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Vice President Mike Pence's office knocked the media after he faced criticism for claiming that Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani allowed 9/11 terrorists to pass through Afghanistan.
“Some reporters are making excuses for terrorists who are murderers in order to diminish the incredible achievements of President Trump," Katie Waldman, Pence's press secretary, told Fox News on Saturday.
Waldman's statement didn't mention any outlets by name, but her comment came as publications such as The New York Times cast doubt on Pence's claim. However, it's unclear where some details in Pence's claim originated. The episode represented another flashpoint in the media's coverage of Soleimani's death.
In a thread defending President Trump, Pence tweeted that Soleimani "assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States."
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Media outlets responded by suggesting Pence was inventing facts.
"No one knows where Mike Pence got his Soleimani 'facts' from," a Vanity Fair headline read. The Independent shared a video titled: "Mike Pence shares 9/11 conspiracy theory about Qassem Soleimani in attempt to justify killing." And an Times headline similarly read: "Pence Links Suleimani to 9/11. The Public Record Doesn’t Back Him."
On Twitter, many accused the vice president of lying. "Pence is lying about Iran/Soleimani's supposed involvement in 9/11," Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr tweeted. Kerr linked to an article by The Week that claimed Pence "crammed 3 inaccuracies about 9/11 into 1 tweet."
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"Vice President Mike Pence may want to check a middle-school history textbook for this one," the article stated.
It referred readers to a tweet from Charlotte Clymer, press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign. "Wow, where to start with how wrong this is...," Clymer tweeted Friday. Clymer proceeded to claim that 9/11 involved 19, not 12, hijackers, that Soleimani was a Shiite and therefore wouldn't have assisted Sunni terrorists, and that Soleimani helped the U.S. with post-9/11 intelligence.
But according to Waldman, Pence was referring to 12 specific terrorists who transited through Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks.
"For those asking: 12 of the 19 transited through Afghanistan. 10 of those 12 were assisted by Soleimani," she tweeted.
In a statement to Fox News, Clymer maintained that Pence lied about Soleimani's involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks, as well as the number of terrorists involved.
"As much as Mike Pence and his spokesperson wish they could create reality simply by stating something, that is not the case," Clymer said.
Waldman also pointed Fox News to a State Department fact sheet claiming that the Treasury Department found Iran "had knowingly permitted [Al Qaeda] members, including several of the 9/11 hijackers, to transit its territory on their way to Afghanistan for training and operational planning." That claim came as part of the Treasury's 2016 decision to sanction three Al Qaeda operatives residing in Iran.
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When The Times addressed this claim, they noted that the "finding did not directly link the hijackers to any forces overseen by General Suleimani [sic], or specify how many may have been granted passage."
"The notion that General Suleimani abetted the attackers at all also appears dubious," The Times' Zach Montague said. Montague added that Soleimani wasn't mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report, which also reportedly claims that the Iranian government didn't know about the attacks. The report did, however, cite “strong evidence that Iran facilitated the travel of Al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.”
It's unclear where Pence's team got the 10-12 figure for terrorists moving through Afghanistan. Waldman told Fox News she wasn't sure if there was a public source for those numbers.
According to Waldman, neither The Week, The New York Times (NYT) nor the Los Angeles Times (LAT) reached out to her office. (A Los Angeles headline claimed "Pence falsely links Iranian general to 9/11 attacks.") While The Week's story didn't include Waldman's clarifications, both The New York Times and Los Angeles Times did.
Neither The Week, LAT nor NYT immediately responded to Fox News' request for comment.
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Not every media outlet criticized Pence.
Writer David Harsanyi argued in National Review, a conservative publication, that Pence was likely referring to figures from the 9/11 commission report. He also criticized journalists for suggesting the "myth" that Shiite forces like Soleimani wouldn't support Sunni terrorists -- pointing specifically to Iran funding Hamas.
"Really, it’s remarkable that so many journalists are seemingly unaware that the 9/11 Commission Report found that 8 to 10 hijackers -- of 19, not 12 -- traveled through Iran to Afghanistan with the help of the Islamic Republic. Let’s not forget: Iran still owes the families of victims of 9/11 billions of dollars for its role in the attacks," he said.
Harsanyi also addressed the lack of evidence surrounding Iranian involvement in 9/11.
"In a report teeming with wrongdoing, this is the one assertion that Iran apologists love to highlight. But we know that before 9/11, Iran had ties to Al Qaeda terrorists, offered them safe passage and helped train them. Perhaps the Iranians never imagined the extremists they were aiding would be as successful as they were on 9/11, but that doesn’t mean they don’t bear any responsibility," he wrote.
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