While delivering fake news and “nothing burgers” are old news for mainstream media these days, when it comes to the Trump dossier it’s edging on dangerous.
Jonathan Chait, of New York Magazine, falsely or incorrectly stated this week that it was a GOP donor, and not the DNC, who FIRST funded the Trump dossier.
Chait wrote that Republicans “have developed a theory of alt-collusion to defend Trump from Mueller.” At the center of this Republican-led conspiracy, Chait alleged, is the DNC and Clinton-funded dossier put together by ex-British agent Christopher Steele.
He further stated that it was GOP donors who are Anti-Trump that hired Steele to conduct the research.
“During the Republican primary, donors opposed to Trump’s candidacy hired Steele to conduct opposition research into Trump. After Trump won the primary, Democrats continued to finance his investigation,” Chait says. “Steele compiled a now-famous dossier alleging a web of corrupt ties, including blackmail, between Trump, his inner circle, and the Kremlin.”
So it is somewhat true that a GOP-affiliated donor was first involved but they backed out of the contract and stopped paying. When that happened, the DNC stepped in and took the contract that Steele got involved.
He ends the piece with: “In some ways the theory of alt-collusion mirrors the propaganda methods used by Putin himself. When William Browder publicizes Russia’s murder of crusading lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Russia turns around and implies that maybe Browder is the one who murdered Magnitsky. The accusation is preposterous, but that doesn’t matter. The purpose is to create an offsetting accusation against the accuser, so that the average bystander can only puzzle at the spectacle of two sides making the same allegation against each other.”
“This method can work if you have enough mouthpieces who are sufficiently devoid of skepticism or intellectual self-respect to be willing to spread your obviously absurd message. A key fact that Trump has discovered, and which has enabled his takeover of the Republican Party, is that this is a resource the American right has in abundant supply.”
Here’s a video of the situation.
(H/T The Daily Caller)
