Fox & Friends is still lying about the Trump/Russia dossier

Fox host Steve Doocy and former Bush speechwriter Ned Ryun call dossier “fake” and “unsubstantiated,” even though US intelligence has verified parts of it

Written by Media Matters Staff

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Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy and former George W. Bush speechwriter Ned Ryun attempted to discredit “that fake Trump dossier” assembled by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele as “nothing but a collection of Google search terms, conspiracy theories from left-leaning websites, Wikipedia clips,” and Russian disinformation. Other right-wing media have also claimed that the dossier is “now-discredited” and contains “Moscow disinformation” to attack the Trump administration for political purposes. 

However, according to reports, U.S. intelligence agencies have “confirmed some of [the dossier’s] less explosive claims, relating to conversations with foreign nationals,” and “at it’s core, a lot of it is bearing out.” Additionally, U.S. intelligence officials consider Steele a “credible” source with “a formidable record.” From the June 24 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends: 

STEVE DOOCY (HOST): Have you ever heard the group Fusion GPS? Well it is a Democratic-linked group behind that fake Trump dossier. So why is its founder, Glenn Simpson, now apparently preparing to plead the Fifth in the ongoing Russian probe.

[...]

So what is Fusion GPS?

NED RYUN: They claim that they’re an opposition research firm. I call them a disinformation firm. They’ve been around since 2009, and the reason that people need to know more about them is because of this fake dossier, the Steele dossier, or as some know it, the golden shower dossier, which is a 35-page memo that Fusion GPS paid Christopher Steele, a former MI6 agent, to put together. And that dossier, Steve, is really nothing but a collection of Google search terms, conspiracy theories from left-leaning websites, Wikipedia clips, and quite frankly some of us are starting to suspect, information fed to Steele by Russian counterintelligence agents.

The thing that's troubling about this, Steve, is that somehow this dossier found its way into the hands of John Brennan and the CIA. Brennan then put it into a top secret file, got it to the Obama White House, put it into the bloodstream of the Obama administration. Then James Clapper and John Brennan felt the need to brief people on this fake, unsubstantiated dossier. And again, then you have the question, are they terrible intelligence agents or were they politically motivated? Then, Steve, this dossier finds its way into the hands of the FBI later in the summer. They used this as proof, as part of their justification to surveil Carter Page. The thing that we found out a couple of days ago? The FBI is still using this unsubstantiated dossier as a checklist to tick off as it’s talking to witnesses in its ongoing Russia investigation. There is something very wrong about this.