Yesterday, the Guardian published an article about my reporting that was false on the facts. It made the serious allegation, as fact, that I sourced my stories from a hoaxer with whom I have never interacted in any way.

The writer, Jon Swaine, put to me that I had used her as a source. I told him I had not. As far as I can see from emails this story quotes, the hoaxer herself has not even claimed to have interacted with me. Yet the Guardian stated that “lurid allegations” made by me about Donald Trump, Trump Models and Eric Schneiderman’s investigation into Trump for human trafficking came from this hoaxer.

That is categorically untrue.

Mr. Swaine also stated that Claude Taylor was the author of my piece on Orrin Hatch. This is, again, categorically false. Any person may read that piece and see that Taylor’s name is not on it.

The hoaxer, who fed the information to Taylor by email, said she acted out of frustration over the “dissemination of fake news” by Taylor and Mensch. Their false stories about Trump have included a claim that he was already being replaced as president by Senator Orrin Hatch in a process kept secret from the American public.

Swaine’s piece made a number of false allegations about my reporting on Donald Trump and Trump Models. 

Lurid Trump allegations made by Louise Mensch and co-writer came from hoaxer

This, the headline, is false. None of my allegations came from this hoaxer. Not one. I find it illuminating that the Guardian does not even name in the headline the citizen journalist who was indeed deceived. The entire piece seems to be an effort to place his errors in my hands.

• Mensch and Claude Taylor tweeted details of criminal inquires that didn’t exist

This, the secondary strap, is false. The criminal inquiry that I report – that of AG Schneiderman of New York into Donald Trump and Trump Models does indeed exist. I have not tweeted any ‘detail’ on it, nor reported any, in my work.

Explosive allegations about Donald Trump made by online writers with large followings among Trump critics were based on bogus information from a hoaxer who falsely claimed to work in law enforcement.

This is false. Absolutely none of my reporting was based on any information from this hoaxer. Claude Taylor confirmed that he and I never spoke once about my story .

Claude Taylor tweeted fake details of criminal inquiries into Trump that were invented by a source whose claim to work for the New York attorney general was not checked, according to emails seen by the Guardian. The allegations were endorsed as authentic and retweeted by his co-writer Louise Mensch.

The source’s false tips included an allegation, which has been aggressively circulated by Mensch and Taylor, that Trump’s inactive fashion model agency is under investigation by New York authorities for possible sex trafficking.

This is false. Claude may have tweeted both fake details and tweeted based on a hoaxer. The allegation “that Trump’s inactive fashion model agency is under investigation by New York authorities for possible sex trafficking” is entirely true. The allegations are authentic, they are true, and the case is ongoing. I did not endorse Claude’s view because he tweeted it; I endorsed it because it is true, from my own sources. The record will show that I did not endorse as true things that I do not know myself are true, for example, specific details of cases.

The rest of the article follows the same pattern, with additional embarrassing failures by Swain of basic fact checking.

The hoaxer, who fed the information to Taylor by email, said she acted out of frustration over the “dissemination of fake news” by Taylor and Mensch. Their false stories about Trump have included a claim that he was already being replaced as president by Senator Orrin Hatch in a process kept secret from the American public.

This is false. My story about Senator Hatch is not “by Taylor and Mensch”. It is by me and me alone. Swaine apparently did not even click on the link to check. My story does not state Hatch is replacing Trump as President in a secret process. It states, accurately, that Hatch began to receive the Presidential Daily Briefing after James Comey was fired. “Trump’s Presidency Ended May 9th” is a quote from an intelligence source, obviously being metaphorical, which is clearly marked as a quote in the headline. I write:

“Trump’s presdidency ended May 9th,” said one source, referring to the overtly politicized dismissal of FBI Director James Comey.

The Guardian piece continues:

Taylor and Mensch also repeated an invented claim from the source that former president Bill Clinton knew of criminal wrongdoing by Trump’s model agency and was preparing to testify for the prosecution.

Again, this is wrong. My own sources report that Bill Clinton went to James Comey after he was forced on to Loretta Lynch’s plane by kompromat Russia held, derived from Jeffrey Epstein. My sources are entirely independent of this hoaxer (they include male sources) and they are known to me. Therefore, while Claude may have based his tweets on a demented manufacturer of fake news, my tweets on Bill Clinton and Epstein / Comey are based on sources linked to the intelligence community. I stated what I said based on my own information. Where Claude’s source, the hoaxer, asserted something I did not know, I used the conditional ‘this would be’ and ‘likely‘. I do however report that Clinton will be a witness against Trump on human trafficking via Trump models. That is, according to my independent sources who have knowledge of the crimes on which Trump and his company are being investigated, absolutely true.

Again and again, throughout his piece, Jon Swaine takes the unsustainable and untrue position that if the hoaxer references a thing, it is false, and if I tweet anything referred to by the hoaxer, my tweets are based on the hoaxer’s emails. Let me state again for the record I have never had any contact with her, nor does she claim I did:

After being asked by a follower for more information, Taylor claimed to know even more than the hoaxer had told him. “I have few details but apparently the possibility exists that our president has been a sex trafficker,” he said. Mensch then weighed in, reposting this false claim by Taylor and adding a vague allegation of her own that the full story was even worse.

The claim by Taylor may have been based on a liar, but the claim itself is not false. It is wholly and entirely true. Nor are my allegations “vague”. They are sourced and they are detailed. They were written up in an article. I have further accused Donald Trump of illegal sexual acts with trafficking victims. That too is sourced, to people linked to the intelligence community, known to me, and verified by me, in positions to know of the matter. I stand by both my article and my allegations on social media. They are sourced and they are true. They have been fact-checked by multiple intelligence sources. I resile from none of them, and Swaine and the Guardian will never be able to show that I relied on some hoaxer for the simple reason that I did not do so.

My Reporting Predates the Hoaxer’s References

Finally, Mr. Swaine appears to admit almost at the end of his piece that in point of fact, I had reported on Schneiderman’s investigation before this hoaxer even contacted Claude Taylor.

Mensch had claimed to have knowledge of inquiries by Schneiderman’s office before the hoaxer contacted Taylor.

Yes. That seems relevant, does it not?

In many cases, under the false headline

How the allegations were based on false information

Mr. Swaine and the Guardian reprint dated emails, from this hoaxer, referring to real reporting I have published on Patribotics months prior to her ever contacting Taylor. Swaine then asserts – as with Orrin Hatch and the Presidential Daily Briefing, my story from May 2016, which, without checks, he states Taylor wrote – false conclusions. He asserts that because the hoaxer mentions something I have reported before she contacted Taylor, it is false.

In an email dated July 20th, the hoaxer writes:

As you probably know, the RICO case that moved to FISC started in our state.

This, however, is based on my report of May 29, 2017:

Donald Trump Sealed Indictment Started With Eric Schneiderman

This is, however, based on my much earlier reporting on Guiliani, based on a FOIA lawsuit I filed with the James Madison project. As far back as May 10th I stated that Giuliani was talking to the Feds and to Schneiderman, who, I reported, had an Enterprise Corruption case against Trump and the Trump Organization.

I repeated that on July 19, before the hoaxer’s email to Taylor ten days later:

Remember folks – despite my reporting predating the hoaxer’s references by months, Mr. Swaine asserts without merit that I base my allegations on her emails. Take this gem, dated July 27th, 2017. The hoaxer writes:

as for the money laundering, there are about 15 Russian nationals involved in that case so far. Some names will be familiar to you, Sater for one. This case is in early development but so far, we know that T kids are involved with some of the shell companies in the money laundering schemes. Fruaiduleng transactions with weird LLCs to hide where the money is coming from and where it is going.

This is quite simply a mash-up of my own sourced and detailed reporting on money laundering for Trump, shell companies and the Trump children’s involvement in shell companies and money-laundering.

I published “Daughtergate” on Ivanka Trump and her brothers, shell companies and money laundering on June 17th, over a month prior to this email.

Yet Swaine and the Guardian insist that my allegations are based on some much later hoaxer, emailing months after my publication?

I published my piece on shell companies and Trump hacking way back on April 23rd. The Sater Bayrock money laundering case being the sealed indictment for RICO, on which I reported May 29th, was, as I said, started in Schneiderman’s state jurisdiction.

I warned repeatedly that – contrary to what the hoaxer was feeding Claude Taylor – there were no sealed indictments based on Trump Models. My sources state this investigation is preliminary. I sent these warnings of mine to the Guardian.

So What Remedy?

My remedies are to make a complaint through the Guardian’s editorial system, which I will do, and if they refuse to correct the factual errors in their piece, to sue the author and the paper. That would be a last resort. It is a great burden on private citizens to have to take on media companies. The Guardian is, however, one of a handful of papers that has not signed up to IPSO, the independent press regulator in the UK, that normally adjudicates complaints from members of the public.

I have made complaints to IPSO’s predecessor body only twice in my career, and been sustained both times. One such paper was the Sunday Times, a respected broadsheet newspaper, and the other was the equally respected New Statesman.

It is better not to complain and to allow yourself to be vindicated by events. But in these cases, the falsehoods were seriously damaging to my reputation, partly because it was serious papers who made them. The corrections were welcome.

I hope very much that the Guardian’s own process will review my complaint fairly. It is always, in my view, worth trusting the ethics of editors before jumping straight to a lawsuit. In this case, as detailed in this piece, I believe facts and dates will bear me out, especially combined with the fact that Taylor denies, and the hoaxer does not claim, that I had any contact with either of them over this story.

In a later piece, I will detail my standards for sourcing and fact checking (spoiler: all my sources are human beings known to me) and list my claims that have been borne out by later mainstream media reports thus far.