CNN’s Oliver Darcy is accusing Fox News and other right-wing outlets of misleading the public on a strange text between Strzok and Page indicating Obama wants to keep abreast of all investigations.
The newly released batch of texts between Strzok and Page is a massive story this morning in right-wing media pic.twitter.com/eo6keqpxvu
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) February 7, 2018
“People familiar with the matter disputed assertion the Strzok/Page text referenced Clinton probe. One former Obama official told me it was “total nonsense.” These people said it actually referenced Obama wanting to be briefed on Russian election meddling,” he tweeted later.
Here’s what he wrote at CNN:
People familiar with the matter strongly dispute the assertion that the text message referenced the Clinton email probe. The text message, they say, was actually referencing Obama’s desire to be kept abreast on the FBI’s investigation into Russian election meddling.
One former Obama official told CNN that the idea the text message was about the Clinton email investigation was “total nonsense,” noting that the theory did not conform with the timeline of events.
Indeed, the text message was sent on September 2, 2016, months after the bureau had closed its investigation into Clinton, and before it reopened that investigation. But September 2, 2016 was just days before Obama confronted Russian President Vladimir Putin over Russia’s meddling in the presidential election.
El Scoopo noted that in his earlier post about this text here.
A person familiar with Strzok’s thinking reiterated this account, telling CNN that the text referred to Obama’s broader interests in issues of potential Russian interference in the election more generally. The idea that Obama was micromanaging the FBI’s investigation does not match reality, the person said.
In a footnote in his report, Johnson even seemed to concede that the idea the text message referred to the Clinton email investigation was only speculation. The report said the Justice Department said it redacted “text messages that were personal in nature or relating to other investigations.” Because this message was not redacted, Johnson’s report said, it could be presumed that the Justice Department “believes it may relate to the FBI’s investigation of classified information on Secretary Clinton’s private server.”
While it all seems like speculation, it does appear that Fox News and others are exaggerating as much as possible in order to push the Trump line about the FBI.
Ironically, the lovely and brilliant Dana Perino actually brings up that the text was likely about the Russian investigation in her skeptical and objective analysis on The Five today:
There’s all the evidence, you make up your own mind.