Mainstream media has epic fail in trying to defend the dirty dossier

Mollie Hemingway:

It’s not terribly impressive to destroy a straw man. It’s even less impressive when you attack a straw man and fail to destroy it.

That’s what David Ignatius failed to do in his recent Washington Post opinion article headlined “The truth about the FBI’s Russia probe.” He tells a story about the agency’s use of a Hillary Clinton-funded opposition research document known as a dossier that he says exonerates the FBI and makes its critics look bad.

The dossier has been driving news coverage of Russia since it was legitimized via a leak to major media a year ago. The dossier alleges treasonous collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. It includes salacious details. It was written by someone who journalists and intelligence officials said was a credible ex-spy. And it was allegedly used by the FBI, even though it was a Clinton campaign document. But more than a year after it became public, none of its significant claims have been verified.

In recent weeks, some journalists and other critics of President Trump have been downplaying its importance as a centerpiece of the FBI’s investigation. Others are trying to rehabilitate it and the shady opposition researchers who have run its messaging campaign. The most important recent talking point, for some reason, is that it wasn’t used to launch an investigation into Trump and his associates.

But that’s not the main problem with it. Sure, people who express concern about the FBI’s use of a Clinton-funded opposition research document known as the “Russia dossier” are worried about what the FBI was doing coordinating investigations with one presidential campaign against another presidential campaign. They’re worried that a dossier that has not had any specific thing of significance verified was taken seriously by the FBI.

But they’re mostly worried about whether it was weaponized by the FBI. While the FBI and Department of Justice have fought requests from congressional investigators for information tooth and nail, and the particulars of how they used the dossier remain unknown to most Americans, there are three primary areas of concern.
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It looks like the document was used to mislead Congress early on.  It is also looking like it was used to spy on the Trump campaign and to leak derogatory information to the media that now turns out to be unverified opposition research from the Clinton campaign.  They also tried to hide the source of the information from Congress and the public.

There is much more in the piece critical of Ignatius's story and his own role in using leaked information to attack Mike Flynn.

In now looks like it was the Clinton campaign that was colluding with teh Russians and the dossier is a result of that collusion.  There is no evidence of the Trump campaign colluding that has surfaced.