CNN is aerobically back-patting the "incredible reporting" from national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand for finding anonymous sources inside the intelligence community suggesting the Trump team wasn't very successful in it's bunker-busting of Iran's nuclear facilities.
They don't mention her previous "incredible" disinformation. Bertrand was promoted from Politico to CNN after she "fortified" the 2020 election against Donald Trump by hyping the disinformation campaign by 51 intelligence officials who claimed that the highly damaging (to the Joe Biden campaign) information on Hunter Biden's laptop about the family influence-pedding business was actually the result of Russian disinformation.
So instead of eternally bearing the Scarlett Letter "D" for "Disinformation" for spreading a fake news story about Hunter Biden's laptop, Bertrand is back at it again with the same antics. In fact, her latest story again based supposedly on intel sources has a title which sounds like an eerie throwback to her discredited 2020 laptop story. Here is the title of her CNN story originally published on Tuesday, "Early US intel assessment suggests strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites, sources say."
If that title sounds vaguely familiar, it is because Bertrand's fake news published in Politico has a similar format: "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say."
"Sources say." "Former intel officials say." Hopefully the co-authors of Bertrand's latest story, Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen, have invested in a set of very sturdy worry beads because they are sure to get a workout over intense rubbing and praying that Natasha Bertrand has not led them into yet another fake news quagmire.
Adding to their worries is the fact that both the 2020 fake news story and the latest Bertrand story sound very much alike in tone as you can see the following quotes in which the CNN story excerpts are followed by the 2020 Politico disinformation tidbits in italics.
The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by seven people briefed on it.
The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.
The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.”
And now for a Bertrand 2020 fake news throwback:
More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
The letter, signed on Monday, centers around a batch of documents released by the New York Post last week that purport to tie the Democratic nominee to his son Hunter’s business dealings. Under the banner headline “Biden Secret E-mails,” the Post reported it was given a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who said he got it from a Mac shop owner in Delaware who also alerted the FBI.
While the letter’s signatories presented no new evidence, they said their national security experience had made them “deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case” and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin’s hand at work.
You have to wonder if members of the Defense Intelligence Agency are so clueless as to risk their careers and reputations (and desire to stay out of prison) as to leak top secret information to someone who has been publicly discredited for perpetrating fake news supposedly based on intelligence sources.
What Secretary of State Marco Rubio later said in reply to Politico's Dasha Burns asking him about CNN reporting that the Iranian nuke sites have not been completely destroyed could cause Bertrand's writing partners to add a heavy Xanax dosage to their frantic worry bead rubbings.
...intelligence leaks are one of the most frustrating things anywhere, not just because you’ve got somebody who has access to this putting stuff out there, but because it’s so often mischaracterized. An intelligence report, for anyone who’s ever seen it, sometimes is an assessment. Some analyst will make an assessment, or analysts will make an assessment. And in these leaks, what you typically have is someone who read it and then leaks it to the media, giving it the spin and the angle they want it to have because they’ve got some purpose: embarrass the administration, they were against the action, whatever it may be.
Others have noted the irony of Natasha Bertrand being allowed to once again report on a story based on supposed intelligence sources:
Also, this same Natasha Bertrand making claims about the Iran strike kicked off the “Hunter Biden’s laptop is Russian disinfo” conspiracy. https://t.co/Le1RYdOtjW pic.twitter.com/cYPrfrDQWW
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 24, 2025