Fox News declines to air Sally Yates debunking a right-wing conspiracy theory under oath

Written by Bobby Lewis

Published

On August 5, while Fox News’ America’s Newsroom covered other topics, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates debunked a right-wing conspiracy theory under oath -- that in a January 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting, the Obama administration directed or influenced investigations into then-incoming President Donald Trump’s transition team. “No such thing happened,” Yates swore. 

The testimony came during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the origins of the Russia investigation, aka Operation Crossfire Hurricane.

America’s Newsroom aired the vast majority of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) opening statement in which he repeated several right-wing media narratives around Crossfire Hurricane, but the show cut away before Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) gave her statement. America’s Newsroom did not cover any aspect of Yates’ testimony until it reported that she was “irritated” with former FBI Director James Comey, whom she agreed could be described as having “go[ne] rogue.” 

The segment did not cover Yates’ unequivocal, sworn denial of the central accusation that either then-President Barack Obama, then-Vice President Joe Biden, or then-national security adviser Susan Rice ordered or influenced any investigations during an Oval Office meeting on January 5, 2017. 

From August 5, 2020, U.S. Senate testimony

SALLY YATES (FORMER DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL): While I don't recall all the details of the conversation in the Oval Office, my memory is clear on the important points. The purpose of this meeting was for the president to find out whether, based on the calls between Ambassador Kislyak and Gen. Flynn, the transition team needed to be careful about what it was sharing with Gen. Flynn. During the meeting, the president, the vice president, and the national security adviser did not in any way attempt to direct or influence any kind of investigation. Something like that would have set off alarms for me, and it would have stuck out both at the time and in my memory. No such thing happened. The president was focused entirely on the national security implications of sharing sensitive intelligence information with Gen. Flynn during the transitional process that was obviously already underway at the White House.