(Klikanggaran)--One of the most glaringly bogus Trump-Russia stories by The New York Times in 2017 was picked apart inside the FBI at the time as containing over a dozen major inaccuracies, a newly disclosed document shows.
Declassified by the Justice Department, the document contains the Times story that reported there were extensive contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence. The document also contains a typewritten critique in the margins by FBI Agent Peter Strzok, who totally rejected the Times’ claim.
“Again, we are unaware of ANY Trump advisors engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials,” Mr. Strzok wrote.
Since fired by the bureau, Mr. Strzok then led the Crossfire Hurricane unit investigating the Trump campaign.
On Feb. 14, 2017, at the height of conspiracy theories about President Trump and the Kremlin, The New York Times published a three-byline sensation: “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts with Russian Intelligence,” the headline proclaimed.
The first paragraph read, “Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.”
The story stood as proof of Trump-Russia collusion except it was flatly wrong. There were no such year’s worth of intercepts or phone records.
Then-FBI Director James B. Comey read the story and quickly, and privately, alerted congressional leaders about the falsity. In June 2017, after being fired by Mr. Trump and testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Committee, Mr. Comey told the world the story was false.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, released the Strzok document on Friday.
The Times story was a one-two punch at the White House. It came a month after BuzzFeed published the notorious Democratic-funded dossier widely accepted by the press, which erroneously said Mr. Trump was in a far-reaching election conspiracy with Moscow and included numerous salacious details.
“The comments of Peter Strzok regarding the February 14 New York Times article are devastating in that they are an admission that there was no reliable evidence that anyone from the Trump Campaign was working with Russian Intelligence Agencies in any form,” Mr. Graham said.
The senator added, “The statements by Mr. Strzok question the entire premise of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump Campaign and make it even more outrageous that the Mueller team continued this investigation for almost two and a half years. Moreover, the statements by Strzok raise troubling questions as to whether the FBI was impermissibly unmasking and analyzing intelligence gathered on U.S. persons.”
Appointed in May 2017, special counsel Robert Mueller filed a report in March 2019 that said his team found no Trump-Russia election conspiracy.
Mr. Strzok, who was fired for his anti-Trump texts, wrote 15 Times story comments, including: