{"id":1011143,"date":"2021-11-14T12:29:17","date_gmt":"2021-11-14T17:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1011143"},"modified":"2021-11-14T12:29:20","modified_gmt":"2021-11-14T17:29:20","slug":"smear-so-called-investigation-networks-ignore-and-spin-steele-dossier-indictment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/smear-so-called-investigation-networks-ignore-and-spin-steele-dossier-indictment\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Smear,\u2019 \u2018So-Called\u2019 Investigation: Networks Ignore And Spin Steele Dossier Indictment"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsmear-so-called-investigation-networks-ignore-and-spin-steele-dossier-indictment%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1011143&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Although the most lurid allegations of the Steele dossier about alleged connections between Donald Trump\u2019s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia received saturation coverage for more than two years, the legacy media have largely ignored the indictment of the dossier\u2019s prime source. When they have covered Special Prosecutor John Durham\u2019s indictment of Igor Danchenko for lying, they have referred to it as a \u201csmear,\u201d a \u201cso-called\u201d investigation, or proof that the dossier has been \u201cfurther vetted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, November 3, John Durham issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/sco\/press-release\/file\/1446386\/download\">39-page indictment<\/a> of Igor Danchenko, a U.S.-based Russian citizen who formerly worked at the left-of-center Brookings Institution. Fiona Hill introduced Danchenko to Christopher Steele, who was hired by the Democratic National Committee to compile a dossier of allegations about the Trump campaign\u2019s ties to Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Danchenko created such unfounded rumors as claiming that future President Trump once hired Russian prostitutes to urinate on a Moscow bed where Barack Obama had slept. The indictment says Danchenko was responsible for \u201cthe allegation that there were communications ongoing between the Trump campaign and Russian officials and that \u2026 the Kremlin might be of help in getting Trump elected.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Based on Danchenko\u2019s alleged inside sources, the FBI wrote that there was \u201ca well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between [the Trump campaign] and the Russian leadership,\u201d because Vladimir Putin \u201cfeared\u201d Hillary Clinton. And the FBI used the dossier to petition for four successive warrants to spy on Trump campaign official Carter Page. But that all turned out to be false.<\/p>\n<p>Although Danchencko told the FBI that he obtained his information from Russians with direct knowledge of the allegations, an American public relations executive named Charles Dolan Jr. has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/11\/04\/durham-probe-analyst-tied-to-christopher-steele-trump-russia-dossier-arrested.html\">stepped forward<\/a> as the source of the misinformation. Durham has charged Danchenko with five counts of making false statements to federal investigators; the Russian could face a fine and up to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/18\/1001\">five years in prison<\/a> for each of the five counts.<\/p>\n<p>While the allegations led to hours of banter on CNN and MSNBC, the refutation took virtually no time. The networks\u2019 prime time hosts, who have led their broadcasts with in-depth coverage of congressional subpoenas against former Trump administration officials, have all but ignored the Danchenko indictment.<\/p>\n<p>The most recent coverage came on Friday afternoon when Nicolle Wallace, the host of MSNBC\u2019s \u201cDeadline: White House,\u201d who claimed the indictment merely meant the Steele dossier was being \u201cfurther vetted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you peek over at&nbsp;right-wing media, they are still<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although the most lurid allegations of the Steele dossier about alleged connections between Donald Trump\u2019s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia received saturation coverage for more than two years, the legacy media have largely ignored the indictment of the dossier\u2019s prime source. When they have covered Special Prosecutor John Durham\u2019s indictment of Igor Danchenko for lying, they have referred to it as a \u201csmear,\u201d a \u201cso-called\u201d investigation, or proof that the dossier has been \u201cfurther vetted.\u201dOn Wednesday, November 3, John Durham issued a 39-page indictment of Igor Danchenko, a U.S.-based Russian citizen who formerly worked at the left-of-center Brookings Institution. Fiona Hill introduced Danchenko to Christopher Steele, who was hired by the Democratic National Committee to compile a dossier of allegations about the Trump campaign\u2019s ties to Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign.Danchenko created such unfounded rumors as claiming that future President Trump once hired Russian prostitutes to urinate on a Moscow bed where Barack Obama had slept. The indictment says Danchenko was responsible for \u201cthe allegation that there were communications ongoing between the Trump campaign and Russian officials and that \u2026 the Kremlin might be of help in getting Trump elected.\u201dBased on Danchenko\u2019s alleged inside sources, the FBI wrote that there was \u201ca well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between [the Trump campaign] and the Russian leadership,\u201d because Vladimir Putin \u201cfeared\u201d Hillary Clinton. And the FBI used the dossier to petition for four successive warrants to spy on Trump campaign official Carter Page. But that all turned out to be false.Although Danchencko told the FBI that he obtained his information from Russians with direct knowledge of the allegations, an American public relations executive named Charles Dolan Jr. has stepped forward as the source of the misinformation. Durham has charged Danchenko with five counts of making false statements to federal investigators; the Russian could face a fine and up to five years in prison for each of the five counts.While the allegations led to hours of banter on CNN and MSNBC, the refutation took virtually no time. The networks\u2019 prime time hosts, who have led their broadcasts with in-depth coverage of congressional subpoenas against former Trump administration officials, have all but ignored the Danchenko indictment.The most recent coverage came on Friday afternoon when Nicolle Wallace, the host of MSNBC\u2019s \u201cDeadline: White House,\u201d who claimed the indictment merely meant the Steele dossier was being \u201cfurther vetted.\u201d\u201cIf you peek over at\u00a0right-wing media, they are still taking a victory\u00a0lap and feeling avenged around\u00a0the dossier being further vetted,\u201d she said. She then asserted that\u00a0\u201cmost people covered it as, sort\u00a0of, unvetted but something that was out\u00a0there,\u201d although she admitted that\u00a0\u201cother people went farther [sic] than\u00a0that.\u201dShe then asked her guest, Clint Watts, to \u201cspeak to how far from\u00a0reality this information space\u00a0is at this point, by nature.\u201dOnly Rachel Maddow covered the indictment in prime time, on November 4. \u201cThe unmistakable impression is that this indictment is designed to smear Christopher Steele\u2019s intelligence reports as things that were deliberately made up and concocted by rascally Democrats,\u201d said Rachel Maddow on Thursday, November 4. She then attempted to support the veracity of the Steele dossier by interviewing former FBI agent Peter Strzok.MSNBC\u2019s Hallie Jackson referred to the indictment as the product of \u201cthe so-called Durham investigation.\u201d Her guest, Ken Dilanian, then said, \u201cRepublicans, of course, are seizing on this in support of their longtime assertion that this whole Trump-Russian investigation is a hoax, is unfounded.\u201dCNN took a similar approach. \u201cJohn Durham appears to be doing with these cases is trying to get at the dossier,\u201d said CNN \u201cjustice correspondent\u201d Evan Perez on November 4. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve got to tell you, having spent time looking at this, including the fact that the former president\u2019s campaign chair was himself compromised by the Russians, back in 2016, it\u2019s hard to say that the FBI had no reason to investigate some of these things.\u201dEven when the hosts tried to be honest, they allowed their guests to state misinformation without any correction. On November 4, CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper referred to the Steele dossier as \u201cthat dossier of unproven, disproven, and lurid allegations about Trump.\u201d But his guest, former Watergate figure John Dean, insisted without evidence that \u201cthere are things coming up about the fact the server between Moscow and the Trump headquarters was real, and there is more information coming out about that by experts who say, \u2018Hey, this wasn\u2019t a bogus report.\u2019 There really were communications going on.\u201dIn reality, the FBI dismissed allegations that the Trump campaign maintained a server that communicated surreptitiously with the Moscow-based Alfa Bank in 2017.The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0member.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1011143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}