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A baseless claim made during a panel discussion spawned a series of stories and one hugely viral tweet.

A recent story featuring a dubious claim about President Trump shows how left-leaning misinformation is beginning to pick up now that Trump has taken control of the White House.

Last week, Ilan Berman, the vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, was on a panel discussion about Russia and Turkey's interests in Syria. At one point Berman said the Kremlin had issued a detailed readout of President Putin's call with President Trump, but the White House had not. Then he speculated about why that might have been the case.

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

Left-leaning website Raw Story was the first to write up Berman’s comment. Its story was headlined, “Foreign policy insider: ‘No readout of Trump-Putin call because White House turned off recording.'” It quickly spread on Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter

That story was soon picked up by liberal sites like DailyKos, Addicting Info, GQ, and Truth Examiner. Almost every one of those stories cited the claim from Berman as a fact.

Inquisitr also went a step further by suggesting the phone call had something to do with a recent increase in Russian military activity in Ukraine. “Trump, Putin Call Recording Switched Off: Russian Attack Follows,” read its headline.

BuzzFeed

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