MSNBC's Chris Hayes mocked for false claim that Trump received illegal UAE donations when it was Clinton

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Media top headlines February 15

In media news today, a judge rules he will dismiss Sarah Palin’s defamation case against the New York Times, CNN and CBC disparage Canadian truckers for wanting freedom, and a Forbes contributor says he was fired over investigative stories on Dr. Fauci.

MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes was mocked on Twitter for spreading disinformation about donations during the 2016 presidential election.

On Monday, a D.C. federal court unsealed several documents regarding a search warrant into several individuals from the United Arab Emirates. Detroit News reporter Robert Snell posted two images from the documents that revealed evidence of individuals Ahmad "Andy" Khawaja and George Nader funneling funds from the UAE to the 2016 presidential election.

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LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS -- Episode 1208A -- Pictured: (l-r) Political commentator Chris Hayes during an interview on October 13, 2021 (Photo by: Lloyd Bishop/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

Hayes shared Snell's with the comment "The America First campaign sure had a lot of foreign sponsors!"

While Hayes assumed a connection between the illegal donation and former President Trump, older documents suggested otherwise. In 2019, Khawaja and Nader were previously indicted on attempting to funnel more than $3 million in illegal foreign campaign contributions to the 2016 election. While the indictment did not list the candidate by name, campaign finance records indicated that the recipient was Hillary Clinton.

Nader, who previously acted as a liaison between President Trump’s top advisers and officials within the United Arab Emirates, later plead guilty to charges of child sex trafficking and possessing child pornography.

Twitter users reminded Hayes about these facts.

Former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives for the opening ceremony of the Generation Equality Forum at the Louvre Carrousel in Paris, France, June 30, 2021. (REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes)

"Lol. The charges in this case were for straw donations to the *Clinton campaign* on behalf of UAE," Washington Free Beacon reporter Chuck Ross tweeted.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also wrote, "Um, these were donations…to Hillary. @chrislhayes @msnbc will you correct? And apologize?"

"These were donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign," Gov. DeSantis' press secretary Christiana Pushaw also tweeted. 

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Hayes' colleague Mehdi Hasan made the same mistake of rushing to judgement. 

"Some of us warned, when everyone was obsessively focused only on Russia, to also pay attention to the Trump campaign's alleged financial ties to other foreign nationals like the Emirates," Hasan tweeted on Monday night. 

He later deleted the tweet and offered an explanation for his mistake. 

"Deleted my rushed retweet from last night re UAE money & George Nader, as it was allegedly to Clinton campaign. Nader also cultivated ties between Trump & Gulf folks, hence confusion on my part. Important 1) to correct Twitter mistakes, & 2) keep foreign cash out of US politics," Hasan wrote. 

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The tweet was published as news regarding allegations from the John Durham investigation emerged over the weekend. On Saturday, Special Counsel John Durham claimed lawyers from the Hillary Clinton campaign hired techs to "infiltrate" Trump Tower and White House servers to establish a "narrative" to connect Trump to Russia. Various news media, including MSNBC, have repeatedly downplayed or criticized Durham’s investigation since 2019.