My own Jim Acosta 'fake news' story

Jim Acosta has made quite a name for himself covering President Trump's White House.

I had my own crazy run-in with the CNN reporter going back about nine years, when his role there in Barack Obama's White House was a little different.

It was 2009, Obama's first year in the Oval Office.

Because I questioned Obama's very constitutional eligibility for the presidency, I was under more scrutiny – and outright attacks – from the establishment press than was the "messiah" figure who they apparently believed was going to lead the nation into the Promised Land.

So, one day, I got a call from a CNN producer who was working for Acosta. It seemed Acosta wanted to interview me about the eligibility issues.

Well, I never pass up an opportunity to talk about under-reported stories like the way Barack Obama was hiding his true identity, his true persona, from the American people.

Happily, like a lamb being led to slaughter, I went off to be accosted by Acosta.

Remember, this interview was billed as one dealing with the questions surrounding Obama's constitutional eligibility for office and the missing documents – starting with the long-form birth certificate – that would be needed to settle such a matter.

According to my contemporaneous notes from that ambush interview, the first question posed by Acosta was the following: "Now back in the 1990s, you said that Bill Clinton's deputy counsel, Vincent Foster, was murdered. Do you still believe that?"

How did I respond?

"I never said any such thing," was my response. "I've written many thousands of words on the subject, given dozens of interviews over years and never made any such statement."

Acosta was taken aback.

He had not done his homework.

He needed a time out after his first question.

He peered through his notes looking for some hint of the accusation from my lips. He wasn't finding it.

Even though the interview was being recorded, Acosta had that deer-in-the-headlight look. Maybe this wasn't going to be his finest moment. He had not done his homework – as usual. He was a disgrace back then as he remains today.

Was I surprised by Acosta's question, which was completely irrelevant to the subject matter he claimed to want to cover with me? I expected as much. So, I replied honestly and forthrightly, calmly and accurately.

"No," I said, reiterating my initial answer. "I never said any such thing. I have written tens of thousands of words about Vincent Foster's death, but I never said he was murdered."

He just kept rifling through this his voluminous gotcha notes, which I suspect were prepared for him by the White House media staff.

"Well," he asked, "what did you say about his death?"

"I wrote that there were many unanswered questions about his death and that the official investigations were all badly botched and inconclusive," I said.

We danced around the Vincent Foster questions for about the next 30 minutes, at which point I raised the point that this interview appointment was misrepresented as one dealing with an entirely different subject.

As I recall, Acosta called for a break at that point.

His production staff asked if I needed anything – a glass of water, a restroom break. They seemed very accommodating. In fact, several of them approached me outside of Acosta's earshot with encouragement. One even congratulated me for "eating Acosta's lunch" on camera. It was clear they did not have high regard for their colleague. They clearly enjoyed seeing him squirm.

When the cameras started rolling again, we actually got to the matter at hand. Again, though, Acosta demonstrated immediately he had not done his homework.

"Now, you say Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States," he said. "Why do you believe that?"

I replied: "I've never made that claim or assertion. I'm a journalist. I ask questions. I don't accept at face value the words of politicians and government officials. I think they should be accountable to the people and provide documents to prove what they say."

I wish I had the entire recording. It went on for more than an hour, but not even one second of it ever aired. Why?

There are only three possibilities:

Acosta lost his homework.
Acosta didn't get the ambush interview he was looking for.
It was not going to be so easy for Acosta to debunk these so-called "conspiracy theories."

And so, the pieces were left on the cutting-room floor, as they say.

The simple release of Obama's birth certificate would have to wait a few more years thanks to the total lack of inquisitiveness of the establishment press that served virtually as Obama's own palace guard. It would take two intersecting forces to get Obama to release what he claimed was his long-form birth certificate:

A book called "Where's the Birth Certificate?" written by Jerome Corsi and published by WND Books became the No. 1 best-seller in 2011.
A billionaire named Donald Trump entered the arena of political controversy for the first time in his life by calling on Obama to release his birth certificate.

Just like that, Obama "found" a document that couldn't previously be found. In fact, the nation had been told it didn't even exist. Then, without even examining it, the nation's establishment media blessed it, accepted it, celebrated it and continued the witch hunt on those, like me, who demanded it.

Update:

President Trump booted Acosta from the White House.
Jerome Corsi is expressing fears he will be imminently indicted in matters related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of so-called "Russian collusion" in the 2016 presidential election.

Strange how these things work out, huh?

Joseph Farah's latest book, "The Gospel in Every Book of the Old Testament," which shows God's mercy, grace and redemption throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, is available now in e-book and hardcover in the WND Superstore.