If there is a singular point to the release of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report it is not what the left wing MSM has focused on. The report did find that there was no political bias in the launch of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Take that however you may but the big story is about Christopher Steele's dossier. The report makes clear the dossier never had even a shred of credibility. People beleive what they see is true because that is what they believe.
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Like the much-ballyhooed report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the Horowitz report is a Rorschach test, in which partisans will find what they want to find.
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https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...-media-924944/
Horowitz's report debunks long held claims by both the left and the right. But it paints a damning picture of an incompetent FBI and it's leadership. And central to that was their view of the Steele dossier.
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Press figures have derided the idea that Steele was crucial to the FISA application, with some insisting it was only a “small part” of the application. Horowitz is clear:
"We determined that the Crossfire Hurricane team’s receipt of Steele’s election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a central and essential role in the FBI’s and Department’s decision to seek the FISA order."
The report describes how, prior to receiving Steele’s reports, the FBI General Counsel (OGC) and/or the National Security Division’s Office of Intelligence (OI) wouldn’t budge on seeking FISA authority. But after getting the reports, the OGC unit chief said, “receipt of the Steele reporting changed her mind on whether they could establish probable cause.”
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Horowitz's report also gives a different view on another widely held belief of some Democrats and members of the media. And that was about the memo released by Rep. Devin Nunes which was widely derided after it came out in Jan. 2018.
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There was gnashing of teeth when Nunes first released his memo in January, 2018. The press universally crapped on his letter, with a Washington Post piece calling it a “joke” and a “sham.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed Nunes for the release of a “bogus” document, while New York Senator Chuck Schumer said the memo was intended to “sow conspiracy theories and attack the integrity of federal law enforcement.” Many called for his removal as Committee chair.
The Horowitz report says all of that caterwauling was off-base. It also undercuts many of the assertions made in a ballyhooed response letter by Nunes counterpart Adam Schiff, who described the FBI’s “reasonable basis” for deeming Steele credible. The report is especially hostile to Schiff’s claim that the FBI “provided additional information obtained through multiple independent sources that corroborated Steele’s reporting.”
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My hope is that those in the media and certain politicians should pay a price for being so wrong and believing anything in Steele's dossier without some serious investigation first. And Mr. Steele, well he should apologize and then go away quietly.
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As a result, a “well-developed conspiracy” theory based on a report that Comey described as “salacious and unverified material that a responsible journalist wouldn’t report without corroborating,” became the driving news story in a superpower nation for two years. Even the New York Times, which published a lot of these stories, is in the wake of the Horowitz report noting Steele’s role in “unleashing a flood of speculation in the news media about the new president’s relationship with Russia.”
No matter what people think the political meaning of the Horowitz report might be, reporters who read it will know: Anybody who touched this nonsense in print should be embarrassed.
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