Oh, That #FakeNews

Master List Of Official Russia Claims That Proved To Be Bogus - TK News by Matt Taibbi (substack.com)

Too many to quote here. Read the whole thing.

An excerpt:

Ex-spy Christopher Steele was a “credible source,” October 31, 2016. In Mother Jones, David Corn cited a “senior U.S. government official,” who characterized an ex-spy who claimed Russia had been cultivating Donald Trump for at least five years, and could “blackmail him.” Corn’s senior official said the ex-spy, who we later found out was Christopher Steele, was “a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government.”

But Steele was subsequently dismissed as an FBI source for his “completely untrustworthy” decision to talk to the media, and Horowitz not only discovered that both the FBI and the CIA (who dismissed his reports as “internet rumor”) had many reservations about his credibility, but that his famed “blackmail” claims about pee and prostitutes had been made in “jest,” over “beers.”

And:

Updated 3/29/21 “More than Circumstantial Evidence” for collision [sic], Meet The Press, March 22, 2017. The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, was asked by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press if he only had a circumstantial case for collusion against Donald Trump.

“Actually no, Chuck,” he said. “I can tell you that the case is more than that and I can't go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now.”

Schiff never had such evidence, and never explained what he meant. Moreover, in secret testimony, he would repeatedly seek confirmation of his public statements, and would repeatedly be shot down. In July of 2017, he asked former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper if such evidence existed. Clapper said he “never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election.”

Far more at the link. Read the whole thing.