MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell Retracts Unverified Trump Finances Report

Lawrence ODonnell said that he was wrong to read a story about President Donald Trump s finances during his Tuesday night MSNBC show, saying he made an error in judgment by discussing the unverified report on the air.

I did not go through the rigorous verification and standards process here at MSNBC before repeating what I heard from my source, he said at the start of his show. He said if he had gone through the process, he wouldnt have been permitted to report it.

Tonight, we are retracting the story, he said.

We dont know whether the information is inaccurate, he said. But the fact is, we do know it wasnt ready for broadcast, and for that I apologize.

He also tweeted earlier:

Last night I made an error in judgment by reporting an item about the presidents finances that didnt go through our rigorous verification and standards process. I shouldnt have reported it and I was wrong to discuss it on the air. I will address the issue on my show tonight.

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Last night I made an error in judgment by reporting an item about the presidents finances that didnt go through our rigorous verification and standards process. I shouldnt have reported it and I was wrong to discuss it on the air. I will address the issue on my show tonight.
Lawrence O'Donnell (@Lawrence) August 28, 2019

The Tuesday night segment in question involved ODonnell telling viewers that Russian oligarchs had co-signed Trumps loans from Deutsche Bank, a report he teased on Twitter too . He stressed the story had not been confirmed by NBC News, was based on a single anonymous source and still needed to be verified to determine if it was true.

I have not seen any documentation from Deutsche Bank that supports this and verifies this, ODonnell said on the air Tuesday night, according to CNN . This is just a single source who has revealed that to me.

The unconfirmed report prompted Trumps lawyers to send NBC a letter demanding a retraction.

Just in: Attorney for @realDonaldTrump sends demand for retraction, corrctn, and apology to @nbc over segment of @Lawrence program last nite in which he said Russian oligarchs co-signed Deutsche Bank loans to Trump. Letter says that statement is false and defamatory. Letter: pic.twitter.com/HY0ZRAES5i

Paul Farhi (@farhip) August 28, 2019","type":"rich","meta":{"author":"Paul Farhi","author_url":"https://twitter.com/farhip","cache_age":86400,"description":"Just in: Attorney for @realDonaldTrump sends demand for retraction, corrctn, and apology to @nbc over segment of @Lawrence program last nite in which he said Russian oligarchs co-signed Deutsche Bank loans to Trump. Letter says that statement is false and defamatory. Letter: pic.twitter.com/HY0ZRAES5i Paul Farhi (@farhip) August 28, 2019\n\n","options":{"_hide_media":{"label":"Hide photos, videos, and cards","value":false}},"provider_name":"Twitter","title":"Paul Farhi on 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Just in: Attorney for @realDonaldTrump sends demand for retraction, corrctn, and apology to @nbc over segment of @Lawrence program last nite in which he said Russian oligarchs co-signed Deutsche Bank loans to Trump. Letter says that statement is false and defamatory. Letter: pic.twitter.com/HY0ZRAES5i
Paul Farhi (@farhip) August 28, 2019