As the FBI well knew, Steele had been spreading his tales to media people for months, but major outlets had chosen not to publish or broadcast them because they couldn’t be corroborated. Comey’s email to colleagues makes clear that he also knew the media establishment would steer clear—unless somebody like him gave them a related event they could use as an excuse to run the salacious rumors.
CNN’s dive into the dossier made clear that the news they were reporting was that the rumors had been shared along with the intelligence assessment. As would be true for years, the story was not that anyone had actually found evidence of collusion or Trump being compromised by the Russians—they hadn’t and never would. But it was enough for CNN and others that important people in government were discussing the possibility. The story was the investigation itself rather than the underlying substance, which the FBI already knew didn’t amount to much.
On January 10, 2017, CNN’s Jake Tapper stated explicitly that “a lot of these allegations have been out there before. We haven’t reported on them. We haven’t discussed them, but what changed is the fact the intelligence officials, these senior intelligence officials brought them to this level of saying, hey, President-elect Trump, you should know about this.”20
While CNN did note that the claims were uncorroborated, the network’s Jim Sciutto stated, “Let’s be clear here. You have U.S. intelligence agencies. They have not corroborated this, but are not dismissing these allegations, right? They are not, in effect, treating them as fake news.”21
In fact the CIA had already dismissed them as “Internet rumor.”22 But by this point why would anyone expect an anonymous leak to CNN to be more honest than a FISA warrant application? The CNN report continued with a discussion between the network’s Tapper and Evan Perez:
TAPPER: And, Evan, some of this information was floated last year. Then–Senate Majority Leader Harry sent a blistering letter in October to the FBI director saying that he possessed explosive information about communications between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Today, now-retired senator Harry Reid said that his statements speak for themselves. What changed? Why is this now elevated?
PEREZ: Well, we now know that Harry Reid is saying this is exactly what he was talking about when he sent those letters. We know the FBI has been busy looking at allegations, including the allegations that there have been surrogates of the Donald Trump campaign who were in touch with intermediaries of the Russian government. Now, none of this has been proven. None of this has gone anywhere, in part because of the election. The FBI had to put a lot on hold and on simmer so to speak until after the election.23
A casual viewer might have been fooled into thinking that the report was some sort of vindication for Harry Reid, because he, too, had been flogging the same unfounded rumors. A casual viewer would also have been misled if he thought the dossier hadn’t been confirmed simply because the FBI was somehow prevented by the political calendar from evaluating the Steele claims. In fact the FBI had collected a substantial amount of evidence suggesting they were false. Such evidence either never made it to CNN or the network ignored it.
That night on MSNBC, anchor Rachel Maddow introduced the story as “news broken by CNN tonight and then bolstered later by Buzzfeed.” Bolstered? Both organizations admitted they had no idea whether the dossier claims were true or false. Maddow went on to describe the “alleged dirt that the Russians allegedly say they allegedly have on Donald Trump… that they allegedly used to allegedly cultivate him as basically a Russian asset who would do what they want because he knew what embarrassing stuff they had on him.” Like CNN and BuzzFeed, she also acknowledged having no idea whether the dirt she was promoting was true or not. But she still had fun imagining the possibilities. Said Maddow:
“If it is true, of course, and Donald Trump is a Russian agent and knows he is one that’s the story of the century. If it isn’t true, it’s nevertheless the biggest possible distraction at a time when things are already really wobbly for the incoming administration and this historically unpopular president-elect.”24
In other words, regardless of the truth, it would be presented as bad news for Trump. According to Maddow, the story meant that he was either a Russian asset or he was a wobbly and unpopular president-elect facing a big distraction. The duly elected president would be damaged in either scenario.
Now that we know he was actually the victim of a partisan abuse of federal law enforcement powers to counteract the will of American voters, isn’t that the story of the century?
On that night in January of 2017, Maddow interviewed NBC correspondent Richard Engel, who raised the question of why the intelligence community would drop the dossier material “like a bomb on president-elect Trump.” Mr. Engel then provided an answer:
“I was told by a senior intelligence source that the reason they did it is the intelligence community is angry, the intelligence community effectively wants to put him on notice saying, look, you are saying all these things about Russia, be careful, there are all these allegations out there. Are any of them true? And I was told, ‘We can’t help you, Mr. Trump, unless you tell us more. We need more input.’ ”25
Our duly elected president is supposed to prove to officials of the outgoing presidential administration that he’s not a Russian agent? Of course, they already knew there was no evidence he was. But leaving aside the corrupt and dishonest machinations of senior Obama administration officials, isn’t the role of a free press to blow the
