Well, if you insist.
The article was the first to reveal direct contacts between Trump advisers and Russian officials before the election — contacts that are now at the heart of F.B.I. and congressional investigations.
Sorry, NY Times. But you don't know what the FBI is investigating. The Congressional investigations are a separate matter, witch-hunts that they are.
Multiple news outlets have since published accounts that support the main elements of The Times’s article, including information about phone calls and in-person meetings between Mr. Trump’s advisers and Russians, some believed to be connected to Russian intelligence.
It doesn't make those stories any more correct, most of which are based on the same anonymous sourcing.
Mr. Comey did not say exactly what he believed was incorrect about the article, which was based on information from four current and former American officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information was classified. The original sources could not immediately be reached after Mr. Comey’s remarks, but in the months since the article was published, they have indicated that they believed the account was solid.
Of course they said the info was solid, but the NY Times has no insight into their agenda, whatever that might be. But to believe them, you also have to believe Comey lied. So, if he lied about that, what else did he lie about? If you believe he's a liar, he could be lying about anything. Hell, he could even be lying about whether or not a reasonable prosecutor would have pursued a case against Hillary.
One possible area of dispute is the description of the Russians involved. Some law enforcement officials took issue with the Times account in the days after it was published, saying that the intelligence was still murky, and that the Russians who were in contact with Mr. Trump’s advisers did not meet the F.B.I.’s black-and-white standard of who can be considered an “intelligence officer.”
Bingo. But that didn't stop you, the NY Times, from continuing to build a house of cards of a story, did it? It wouldn't surprise me that quite a few Russian officials have "contacts within the intelligence community". In Putin's Russia, I doubt you get that high up the ladder without connections in gov't....or the mob.
But several former American intelligence and law enforcement officials have said that other American agencies have a broader definition, especially when it comes to Russia. They said that President Vladimir V. Putin uses an extensive network of government officials and private citizens with deep links to Russian spy services who supplement the intelligence apparatus and report back to the Kremlin. At least some of the contacts, they said, involved Russians who fit into this category.
Shoddy reporting. Which contacts were connected? Which weren't? Did the campaign speak exclusively to those "connected"? Or were the contacts conducted in such a way that discussions with "connected" individuals couldn't be avoided? I suspect the folks at the NY Times weren't very curious about these significant distinctions.
In testimony last month before the House Intelligence Committee, John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, said he became concerned last year about direct attempts by the Russian government to recruit members of Mr. Trump’s campaign.
I'm sure that one of Obama's closest advisers might say something like that. Either Comey is lying, or Brennan is lying, or they're both lying and the Times is fulla shit too. Can I pick "all of the above"? Also the Carter Page wiretap requests was a year ago, and was based on the idiotic dossier which has since been discredited. I know the Time still wants to believe its all true, however.
I don't think the Times took Comey's comments "head on". I think they took the comments with their head up their collective asses.