Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro hyperventilated in a Sept. 29 post:
In a bombshell letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe detailed how the Russian collusion narrative pushed by Democrats and the media was an alleged plot approved by then-candidate Hillary Clinton. Not only that, but President Obama was allegedly briefed on the matter by anti-Trump CIA Director John Brennan. The night’s presidential debate proved to be a great distraction as the broadcast networks spent their time proclaiming Joe Biden had the advantage.
While ABC’s World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News were busy promoting their candidate ahead of the debate, the host for the night’s event, Fox News made sure to inform their viewers of the bombshell allegations.
Fondacaro, as you'd expect from a professional prevaricator, omitted a couple of things. First: Fox News, by promoting this story, was working on behalf of their candidate,. Donald Trump. Second: The evidence Ratcliffe released has been discredited.
Politico reported that the documents Ratcliffe declassified were "previously rejected by Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee as having no factual basis," and that critics pointed out it "effectively put Russian disinformation into the public sphere in order to boost President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about the government’s efforts to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election."
Business Insider. meanwhile, pointed out that "Ratcliffe's decision to release disparaging information about Clinton from Russian intelligence sources appears to mirror Moscow's ongoing disinformation campaign against the former secretary of state," quoting one commentator noting that "this is old news, meaning the IC has had years to corroborate it and hasn't been able to do that." Another commentator noted that "Ratcliffe is serving up political chum to the President's allies on-demand, seeming to disregard whether it's A) accurate or B) in service of a foreign disinformation campaign."
Fondacaro does concede that the information in the document dump can't be verified, but he handwaved the idea that Ratcliffe was pushing Russian disinformation by repeating a claim by Ratcliffe that it's not (though he offered no evidence to prove that).
Embracing Russian disinformation to own the libs? Sounds like a very Fondacaro-esque -- and MRC-esque -- move.
