The symbiosis between Fox News and Donald Trump is crystal clear, as evidenced by the phony uranium scandal Fox News is having orgasms over while Trump presses the Justice Department to get more witnesses.
After Kellyanne Conway appeared on CNN to deliver one of her usual unresponsive Clinton-bashing performances, a panel discussion took place. Conway did admit that Trump has exerted undue influence over the Justice Department, trying to force them to lift a gag order so an informant could speak out.
Host Camerota told the panel that she tried to get Conway to stop talking about Hillary because "that's their automatic default."
CNN's legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin weighed in on the controversy. "This whole uranium thing comes from Fox News. This is a closed investigation that came up in Peter Schweizer's book, Clinton Cash" in 2015. It was discredited then."
Camerota said the uranium deal came about in "2010."
Toobin continued, "The book came out in 2015. It was one of the accusations, it's has been discredited. Two years later, Fox News and Republicans in Congress and Republicans in the White House start raising it simply as a way to wave Russia back at the Democrats."
It's the standard Trump administration default setting of "blame somebody else after you've been caught with your hands in the cookie jar."
"There’s nothing new, no new information here. You have the president of the United States, apparently, according to CNN reporting intervening with the Justice Department saying 'get us more witnesses on this.' This is precisely why in the post-Nixon era, there were rules in place to get the White House out of criminal investigations. They are not supposed to be involved in making those sorts of decisions but this White House is changing the rules."
Of course there's no new information.
John Berman then said that Conway never denied that Trump didn't weigh in at the Justice Department.
Both Politifact and the Washington Post's Fact Checker gave Trump's claims 4 Pinnochios:
In a 2016 TV campaign ad that used Trump saying, HRC “handed over American uranium rights to the Russians” as part of a “pay-to-play” scheme to get “filthy rich.” FactCheck.org wrote a long piece that debunks their claims entirely, "A False ‘Corruption’ Claim"
And Forbes has a great article today, "Claims of Clinton-Russia Uranium Collusion Are A Real Empty Barrel"
But here's the thing -- by 20%, we really mean almost zero.Those U.S. facilities obtained by Russia produce almost nothing. The uranium deposits are of relatively poor grade and too costly to compete on the uranium market...read on.
Of course in the world of Kellyanne Conway's "alternative facts," truth and reality are meaningless as long as they can find a way to smear their rivals to take attention off of themselves.
