Yesterday on Fox News Trey Gowdy let loose on the FBI's supposed corroboration of the Steele "dossier." It's not exactly news, but it is amusing, in a dark sorta way. Here's a link to the Daily Caller account: FBI CITED ARTICLES AND INFO FROM CLINTON ALLY TO CORROBORATE STEELE DOSSIER.
In an interview with Fox News’ Martha Maccallum, Gowdy said when he was still in Congress, he saw an FBI spreadsheet that laid out all of the specific claims in the dossier, which former British spy Christopher Steele authored. The spreadsheet also cited information the FBI believed corroborated Steele’s salacious report, he said.
“I’ve seen the spreadsheet, Martha, I have seen each factual assertion listed in that dossier, and then I’ve seen the FBI’s justification. And when you’re citing newspaper articles as corroboration for a factual assertion that you have made, you don’t need an FBI agent to go do a Google search,” said Gowdy, who served on the House Intelligence Committee and is a Fox News contributor.
“When the name Sidney Blumenthal is included as part of your corroboration, and when you’re the world’s leading law enforcement agency, you have a problem.”
Y'know, I think he has a point. This doesn't pass the laugh test.
Many conservative outlets are reporting the Comey vs Brennan feud narrative. It couldn't happen to two nicer fellows.
ReplyDeleteKevin Brock has a good column on hill.com.
Yes, I read Brock:
Delete"AG Barr understands well that the FBI is dead as an agency — undeserving of the nation’s trust — if it is commonly perceived to be a weapon for political vagaries rather than an impartial, objective enforcer of the rule of law so vital to the survival of democratic governance."
It's too bad so few media people have read the Steele dossier--apparently. It's almost entirely hearsay from purported sources obliquely and anonymously identified, with Steele admitting in a UK court that it's unverified. Instead, when the Steele dossier is mentioned in US media reporting, it's addressed as if it contains legitimacy, due to the inclusion of a sprinkling of contemporaneous events that lends the appearance of credence. It's closer to the child's game of telephone, combined with The Big Lie repeated often.
ReplyDeleteI remarked elsewhere that John LeCarre must be howling because he couldn't imagine ever passing off such absurdities as an engrossing fiction, as too over-the-top--insufficiently subtle for typical spycraft. But LeCarre couldn't imagine clowns like Comey, Brennen, McCabe, Strzok, either.
I see that Comey v. Brennan/Clapper are feuding publicly over whose idea it was to include the dossier in the IC "Assessment." That could be significant at some point because that "assessment" has been a key component in maintaining the "Russia interfered" narrative that appears to be bogus.
DeleteYou mention LeCarre. I'm not a fan of spy fiction, generally, but Tinker, Tailor is a favorite.