For nearly three years, the mainstream media has spread a false narrative about President Donald Trump and the investigation into his 2016 campaign.
Specifically, they’ve claimed — over and over and over again — that the feds opened the investigation based on a stash of evidence against figures in the Trump campaign.
But now, thanks to the report by the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz and his team, we know that’s false.
“[T]he Horowitz report show years of breathless headlines were wrong,” wrote Rolling Stone, which is certainly no friend of the Trump administration.
Or as the New York Times itself put it: the report exposed “a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process in how the F.B.I. went about obtaining and renewing court permission under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.”
But Trump supporters waiting for the Times or any other media organization to take responsibility for spreading misinformation and outright lies is going to be waiting for a very long time.
“None of these journalists have acknowledged an iota of error in the wake of this report because they know that lying is not just permitted but encouraged as long as it pleases and vindicates the political beliefs of their audiences,” wrote Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept.
Greenwald called it “a massive media scandal” that the basis of so much reporting by the mainstream is “completely false.”
One of the biggest lies is the role of the salacious and unverified dossier by former spy Christopher Steele in obtaining the warrants into Page.
On its own, the report never would’ve met any reasonable standard of evidence in any court in the land, and just about everyone admits as much.
That’s why they’ve spent the past three years claiming the dossier wasn’t used for the warrants.
This notion that Steele’s memos triggered the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign persists, even after a whole team WSJ reporters, me included, found that it’s just not true. https://t.co/JJ5FNPEogh
— Shane Harris (@shaneharris) January 12, 2018
Yes. I am telling you the dossier was not used as the basis for a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
— Shane Harris (@shaneharris) January 12, 2018
Facts re: the dossier and FISA: 1- Dossier was one element of – not the only – intel FBI used to justify FISA warrant to monitor Carter Page. https://t.co/DvzfYJIwTI
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) January 11, 2018
2- FBI would further corroborate information in dossier on its own before using such intel to justify the FISA warrant.
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) January 11, 2018
Fox News host Tucker Carlson played clips of various CNN figures claiming that the dossier wasn’t the primary source of the investigation.
“Even the earlier version of the redacted FISA authorization to me had enough information in it to indicate that the dossier was certainly not used as the primary source,” CNN national security analyst – and former director of national intelligence – James Clapper claimed in 2018.
But as the Horowitz report shows, the dossier was central to those warrants.
“Ouch,” Carlson said after the clip. “That hasn’t weathered well, has it?”
Then he said:
Everything you just saw turned out to be false, if not outright lying. There’s no debate about it. We know now: It was wrong. Has CNN retracted it, or apologized? I’m sorry, that’s a rhetorical question. Apologies require introspection, decency, integrity even.
Instead, he noted, CNN is doubling down and claiming its reports were all true.
In fact, many in the media — as well as those behind the investigation — are in denial, with disgraced former FBI director James Comey claiming he was “vindicated” by the report.
But Horowitz was clear in his testimony to Congress.
“I think the activities we found here don’t vindicate anybody who touched this,” he said.
In fact, his report found 17 “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in its submissions to the FISA court and numerous examples of abuse of power by the FBI as well as leaks to the media to play up sensational allegations and make wild and ultimately false claims about the evidence.
“I think our nation was turned on its head for three years based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by a completely irresponsible press,” Attorney General William Barr told NBC.
Or, as Rolling Stone summed it up: “No matter what people think the political meaning of the Horowitz report might be, reporters who read it will know: Anybody who touched this nonsense in print should be embarrassed.”
— Walter W. Murray is a reporter for The Horn News. He is an outspoken conservative and a survival expert, and is the author of “America’s Final Warning.”