Welcome to pushback. I'm Erin Mate. First, let me apologize to regular listeners and viewers of the show and especially my supporters on Patreon for the lack of frequency.

I'm working on a book about Russia Gate and how it helped lead to the Ukraine crisis. It's taking up a lot of my time.

And I also don't do pushback until I feel that's something worthwhile for you, worth your time.

So today I do.

And that is a recent disinformation slash smear effort that was directed against me and other people who cover Syria, especially the issue of the OPCW's Syria cover-up scandal,

where there was an article put out in The Guardian that called myself and others,

Russia-backed conspiracy theorists who spread disinformation.

And this is the article.

It's called Network of Syria Conspiracy Theorists Identified.

Initially, the headline was Russia-backed network of Syria conspiracy theorists identified,

but they quickly corrected that probably upon realizing that it was libelous.

But there's many other libelous claims in this article that are said about me and others.

And what it says is this.

It says, quote, a network of more than two dozen conspiracy theorists frequently backed by a coordinated Russian campaign,

sent thousands of disinformation tweets to distort the reality of the Syrian conflict

and deter intervention by the international

community, new analysis reveals.

And this new analysis is put out by a think tank called the Institute for Strategic Dialogue,

along with another group called the Syria campaign.

And they put out a report called deadly disinformation that makes these claims about me

and others. And the Guardian just basically parroted them. So I actually confronted the Guardian

reporter who wrote this story. His name is Mark Townsend and a phone call that I recorded

...