Vlahos, editorial director at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, characterized the public response to Hersh's article in the West as a "media blackout," arguing that criticisms of Hersh's reporting "do not explain the lack of mainstream coverage" of his allegations. In Russia, Hersh's publication was picked up by RT and the news agency TASS. Democracy Now! and German newspaper Berliner Zeitung interviewed Hersh on the story. The Berliner Zeitung interview was republished by Jacobin. Other statements Fatah al-Islam In March 2007, Hersh asserted in a New Yorker piece that the United States and Saudi governments were funding the terrorist organization Fatah al-Islam through aid to Lebanese Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Following the publication of the story, journalist Emmanuel Sivan in Beirut wrote that Hersh put forth the allegation without any reliable sources. Seth Rich In a January 2017 recorded telephone conversation about the 2016 death of former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, Hersh told former financial adviser Ed Butowsky that he had spoken to a Federal Bureau of Investigation source who confirmed the existence of information on Rich's laptop computer showing he had been in contact with WikiLeaks prior to his death. Although cautioned by Hersh that the information may not be true, Butowsky forwarded the secretly taped discussion to the Rich family setting off a flurry of activity in the media. Hersh later said that he had heard "gossip", and that he was fishing for information. Richard Nixon In his 2018 autobiography Reporter Hersh wrote that Richard Nixon had physically abused First Lady Pat Nixon but that he had chosen not to report about it because he considered it part of Nixon's private life. Hersh notes this as a decision he regretted. September 11 attacks In 2018, Hersh told an interviewer, "I don't necessarily buy the story that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. We really don't have an ending to the story. I’ve known people in the [intelligence] community. We don't know anything empirical about who did what." Skripal poisoning In August 2018, Hersh said about the Skripal poisoning that "the story of novichok poisoning has not held up very well. He [Sergei Skripal] was most likely talking to British intelligence services about Russian organised crime," and that the contamination of other victims was suggestive that the poisoning was the responsibility of organized crime, rather than being state-sponsored. Use of anonymous sources There has been