George W. Bush. Hersh characterized Bush's prosecution of the war as the product of misguided neoconservative idealism. Having built his career on earning the trust of sources (usually unnamed) in the government, the military, and the intelligence community, Hersh described his mission as holding public officials "to the highest possible standard of decency and of honesty. " Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now In May 2015 Hersh made headlines again with his allegations— published in an article in the London Review of Books that cited Pakistani and anonymous U. sources—that officials of the U. and Pakistani governments, including U. Pres. Barack Obama, had lied regarding details of the 2011 raid on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in which Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda, was killed. Among the allegations made by Hersh was that the Pakistani intelligence service had been holding bin Laden prisoner since 2006 and that Pakistani officials knew about the raid before it happened.
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh called the way US media have reported on the allegations that Russia somehow interfered in the 2016 US elections "outrageous. " The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter said the "hectoring" press overlooked the real story. "The way they behaved on the Russia stuff was outrageous, " Hersh told The Intercept in an interview for Jeremy Scahill's inaugural podcast. "They were hectoring. They didn't do reporting. " Hersh, 79, was commenting on the mainstream media coverage of the accusations that the Russian government was behind the WikiLeaks' publication of emails and other documents from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta. Clinton has blamed Russian president Vladimir Putin personally for her loss in the November 8 election to Donald Trump. Read more In early January, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released a 25-page report into alleged Russian meddling. It offered no evidence, instead repeating previously made allegations and devoting an inordinate amount of space to RT, relying on materials from 2012.
"The truth is, the First Amendment is an amazing thing and if you start trampling it the way they ‒ I hope they don't do it that way ‒ this would be really counterproductive. He'll be in trouble, " Hersh told The Intercept.