If you were interested in the latest Russiagate bombshell that dropped yesterday, you could have easily missed it if all you watched was Fox News. But if you did catch a news report about it, even Fox had to admit the details were pretty damning. But Shepard Smith went to the collusion questions.
In case you missed it, both Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz and Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings, the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the House Oversight Committee, announced yesterday that former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn had likely broken the law when he made a speech in Russia without getting permission or disclosing his earnings, CNN reported:
“I see no data to support the notion that Gen. Flynn complied with the law,” Chaffetz said, referring to whether Flynn received permission from the Pentagon or the State Department or that he disclosed the more than $45,000 he was paid for a speech he gave to RT-TV in Russia.
Furthermore, the White House is refusing to turn over documents to Congress showing how carefully (or not) Flynn was vetted for his job as national security adviser. From The New York Times:
Questions persist about why the White House did not vet Mr. Flynn more carefully and take steps to make sure his security forms were filled out properly.
White House officials refused a request from the committee to turn over other internal documents related to the hiring and firing of Mr. Flynn, which would shine more light in particular on his links to Turkey.
[…]
“In short, the White House has refused to provide this committee with a single piece of paper in response to our bipartisan request, and that is unacceptable,” Mr. Cummings said.
Apparently, not even Fox can come up with a way to blame Obama, I mean spin this. So the Fox cheerleading show The Five ignored the subject altogether last night. NewsHound Richard tweeted the evidence:
@NewsHoundEllen No Flynn on the topic list. pic.twitter.com/AzhDu2JcOO
— Richard W. (@IceManNYR) April 26, 2017
But on Shepard Smith Reporting, anchor Shepard Smith listened attentively as A.B. Stoddard, editor of RealClearPolitics, leveled some devastating commentary about the White House:
STODDARD: They’re building more smoke in an already smoky situation, looking like they’re stonewalling. What they should do is come as clean as they can.
It doesn’t help the White House to look like it’s partisan stonewalling.
Then she got to the “C” words: “collusion” and “cover up.” I am presuming that the “he” she suggested may have colluded is Flynn. But given that he was part of the Trump campaign, I’m not sure how much daylight there would be between Flynn and Trump even if it was “only” Flynn doing the colluding.
Stoddard also seemed to suggest there was no real difference, too, as she intertwined “he” and “they”:
STODDARD: Maybe he colluded and they’re trying to cover it up but if they didn’t it was time to come clean a long time ago.
[…] If that’s the case [collusion], they’re going to be found out, as we know, because the FBI’s been looking into the Russia connection for almost a year now and the Congress is looking into this. The Congress knows all about Michael Flynn.
Watch it below, from the April 25, 2017 Shepard Smith Reporting.