Yesterday, I posted on CNN running with a thinly sourced and, as it turned out, flagrantly false story linking a Trump adviser, Anthony Scaramucci, with a Russian investment fund CEO and claiming they discussed easing US sanctions on Russia. CNN first updated the story and then they took the major step of pulling the story from the website and removing all links to the story.

While CNN frequently runs stories concerning the Russia probe that are proven utterly false in a matter of days, the alacrity and decisiveness of action indicates that CNN realized this story was so egregiously wrong that it was vulnerable to losing a libel suit.

Now the sh** is hitting the fan.

https://twitter.com/passantino/status/878767162986446848

https://twitter.com/passantino/status/878767656878260225

The seriousness of the foul up has resulted in CNN management requiring all stories concerning “Russia” to be cleared by top management before they run. This one from CNN Money (which wasn’t touched by the scandal) Executive Editor Rich Barbieri was leaked.

https://twitter.com/passantino/status/879048446287552512

If CNN Money is concerned enough to do this and if Jeff Zucker is personally involved in the damage control, you can bet other CNN business units have issued similar policies.

One, however, shouldn’t mistake CNN’s concern here as being anything more than damage control. The network’s editorial policy is obviously to do whatever it can to push any rumor or innuendo that it perceives will hurt either Trump, his family, his associates, or his administration. That is not going to change because if it did, CNN would cease to exist.