ItalyGate theory is groundless according to Reuters: https://t.co/xxtqAWbXHr
— Francesca Landini (@fra_landini) January 16, 2021
Mainstream media fact-checkers are refusing to update their coverage of ItalyGate to include new information about alleged hacker Stefano Serafini and the State Department’s stonewalling of his employment information.
Articles claiming to fact-check the ItalyGate scandal appeared in mainstream media outlets such as USA Today and Reuters in January. Both referenced allegations made against a State Department employee – USA Today mentioned Serafini by name. A third article also mentioned Serafini by name, this one published on LeadStories.com.
ITN had previously reached out to these outlets to ask them follow up questions on their fact-checking but we received no reply.
After getting the second denial from the U.S. State Department to a request to divulge very straightforward information on this State Department employee who goes by the name Serafini, we decided to reach out again.
We explained how far we had gotten with the State Department, detailed our Freedom of Information Act request and pointed them to the latest article we had written about it last week. We also asked if they would like to update their articles with the new information to give their leaders the latest information that has been uncovered about this gentleman, and ItalyGate more broadly.
We have received no replies or commitments to update the posts. As of the time of this writing they appear to remain unchanged.
Numerous attacks have been made in the press claiming ItalyGate is a hoax; a conspiracy theory that has been “debunked.” Those articles actually do very little independent fact-checking of the ItalyGate allegations being made, however. One of the articles even cites another as a source that the claims have been debunked.
Instead they conflate claims with other, separate claims of election fraud alleged to have taken place and label them as “baseless.”
“A hand tally of every vote cast for president in Antrim County, Michigan, also confirmed that its machine-tabulated results were correct, per the Detroit Free Press. Out of 15,962 votes cast, the hand recount showed a net gain of 12 votes for Trump, who won the county but lost the state,” the USA Today article states.
Antrim County results actually reveal a vote-switch of more than 7,000 votes, and a previously touted “audit” by Michigan State Democratic officials seems to have not been a full audit at all – this according to new information revealed in discovery proceedings in the related court case and communicated to ITN. (You can our reporting about that reporting here.)
Maria Strollo-Zack, Chairwoman of Nations in Action™ the government accountability organization that has been working tirelessly with Italian law enforcement authorities to bring the truth of what happened in Italy to light, says she and her organization believe in transparency and accountability and are willing to put the evidence uncovered up to scrutiny. She says she wants the public to keep NIA honest and even welcomes those efforts.
“I should be held accountable if this is not true and I made this all up. That’s what someone said, ‘oh, you made it all up.’ I said, prove it! And they can’t prove I’m wrong because everything’s been happening that I said was going to happen,” she said recently.
“Now there are so many data points we’re so far past ‘did it really happen in Italy?’ Everyone knows it did happen in Italy. Now the question is who are the leaders going to be that rise up?” she added.