On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” anchor Chuck Todd accused President Donald Trump and his defenders of distorting the results of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the Russia probe.
Todd said, “Today, one of the president’s impeachment counter-narratives took center stage in a dramatic hearing. I’m talking, of course, about the president’s attacks on the FBI and his efforts to discredit the Russia investigation completely, trying to paint it as a politically-motivated coup attempt against him. Except the Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz, an independent watchdog, said he didn’t find evidence that political bias influenced the FBI’s decision to launch the inquiry into the Trump campaign. And they didn’t find evidence of bias when the FBI opened an investigation into the four individuals associated with that campaign. They didn’t find evidence of bias when it used informants. And they said there was no evidence of bias when it decided to initially seek a FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.”
He continued, “But let’s be crystal clear here. The IG did find some alarming instances of FBI misconduct related to its applications to secretly monitor Carter Page. And he could not say whether political bias did or did not influence some of those specific decisions down the road. And, by the way, it’s not only political bias that could have influenced. It’s possible confirmation bias or prosecutorial bias. Not all bias is red and blue in America. Now the IG has surfaced important questions about Justice Department safeguards especially, for investigations of this magnitude. And, yes, the facts in this report are important. But once again, the facts are being distorted more by spin, and in some cases, conspiracy theories.”
Todd played a clip in which Lindsey Graham said, “What has been described as a few irregularities becomes a massive criminal conspiracy. They couldn’t believe Trump didn’t want him to believe — didn’t want him to win and when he won, couldn’t tolerate the fact that he won.”
In a clip, President Trump said, “This was an attempted overthrow, and a lot of people were in on it, and they got caught. They got caught red-handed.”
In a clip Attorney General William Barr said, “I think when you step back here and say, what was this all based on? It’s not sufficient. The question really is, what was the agenda after the election that kept them pressing ahead after their case collapsed?”
Todd concluded, “The facts have been warped to defend the president here. Counter-narratives have been pushed, and presidential conspiracy theories have taken hold as part of this broader information war.”
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