CNN's deceptive story about the Steele dossier

Power Line:

Lee Smith is the author of The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in US History. Lee’s book is an invaluable companion to Andrew McCarthy’s Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency; it adds to and amplifies the case McCarthy makes.

One of Lee’s principal themes is the role played by the media peddling the Russia hoax. The passage below from pages 119-121 is illustrative of the theme. In this passage Lee discusses the January 10, 2017 CNN story “Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him.” Running under the byline of Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Jake Tapper and Carl Bernstein, the story peddled the Russia hoax based on the patently absurd Steele Dossier, which had not yet been made public. Lee notes that the story referred to the dossier’s most serious charge, “allegations that there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.” He then recounts (emphasis in original):

* * * * *

Hours after the CNN story broke, BuzzFeed published what appears to be the full text of the Steele Dossier. Tapper emailed BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith to complain. “I think your move makes the story less serious and credible,” he wrote. “I think you damaged its impact.”

Another media outfit had taken the air out of the CNN investigative team’s big breaking news story. Because of BuzzFeed, American news audiences could judge the credibility of the dossier–with its lurid tales of golden showers and outlandish allegations of Trump-Russia conspiracies–for themselves rather than take it on CNN’s authority.

Publication of the document undermined the story’s credibility. CNN had not published an account of prostitutes precisely because it wanted to avoid appearing like a tabloid, because it wanted its serious and credible report to have an impact.

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There is more.

CNN wanted a misleading story in order to damage Trump.  BuzzFeed exposed how tainted the dossier was and the CNN story lost its impact.  It is ironic since BuzzFeed published the entire dossier in hopes to topple Trump.