CNN Eats Crow Over Trump Jr, Wikileaks Story

CNN issued a correction on Friday about a story that said someone identified as "Mike Erickson" sent Trump Jr., his father and others in the Trump Organization a website address for hacked WikiLeaks documents.

CNBC reports the media organization had reported that the email included information about hacked emails from former Secretary of State Colin Powell 10 days before those emails were leaked by the website DCLeaks.com.

The Washington Post reported later Friday that the email was sent on Sept. 14, which was a full 10 days later than described in the CNN report. The Post's report suggested that the information offered in the email may have been publicly available at the time it was sent.

NBC News and The Wall Street Journal also reported Friday that the email was sent Sept. 14. The Wall Street Journal wrote that Michael Erickson has no apparent connection to WikiLeaks.

CNN's correction confirmed that the email was sent Sept. 14.

"We understand that the media reported 12 hours prior to this email that the DNC emails had been hacked or leaked," Trump Jr.'s attorney, Alan Futerfas told CNN. He said his team does not know who Erickson is and did not respond to the email.

WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange denied having a role in the email.

"It's not clear what this has to do with @WikiLeaks," he wrote. "Many enthusiastic readers emailed around archives of our publications during the election."

Following the report in The Washington Post, Assange wrote that the CNN story was "100% fake news."

I know you can’t help but spread #fakenews @cnn, but now that you know the truth you should have the decency to retract the false story, make the correction, take down the bs tweet, and apologize to the 2 or 3 people that still believe you to be credible #yourewelcome https://t.co/bjL6mSdaii

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) December 8, 2017

Friday's correction is not the first high-profile error in recent memory for CNN. Earlier this year, the network retracted a story about former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci. Three journalists, including the executive editor in charge of the network's new investigative unit, resigned their positions after the publication of that story.

CNN's error also comes on the heels of a major correction from ABC News. Last Friday, ABC News' Brian Ross reported based on one source that Michael Flynn was prepared to testify that as a candidate Trump instructed him to make contact with Russians. That report, which ABC News has said was not fully vetted through its editorial standards process, was later corrected to say that Flynn was prepared to testify the instruction came while Trump was president-elect. ABC News has since suspended Ross for four weeks without pay.

A CNN spokesperson said there will not be disciplinary action in this case because the reporters followed CNN's editorial standards process, which requires review and approval of the use of anonymous sources.