israeli police station in Bethlehem. But once again, Griffin was lying, as there is no Israeli police station in Bethlehem.

But is there any evidence that Walid was involved in planting a bomb at the bank's Leumi branch? Once again, Cooper could have simply read Eileen Fleming's interview with Kamal Younis, who, though he was trying to discredit Walid, admitted that after Walid got out of prison, he and some friends "put packages behind a bank."

Beyond this, the Shoebat Foundation has provided the historical U.N. records of the bombing:

Between December 24 and 27, there were two explosions in that area: "Bethlehem (in Manger Square near the Church of the Nativity)" and "Explosive charge went off outside the local courthouse, 27 December 1977, JP. 2 Jan. 1978 Yediot Aharonot, 2 January 1978.

At this point, are we surprised that these records were ignored by CNN?

Lastly, Griffin specifically asked Walid if he was receiving $13,000 for speaking at a Department of Homeland Security event. When Walid asked the reporter from whom he received this false figure, he responded by claiming it came from "reliable sources." Yet this figure just happens to be precisely the same bogus figure that the radical Saudi-funded Islamist group CAIR claimed Walid had received.

So, it's truth time. Will anyone at CNN look into this further? Are Anderson Cooper and Drew Griffin relying on a Saudi-funded radical Islamist group for their bogus information and political assassination? I'm not holding my breath. This observation may be overused at this point, but is it any surprise that in recent years, CNN has absolutely hemorrhaged viewers.

The bottom line is that Anderson Cooper and reporter Drew Griffin are frauds, plain and simple. If the executives at CNN had a lick of pride or integrity left, they would fire both Cooper and Griffin out of sheer embarrassment.

Joel Richardson is the author of "Islamic Antichrist," published by WND Books, and is the co-author with Walid Shoebat of "God's War on Terror." His blog is www.Joelstrumpet.com.