New York Daily News reporter Dan Friedman on Wednesday defended his column claiming that he started the rumor that defense secretary Chuck Hagel had ties to a shadowy group known as “Friends of Hamas.” His defense came after Breitbart News editor-at-large Ben Shapiro disputed Friedman’s claim that he inadvertently started the rumor.
“I don’t want to get into a debate with Ben. What I wrote is correct,” Friedman told TPM in an email.
Shapiro wrote Wednesday that a Senate source for his story on Hagel’s possible ties to “Friends of Hamas” — a group that almost certainly doesn’t actually exist — denied that the information came from Friedman.
