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Rachel Maddow Wanted Trump Dossier to Be True...and It All Blew Up in Her Face
Townhall.com ^ | December 30, 2019 | Matt Vespa

Posted on 12/30/2019 12:25:46 PM PST by Kaslin

The Washington Post’s media critic Erik Wemple is doing a multi-part series about the Trump dossier. It’s rather brutal. With the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz delivering the final kill shot to the document that led to the Russian collusion hysteria that engulfed the media for two years, there is a reckoning coming. No one will be fired, but large amounts of crow are on the menu. As we’ve said often, the Post is liberal, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. If there is one network that is unhinged by Trump, unabashedly liberal, and totally consumed by the Russian collusion myth, it has to be MSNBC. The network is meant to keep liberal blood pressures low. 

Host Rachel Maddow’s coverage of the Trump dossier was ripped as “misleading and dishonest” by Wemple who dove into a lengthy timeline of the malpractice. Maddow wanted the dossier to be true—and it all blew up in her face. The dossier was compiled by Christopher Steele who was hired by research firm Fusion GPS to get dirt on Trump. Fusion’s services were retained by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrats. It was a politically biased piece of opposition research that was cited as credible evidence to secure a FISA spy warrant against Carter Page, a former Trump campaign official. And all of this while the FBI suffered systemic failures in obtaining that warrant that included omission or exclusion of exculpatory evidence against Page. The FISA court has demanded an overhaul. And once again, we have an insight into how the government can destroy people’s lives with impunity. This dossier is ground zero for the nonsense that was bellowed into the airwaves for months, with zero evidence to back any of it up. But remember that time Maddow said the dossier had Trump dead to rights? Here’s part of that timeline Wemple put together (via WaPo):

Name a host on cable news who has dug more deeply into Trump-Russia than MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. She’s read hundreds, maybe thousands, of court filings; she’s read the plume of literature on Russia-Trump; and she’s out with a new book on the bane of petro-states: “Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth.”

[…]

Sorting through the silence from the FBI and the unverified claims in the dossier, Maddow riffed on her Jan. 13, 2017, program: “I mean, had the FBI looked into what was in that dossier and found that it was all patently false, they could tell us that now, right?” said Maddow. “I mean, the dossier has now been publicly released. If the FBI looked into it and they found it was all trash, there’s no reason they can’t tell us that now. They’re not telling us that now. They’re not saying that. They’re not saying anything.”

That line of analysis has gained some important context via the Horowitz report. The FBI did, in fact, find “potentially serious problems” with Steele’s reporting as early as January 2017. A source review in March 2017 “did not make any findings that would have altered that judgment.”

[…]

On May 3, 2017, Maddow cited a CNN report that “parts of this dossier passed muster even in federal court when the dossier was used in part to justify a secret FISA court warrant for U.S. surveillance on a Trump campaign adviser.” Thanks to Horowitz, we now know that officials misused the dossier in this process, failing to disclose to the FISA court dossier-debunking information. Never place blind faith in the FBI!

“The Republican claim today was that the dossier has been increasingly discredited. That’s not true in terms of the public record about the dossier. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. As time goes on, more and more pieces do get independently corroborated,” Maddow said.

[…]

On Oct. 5, 2017, Maddow said that Steele had “a lot” of the dossier “dead to rights.”

[…]

The release of the Mueller report in April provided a kick in the derriere for backers of the dossier. As Glenn Kessler pointed out in The Post, the central allegation of the dossier — an “extensive conspiracy between campaign team and Kremlin, sanctioned at highest levels and involving Russian diplomatic staff based in the US” as well as an "Agreed exchange of information established in both directions” — found no corroboration from Mueller’s investigation, even though the special counsel’s team was charged with probing just this matter.

Several days after the Mueller report emerged, Maddow addressed not the dissonance between Mueller and the dossier, but a point of possible corroboration.

When the story began to fall apart, as some of us already knew it would because there was no evidence, Maddow “found other topics more compelling. She was there for the bunkings, absent for the debunkings — a pattern of misleading and dishonest asymmetry,” wrote Wemple. I mean a lot of media members did that with the DOJ IG report focusing on the “no bias” portion of the report, which really isn’t true. There is no memo from FBI officials that were entitled “get Trump,” as The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel noted, but personal bias existed. 

Media Misrepresentation. @KimStrassel says IG Horowtiz report did find personal bias, despite reports otherwise by the National Left-Wing media. #AmericaFirst #MAGA #Dobbs pic.twitter.com/3tcbhHQxTM— Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) December 12, 2019

And now the kill shot:

Over a nearly two-year investigation released on Dec. 9, Horowitz and a team of investigators reviewed at least a million records, interviewed more than 100 individuals and otherwise probed the actions of the FBI and the Justice Department in the Russia investigation. In so doing, they reached an answer to Maddow’s question.

[…]

“The FBI concluded, among other things, that although consistent with known efforts by Russia to interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections, much of the material in the Steele election reports, including allegations about Donald Trump and members of the Trump campaign relied upon in the Carter Page FISA applications, could not be corroborated; that certain allegations were inaccurate or inconsistent with information gathered by the Crossfire Hurricane team; and that the limited information that was corroborated related to time, location and title information, much of which was publicly available.”

“Dead to rights,” huh? So, it looks like Maddow wrote an entire book based on fake news. Oh, and she refused to offer an on-the-record comment for Wemple’s story. 


TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: blewinherface; donaldtrump; dossier; herface; inherface; pmsnbc; rachelmadcow; russia
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1 posted on 12/30/2019 12:25:46 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Hmmm... not just her. The NYT had all kinds of libtard wishful thinking idiot followers saying how great of a job their journalists were doing on the dossier...

And it is not just on the dossier... many other fake news that liberals still believe hard


2 posted on 12/30/2019 12:27:58 PM PST by JudgemAll (Democrats Fed. job-security in hatse:hypocrites must be gay like us or be tested/crucified)
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To: Kaslin

She read it in the NYT, so it MUST be true!.................


3 posted on 12/30/2019 12:29:12 PM PST by Red Badger (Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.......... ..)
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To: JudgemAll

Many, many, many STILL BELIEVE IT’S TRUE!...............


4 posted on 12/30/2019 12:33:23 PM PST by Red Badger (Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.......... ..)
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To: Kaslin
Maddow wasn't alone.

The Democratic Media Complex wanted it to be true.

Heck, most of them likely still believe it's true.

5 posted on 12/30/2019 12:34:22 PM PST by yesthatjallen
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To: Kaslin

“..and It All Blew Up in Her Face”

It’s obvious something must have blew up in her face.
Once upon a time she wasn’t to unattractive.


6 posted on 12/30/2019 12:36:58 PM PST by Leep (Many shall be deceived ( by liberals ))
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To: Kaslin
Serious Mad Cow disease
7 posted on 12/30/2019 12:37:58 PM PST by immadashell (Save Innocent Lives - ban gun free zones)
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To: yesthatjallen

Maddow wasn’t alone.
The Democratic Media Complex wanted it to be true.

Heck, most of them likely still believe it’s true.

They repeat the same lies to each other, over and over, back and forth, each quoting the most recent person to repeat the lie as corroboration for the lie.

Maddow is one of the worst, and certainly difficult to listen to and keep your food down, but she’s definitely not alone.


8 posted on 12/30/2019 12:38:03 PM PST by samtheman (U.S. out of the U.N. --- U.N. out of the U.S.)
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To: Kaslin

FReepers have known for many years the American corporate MSM are merely the propaganda mouthpieces of various political factions and government agencies.

The MSM and their handlers have become so desperate to stop Trump, they have gone insane - and now all of America is understanding it.


9 posted on 12/30/2019 12:38:11 PM PST by PGR88
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To: Kaslin

Even though most “journalists” are incompetent and idiotic, Maddow seems an extreme lightweight among them. How did she ever get a show?


10 posted on 12/30/2019 12:41:53 PM PST by Sans-Culotte (With every passing day, I am a little bit gladder that Romney lost in 2012.)
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To: Kaslin

Stop trying to say they were all duped, or they wanted it to be true, or they thought it was true, they had sources,... IT IS ALL BS!!

Most if Not All the Big Players in the FAKE NEWS MEDIA were Co-Conspirators, they Knew it was False but wanted to participate in a Seditious Conspiracy to Overthrow the United States Government.

They should ALL be Hanged.


11 posted on 12/30/2019 12:47:20 PM PST by eyeamok
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To: Kaslin

It enrages me that no one will be fired. At the very least, each and every person involved in this should be fired. How can such corrupt lawbreakers be allowed to continue to as enforcers of the law?


12 posted on 12/30/2019 12:51:42 PM PST by erkelly
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To: All

CNN got an award based on it. What a joke.


13 posted on 12/30/2019 12:52:31 PM PST by gibsonguy
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To: gibsonguy

Yeah in my opinion they deserved the Best Fictional Story award that year.


14 posted on 12/30/2019 12:56:17 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Kaslin
Never fear Rachel, the Prince of Lies is in your corner.

John 8:43-45

43Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you are unable to accept My message. 44You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, refusing to uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, because he is a liar and the father of lies. 45But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me!…

That's a message to liberals like Rachel everywhere.

15 posted on 12/30/2019 12:58:18 PM PST by Bullish (My tagline ran off with another man)
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To: Kaslin

She is but one example of “indoctrination”, not education.


16 posted on 12/30/2019 12:58:56 PM PST by Da Coyote (is)
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To: Leep

Beat me to it. I was gonna say...well that explains a lot.


17 posted on 12/30/2019 12:58:57 PM PST by Lee'sGhost ("Just look at the flowers, Lizzie. Just look at the flowers.")
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To: Kaslin

Many lefties still cling to the idea that Trump is Putin’s puppet.

These people would buy tickets to the second voyage of the Titanic.


18 posted on 12/30/2019 1:05:47 PM PST by karnage
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To: Sans-Culotte

Maddow is a professional lesbian who made herself more telegenic by looking like Ronald Reagan. :-P


19 posted on 12/30/2019 1:12:42 PM PST by Alberta's Child (In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey.)
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To: Kaslin
Rachel Maddow’s coverage of Trump ‘on anything’ is always “misleading and

dishonest”.....never expect anything otherwise as she suffers greatly of:

“Trump Derangement Syndrome”...

...

20 posted on 12/30/2019 1:15:42 PM PST by caww
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