Massimo Giletti: “Accused of being part of a gay lobby, I am humanly disappointed.”
Sigfrido Ranucci, host of Report, is pushing back against accusations from Massimo Giletti that he spread misinformation. Giletti voiced his concerns during a February 9th appearance on the RaiTre program «Lo stato delle cose». The journalist reconstructed messages between Ranucci and Maria Rosaria Boccia, a former aide to Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano, that preceded Report’s publication of a telephone conversation between Sangiuliano and his wife, which drew a privacy sanction (later overturned by the court). In the chat, which Il Giornale’s Tommaso Cerno published, Ranucci mentioned Giletti. According to the host of Report, as a friend of Marco Mancini, a former intelligence operative known for a photo of him meeting with ex-Prime Minister Matteo Renzi at a highway rest stop, taken by a teacher, Giletti was brought into the conversation. However, according to Giletti’s reconstruction, he was described as part of a “gay circle,” a lobby allegedly including Mancini, Cerno, and, according to Boccia, journalist Alfonso Signorini and someone referred to as “Mr. B.”
Giletti, during his February 9th appearance, rejected the accusation of being part of a gay lobby, stating, “A lobby means power, and I have always opposed power.” He did not address the alleged friendship with Mancini. “You are not the only righteous person in the world, just as I am not,” he told Ranucci. “Dividing us at this moment is not right. For me, it is a human disappointment.” This exchange highlights the often-contentious relationship between journalists and the subjects they cover.
Today, Ranucci responded on social media, clarifying that his accusation against Giletti (and Cerno) was not that they were part of a gay lobby, but that they were connected to “a former 007 involved in the Abu Omar kidnapping and the illegal dossiering of Telecom-Pirelli security.” According to Ranucci, Giletti’s presentation of the chat demonstrated that the one published by Il Giornale had been manipulated, with Mancini’s name removed. Both Giletti and Cerno, he alleges, “passed on information” from the intelligence operative.
Giletti allegedly made these claims while supporting “the conspiracy theory of the secret services and the State Secret,” which has been definitively dismissed by the Rome Prosecutor’s Office and Tribunal, which sided with Report. Ranucci also stated: “Giletti – writes Ranucci – presented the lawyers’ papers as his own investigation.” He claims that, in recounting certain events, Giletti made “the same mistakes as the lawyers.”
Ranucci expressed regret for “humanly disappointing Giletti,” adding that he experienced something similar when Giletti “tried to reveal our source, trying to discredit her.” The reference is to the teacher who took the images of Renzi and Mancini at the highway rest stop, whose city of residence was revealed by Giletti.
Finally, the Report host explained that the reference to Cerno’s sexual orientation stemmed from a post published on social media by the director of Il Giornale, which read: “Every time I see Mrs. Boccia on TV, I thank God for being fr…”. He concluded: “A concentrate of vulgarity and misogyny.”
