The media is not covering itself in glory this week, or on the issue of Iran.
I wrote earlier about the story from ABC on the supposed drone threat from Iran to California. But as White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt explained, ABC left out something rather vital in this story. The alert that went out, which ABC claimed to be referencing, said the information was "unverified."
FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs Ben Williamson concurred and posted the alert compared to what ABC posted. The word "unverified" was in the original alert.
On the left is the way ABC (or their source) reported the FBI alert.
— Ben Williamson (@_WilliamsonBen) March 12, 2026
On the right is the actual FBI alert that went to JTFF partners.
You will notice the word left out —“Unverified.” https://t.co/zSBHObisAI pic.twitter.com/XEZPeNKmDA
READ MORE: Boom: Karoline Leavitt Drops the Receipts on ABC Over Their Disgraceful Iran Drone Threat Story
FBI Now Warning Iran Planned Drone Attack on California in Retaliation for U.S. Strikes
Now ABC has weighed in, and their response raises more questions. Check out this phrasing - this is quite something.
LATEST: The FBI warned police departments in California that Iran could retaliate for American attacks by launching drones at the West Coast, according to an alert reviewed by ABC News on Wednesday. On Thursday, the FBI posted a fuller version of the alert, which said the information was unverified.
LATEST: The FBI warned police departments in California that Iran could retaliate for American attacks by launching drones at the West Coast, according to an alert reviewed by ABC News on Wednesday. On Thursday, the FBI posted a fuller version of the alert, which said the… pic.twitter.com/1cuvednyni
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 12, 2026
They claimed that the FBI posted a "fuller version of the alert" on Thursday.
No, that's not what the FBI said/did. They posted what the original alert said: "unverified." They weren't posting a "fuller version" - they posted what was originally sent out, as they said.
ABC didn't address why, in their quote of what the FBI said in the original alert, the "unverified" part was left out. They're acting like they never saw it. Did they know it was there and not include it, or were they perhaps deceived by whoever leaked the alert to them (which wasn't supposed to be given to the press)? Who did they get the information from? They interestingly note that the California governor's office was one of the places/agencies notified by the FBI.
Then, too, while they mentioned the FBI tweet from Ben Williamson in their tweet/report at 3:46 p.m., they don't mention Karoline Leavitt taking them to task, calling on them to retract the story, even though she posted Thursday morning. She explained that the information came from a single, unverified tip.
This post and story should be immediately retracted by ABC News for providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people.
They wrote this based on one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single, unverified tip. The email even states the tip was based on *unverified* intelligence. Yet ABC News left out this critical fact in their story! WHY?
TO BE CLEAR: No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did.
This post and story should be immediately retracted by ABC News for providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people.
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) March 12, 2026
They wrote this based on one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single, unverified tip. The email even… https://t.co/jKey9ahsNk
Are they just going to ignore that? ABC needs to come clean.
They do note one important thing in their tweet update - that there "is no imminent threat here" and that the administration said that the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran had severely degraded the Iranian regime's capabilities. Great. Can you roll back your story now?
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