Breaking: Not only does John Solomon continue to include more and more false claims in his propaganda, but after 4 years of "reporting" on FISA he still doesn't know what FBI Director signs to on FISA.

In reality, this is what John Solomon's "SMOKING GUN" says:

Steele was considered reliable (true!), his sources were in a position to report on what they reported on (true!), the reporting corroborated stuff in the report [that, btw, is mostly classified]
This paragraph, for example, includes 3 lies and one exaggeration: First, CIA informed FBI that until 2011, they asked Page questions about the RU intelligence officers trying to recruit him.
That does NOT cover the most alarming thing he did in 2015 or one RU intelligence officer that Page did not tell the CIA about while still an approved contact.
USG had gotten opinions about Steele that weren't entirely favorable (but unsurprising for operations officer), but this is before questions abt source network.
I believe the understanding that Steele might have been fed disinformation came in June 2017 (and largely came from better understanding of John Solomon source Oleg Deripaska).
In early 2017--the VERY SAME DAY as this memo was written--Paul Manafort, after meeting with one of Deripaska's GRU linked deputies, told Trump's people to discredit the dossier as a way to discredit the RU investigation.
In other words, the SAME ENTITY that fed the disinformation to Steele and then got the GOP to focus only on that disinformation also feeds John Solomon some of his "scoops."
Finally, this is a misrepresentation of when the FBI first considered closing Mike Flynn investigation, who decided it, and is of course irrelevant given his damning calls to Kislyak.
It is acutely interesting that and how Steele was fed disinformation. But it is interesting and damning in the same way Ron Johnson and Rudy Giuliani's focus on later disinformation was.

More from emptywheel

gonna live tweet this.

Mark Meadows explains at the beginning that Cleta is not attorney of record but she's been involved.


Trump (who lied abt his inauguration size) says he knows he won bc of rally size.

Trump starts by describing that current margin is what "everyone agrees on."

Trump repeatedly claims that people went to vote but weren't allowed to bc a ballot already cast.

Maybe ... they had already voted? I think he just narced out a bunch of people trying to double vote.

Trump accuses "Ruby Freeman" of being a vote hustler.
Since everyone is writing abt Julian Assange today, some posts:

The Growing WikiLeaks Conspiracy [Indictment]

https://t.co/i3dNE6lnl7

This talks about the superseding CFAA charge that Assange boosters are generally silent or worse about.

Three Inconvenient Truths about a Hypothetical Trump Pardon for Julian Assange

https://t.co/FDl2KMJV8x

1) It may not work
2) It would have to pardon other crimes
3) That would include Trump's own corruption

Rat-Fucker Rashomon: Getting the "Highest Level of Government" to Free Julian Assange

https://t.co/oNr8YgXbhk

On the pardon discussions with Trump that WikiLeaks doesn't want you to know about.

The Minh Quang Pham Precedent to the Julian Assange Extradition

https://t.co/1i7yErl0sC

The UK extradited a guy whose primary crime (at the time) was doing graphic design for AQAP.

Julian Assange's First Witness, Journalism Professor Mark Feldstein, Professes to Be Unfamiliar with the Public Record on Assange

https://t.co/sl0sasWgeu

WikiLeaks boosters are lying, cynically, abt what changed between 2013 and 2017.

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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x