Even Fox News Admits This Conspiracy Theory Is Fake News (VIDEO/TWEETS)

By
Darrell Lucus
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For the last few weeks, the right-wing tubes have lit up with claims that the FBI is trying to cover up a smoking gun that supposedly proves the investigation into Russia’s effort to hack the election is a witch hunt.

Earlier this week, the Department of Justice revealed that the FBI failed to preserve a text message exchange between FBI counterintelligence expert Peter Strzok and FBI in-house attorney Lisa Page containing a number of attacks on Trump disappeared. Strzok, you will recall, was bounced from Robert Mueller’s investigative team after these texts came to light.

Oh, how the wingnuts howled. Sean Hannity, for instance, railed that this was proof positive of an anti-Trump conspiracy in the Hoover Building. Watch here.

Others picked up the cry.

https://twitter.com/ClintonM614/status/956375588465401856

And it went all the way to the top.

But there’s just one problem. There’s no there there. And even the fair and balanced network knows it. Fox News’ own Department of Justice correspondent, Jake Gibson, spoke with federal law enforcement officials who told him that a massive technical glitch resulted in the loss of thousands of texts from phones belonging to 10 percent of the FBI’s employees from December 16, 2016 through May 21, 2017. It turns out that Strzok and Page were ensnared in this hiccup.


This outbreak of journalism from Fox News dovetails with what Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr found on Tuesday afternoon. He told CNN’s Manu Raju that the missing texts weren’t a big deal.

Lo and behold, on Thursday, the FBI revealed that it had indeed tracked down the texts. FBI inspector general Michael Horowitz told Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and Senate Homeland Security chairman Ron Johnson that the recovery effort is still well underway. Gibson got a copy of the letter.

For those of you keeping score, roughly 48 hours elapsed between the time we learned those emails disappeared and the time they were recovered. Gee, you would think that if the FBI really wanted to make those texts disappear down the rabbit hole in order to screw Trump, Horowitz would have dragged his feet in tracking them down.


But that didn’t stop some of the deplorables from taking a victory lap.

https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/956589468575649797

Such is life in the world of alternative facts. Just about anything that can be seen as remotely detrimental to Trump is a massive conspiracy to destroy the republic. It’s very telling that when Fox News and a Republican committee chairman say this is baloney, it’s not enough to get people off the ceiling.

(featured image courtesy David Shane, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)

Darrell Lucus
Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.

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