As special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation moves into the White House, Fox News and its GOP BFFs just happened to come up with a new conspiracy theory to gnash their teeth about while shrugging off serious questions about whether Donald Trump may have committed a crime.
Yesterday, word came that special counsel Robert Mueller wants to question Donald Trump about the ousters of national security adviser Michael Flynn and FBI director James Comey and that Mueller has already questioned cabinet member and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Questions about Trump’s possible attempts to block the Russia investigation are serious and credible. The New York Times reported, “Mr. Mueller’s investigators have asked current and former Trump administration officials about what Mr. Trump cited as reasons for Mr. Comey’s firing, and why Mr. Trump was so concerned about having someone loyal to him oversee the Russia investigation, people familiar with the interviews said.”
But Fox News is more interested in acquitting Trump by discrediting the FBI (which would also help him stack the department with lackeys). One day before the news about Mueller wanting information from Trump about the firing of Flynn and Comey became public, Fox began fear mongering that the FBI has a “secret society” devoted to destroying Trump. Media Matters explains:
The story originated [Monday evening] when Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) claimed on …The Story, that in a text message exchange after the 2016 election, FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page said, “Perhaps this is the first meeting of the secret society.” Gowdy omitted any context and offered no evidence to show that such a text, which has not been released, wouldn’t have been facetious.
Conservative media and Trump allies have repeatedly attempted to scandalize texts between Strzok and Page, who were in a personal relationship, alleging that they and other FBI officials were working against Trump during the election.
Not surprisingly, Trump’s water carriers on Fox & Friends didn’t need any context to conclude that the text must be true on its face. And they used it in concert with another recent conspiracy theory, that missing texts between Strzok and Page are part of a cover up. Even though, as Think Progress pointed out, there’s far more evidence that the FBI damaged Hillary Clinton’s candidacy than Trump’s:
In fact, the FBI’s respective handling of the Trump and Clinton investigations was a key factor in Trump’s victory, according to an analysis by Nate Silver. While the bureau’s investigation into Trump began in July 2016, the existence of the investigation wasn’t publicly disclosed until after Trump’s inauguration. On the other hand, FBI Director James Comey went out of his way to publicize the Clinton email investigation just days before the election. Around that same time, the New York Times published a report sourced to “law enforcement officials” that claimed there was “no clear link” between Trump and Russia — a report that looks very suspect in light of the many Trump-Russia contacts that we’ve seen learned about since then.
When Trump supporters been pushed about the major holes in their theory of the case — why would then-FBI Director Comey have publicized the Clinton email investigation if his bureau was trying to help Clinton? — they haven’t had answers.
But truth and logic take far back seats to propaganda on Fox News!
Yesterday morning, Sara Carter (whose record of shoddy, salacious “journalism” Fox endorsed by giving her a contributor’s contract) told Fox & Friends viewers that there may well be “obstruction of justice” over the missing phone texts.
Cohost Steve Doocy prompted Carter to add on to Gowdy’s “secret society” conspiracy-theory suggestion by referencing a clip of Gowdy on The Story saying, “So, of course I’m going to want to know what secret society you [FBI agents Strzok and Page] are talking about, because you’re supposed to be investigating objectively.”
“He’s outraged that in some of the text message with these lovebirds, they’re talking about a secret society out to get Trump.” Doocy announced, all but jabbing an elbow into Carter’s side to get her to add that conspiracy theory to the one about the missing texts.
Of course, Carter took the bait. After all, she’s the same woman who previously took a DEA report out of context in order to “report,” “Islamic extremists embedded in the United States … are partnering with violent Mexican drug gangs to finance terror networks in the Middle East.”
“I’m concerned that they’re still working at the FBI!” Carter said. She later added, “Believe me, the Germans, the Russians, the Israelis, everybody is going into those phones and trying to suck out all the information they have.”
Yet not one of the three cohosts asked whether our allies might have either the missing texts or more information on the supposed secret society.
Watch this disgraceful display Fox passed off as “news analysis” below, from the January 23, 2018 Fox & Friends.
(H/T Media Matters)
CORRECTION: I originally suggested that the "FBI secret society" story may have begun on Special Report.