In case you missed it, right-wing media, led by Sean Hannity and Fox, have been pre-poisoning the political atmosphere, possibly in anticipation of an announcement by Mueller of indictments within Team Trump's Russian Collusion Cabal.
Certainly, the timing is suspect.
But the poison lies they've been telling are old and debunked. It's as if they are running out of conspiracies when it come to Hillary Clinton. Ya think?
The old lie Fox dug up to make Hillary and the DNC the "REAL" Russia colluders, has to do with a word salad including the words "uranium," "Russia," "deal," and "e-mails."
They toss the salad and voila, a weak-minded person might come away thinking that Hillary Cllinton personally wrote (and then deleted) 33,000 emails offering weapons-grade nuclear fuel for sale out of the State Department's offices in order to fund a world-take-over by the Clinton Foundation. Dr. Evil eat your heart out!
This has been making the rounds on Twitter and is a helpful debunk-er of the whole story:
And Jen Kerns from the Washington Examiner was clearly on the Hillary as weapons dealer side. Poor Jen, she should know better than to bring that fight to the slayer of right-wing lie dragons, Joy Ann-Reid. Panel members Catherine Rampell and Eric Boehlert provided an assist, but really, this is Reid's show and she does not take prisoners.
Partial transcript follows:
REID: This does certainly seem to be coordinated. Were talking points issued by the Republican National Committee this week to Trump surrogates, to when asked about Russia collusion shift the story to Uranium One?
KERNS: Not in those words. The RNC does put out its research pieces. I think the RNC shop is quite good. A lot of the information sourced in there is independently verified. It includes sourcing from left wing media publications, the Washington Post, others that aren't Fox News. Look, I think it's important that the media is covering this issue, not just the Fusion GPS story but the Uranium One story.
REID: Why do you say that?
KERNS: Well, look, I think there are some new developments this week that make it worthy about coverage. The fact that Hillary Clinton and the DNc funded the GPS Trump dossier I think is quite relevant.
REID: As did a conservative Republican media outlet that actually began....
KERNS: That is true.
REID: But why does that matter, because here's the thing about the sealed dossier. Let's do that one first. Some of the information in it. Some of that actually checked out. So if in fact, that document contains relevant and valid information showing that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia or worked with Russian operatives in order to distort the results of the 2016 election, who cares whether the oppo-research was paid for by both a Republican and Democrat?
KERNS: Well look, I put it on the Washington Free Beacon. Just because a conservative outlet paid for it doesn't make it okay, and it also doesn't let Democrats off of the hook.
REID: The hook for what?
KERNS: None of the information has in the Trump dossier has checked out and been independently verified...
REID: That's not true.
KERNS: CBS News, who is no conservative publication has checked it out and they found several things that were actually outright false. Michael Cohen, Trump's own attorney had to produce dozens of documents to show he himself was not where the Trump dossier said he was.
REID: Okay, you're talking about the one thing in the dossier, and I'm not going to get reeled into a debate about whether or not the dossier, because this is actually what I suspect that those RNC talking points suggested that you do. When you get on a show like this, and we want to talk about Russia-gate, these indictments, that you should bring up Fusion GPS, and you should bring up Uranium One. Is that something you were told to do?
KERNS: No, absolutely not.
REID: Or something suggested you should do?
KERNS: No. Absolutely not. Look, I'm on the various mailing lists of the RNC. You might be on those lists as well. There is information. We're talking about it.
[…]
REID: Why should he resign from the investigation?
KERNS: Well, there are a couple of reasons. One, I'm sorry to say, does go back to the Fusion GPS piece...
REID: This goes back to. Look what you've done. Let me ask you a quick question before I bring in the rest of the panel. What about the Fusion deal, this is a deal in 2010 to sell a Canadian company to a Russian company, right? What about that deal is worthy of investigation?
KERNS: The Uranium One deal, you mean?
REID: Yeah.
KERNS: Look, the Uranium One deal is problematic because you have Hillary Clinton, who is presiding as the Secretary of State's office, we have evidence to show—and this came out in the last week or two—that there was a Russian spy who was getting close to Hillary Clinton, it was reported in the mainstream. You have Bill Clinton --
REID: This all is old news. (crosstalk) No, no, no. We're not going to get into that. I want to ask you a couple fact-based questions. Who got the money when the Canadian company was sold to the Russian company? The Uranium One? Who received the money?
KERNS: I presume the company.
REID: Yes. Okay, second question. Who approved the sale? Because when any sort of uranium or any company sells that type product, and by the way the uranium that's mined is mined right, is for nuclear power. It's not for nuclear bombs. Right? But when that happens there is an organization called CFIUS that approves it. Do you know what CFIUS that stands for?
KERNS: Yes. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
REID: How many people sit on the committee?
KERNS: Nine members.
REID: How many have to approve a deal like this?
KERNS: All nine of them.
REID: All nine.KERNS: Absolutely.
REID: How many approved this deal?
KERNS: All nine of them.
REID: Did Hillary Clinton sit personally on that deal?
KERNS: No, but she pushed for it.
REID: Hold on. Who is the person who donated to Hillary Clinton who is related to and had an investment in uranium one? What is that person's name? Do you remember their name?
KERNS: They are board members of Uranium One donated up to I think it's a $143 million... to the Clinton Foundation.
REID: Did he own any assets in Uranium One at the time Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State?
KERNS: You know, I don't know that, but here's what I would...
REID: He did not. Sold them. (crosstalk)
KERNS: Here's what i would like to know.
REID: He sold them years before. So what you're talking about is a deal that nine members approved unanimously. None of them was Hillary Clinton. You have a donor who separately gave Hillary Clinton donations at a time when she was not Secretary of State. The two things cross in the night.
They have no relation to each other. The members of CFIUS have been very clear Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with that approving that deal. She would have had to strong arm eight people in order to get them to unanimously approve the deal and also the President of the United States would intervene if they saw any problems.
The CFIUS people say now that if that deal came before them today they would still approve it unanimously. There's actually nothing about the deal that's controversial. The only reason we're talking about it is because per your admission, which I think is very honest, the RNC would like us to be talking about this now.
