A Feb. 22 WorldNetDaily article by Art Moore carries the headline “Report: Mueller still relying on discredited ‘dossier.'” Moore goes on to write that “Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton asserted the revelations about the discredited dossier’s centrality in obtaining the surveillance warrant means the entire Mueller investigation is unjustified.”
But Moore offered no evidence that the dossier has been “discredited”l all he did was link back to a Feb. 2 article he wrote in which he repeatedly called the dossier “discredited” — also without supporting evidence.
The Steele dossier is far from “discredited”; in fact, several parts of it have, in fact, been verified. Even the Republican House Intelligence Committee memo concedes that the dossier is at least “minially corroborated.”
Still, WND has insisted on falsely describing the dossier as “discredited.” It’s been doing so as early as June 2017, when then-reporter Garth Kant claimed the dossier was “full of sensational but widely discredited allegations.” The only evidence Kant supplied beyond unverified denials from the people involved was a claim that “The charge that Trump attorney Michael Cohen met in August in Prague with Russian agents to cover up payments to Russian hackers was disproved when he produced his passport and travel documents.” But as Newsweek pointed out, that doesn’t prove he never met with Russian agents, just that he didn’t meet with them in Prague (if he did indeed meet with them). And Politico notes that Cohen traveled to Italy during the time in question, and he would not need a passport to travel from Italy to the Czech Republic and then return to Italy.
WND’s false attacks on the veracity of the dossier continued:
- An Oct. 25 article by Joe Kovacs uncritically quoted Rush Limbaugh calling the dossier “made-up drivel” and “a totally made-up piece of crap.”
- A Nov. 9 column by Laura Hollis referenced “the now infamous (and largely discredited) ‘dossier’ on Trump.”
- An anonymously written Nov. 30 article referred to the “largely discredited ‘dossier.'”
- A Dec. 7 article by Moore referred to the “infamous – and now largely discredited – dossier.”
- A Jan. 19 article by Bob Unruh called the dossier “largely discredited.”
- A Feb. 2 article by greg Corombos uncritically quoted right-wing activist Ken Cuccinelli calling the dossier “largely discredited.”
- A Feb. 5 article by Corombos referred to the “discredited dossier.”
Much of this promotion of a right-wing political agenda over facts occurred as WND was fighting for its life, a situation driven in part by its love of conspiracy theories and fake news.
Repeatedly saying something doesn’t make it true, after all. You’d think WND would’ve figured that out by now.