A New York Times report about the Steele dossier has torpedoed many of the talking points that were used as reasons to launch a special counsel investigation, and many claims made in the past couple of years are aging badly, as Brit Hume noted:
The “guilty till proven innocent” standard was used against Brett Kavanaugh, and has been used repeatedly by collusion truthers on the infamous Steele dossier. @ByronYork provides examples from people who should know better. https://t.co/oqLIrW7eUq
— Brit Hume (@brithume) April 20, 2019
Byron York shared the New York Times story that comes on the heels of the Mueller report, and it provides a picture of the last bit of Resistance narrative sinking below the surface:
You are not going to believe this, but the New York Times says the Steele dossier is not true.https://t.co/R2TC1HpqDA pic.twitter.com/Bw2iNMAoGd
— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 20, 2019
No way! York passed along many examples of how the media and Dems pushed the dossier in attempt to keep the Russia collusion narrative propped up:
When Trump called dossier 'bogus,' some news organizations defended Steele's work, saying US investigators had corroborated parts of it. Meetings, conversations, dates, places had been confirmed. From CNN: https://t.co/SOptrsbMCV pic.twitter.com/9e3s5BoXF1
— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 20, 2019
CNN pushed back hard against Trump calling dossier 'bogus,' saying 'To simply call it bogus as the president did again today is to call the work of so many intelligence, counterintelligence, and other career public servants bogus.'
— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 20, 2019
And now, look: It's not just the president calling the dossier bogus.https://t.co/aRjVd0y4lA
— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 20, 2019
Some others in the press insisted the dossier must be worthwhile because it had not been proved untrue. Turned normal standard of proof on its head to keep dossier hope alive. https://t.co/9mTybCaOMl
— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 20, 2019
On MSNBC, Nicolle Wallace & Co. stood tall in defense of the Steele dossier. 'None of it has been disproven…Whole, big parts of it are holding up.'https://t.co/Cu2uwRZsgq pic.twitter.com/XaummUtUiR
— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 20, 2019
From @WSJ: 'Mueller Report Dismisses Many Steele Dossier Claims.' https://t.co/CczzSS3Ped pic.twitter.com/1luJL5FDcq
— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 20, 2019
But what about those who say dossier was broadly accurate? That Steele got the big picture right? Russia really was trying to meddle in 2016 election! Proves Steele was good at reading the newspaper. From @WSJ: https://t.co/tJXrnuWF9z pic.twitter.com/4pw9LZGzY2
— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 20, 2019
To give due credit: Listen to NYT reporter @ScottShaneNYT on dossier in January 2018. His (well-founded) skepticism was not shared by colleagues on stage. https://t.co/5fg1CiM1SH
— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 20, 2019
The common allegation from Dems was that the Steele dossier proved that Trump was either colluding with, or being used by, Russia, but those who passed along the dossier as fact didn’t seem to consider that the opposite could be true:
Another possibility — one that Mr. Steele has not ruled out — could be Russian disinformation. That would mean that in addition to carrying out an effective attack on the Clinton campaign, Russian spymasters hedged their bets and placed a few land mines under Mr. Trump’s presidency as well.
[…]
Last year, in a deposition in a lawsuit filed against Buzzfeed, Mr. Steele emphasized that his reports consisted of unverified intelligence. Asked whether he took into account that some claims might be Russian fabrications, he replied, “Yes.”F.B.I. agents considered whether Russia had polluted the stream of intelligence, but did not give it much credence, according to the former official.
But that is an issue to which multiple inquiries are likely to return. There has been much chatter among intelligence experts that Mr. Steele’s Russian informants could have been pressured to feed him disinformation.
Well look at that.
It only took over 2 years for a random act of journalism by the NYT
— Patrick Weaver (@patrickjweaver) April 20, 2019
Good article. Pity they left it until after the entire charade was exposed my Mueller. I really hope Barr can expose the rest right up to Obama. What did he know and when did he know it?
— RAN (@stoker41) April 20, 2019
Stay tuned!
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