December 15, 2019

Here's something that mystifies me: For all the time cable networks have to jaw about things, why don't they spend some of it debunking the bull Republicans are throwing at Americans? For example, why are they allowing Republicans to claim that Democrats paid for the Steele dossier when the opposite is true.

Joy Reid to the rescue. Fusion GPS founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch joined her with a goal of setting the record straight on several issues.

For example, the Republican claim that Democrats paid for the Steele dossier, all of it. This is a lie.

"The origin of the research into Donald Trump was started in September of 2015, and it was financed by the Republicans," said Glenn Simpson. "The first half of our investigation was all paid for by the Republicans."

He added, "The reason that we hired Christopher Steele was that we did about eight months of research for the Republicans which led us ultimately to become very curious about Donald Trump's connections to the Russians."

Oh. That's inconvenient, but true. Why is it that this is not being repeated daily, over and over again?

The claim that Steele was predisposed to hate Trump was debunked by the Inspector General report and also by Fritsch. After noting that Steele had visited Trump Tower in the past and was at least acquainted with someone in the immediate Trump family, Frisch explained that Steele had no idea who was paying for his research. For all he knew, he was being paid by Trump himself!

Watch the full interview above. The clips of the GOP liars are mercifully short, so don't let that stop you. All cable hosts could take a page out of Joy Reid's book and actually fact-check the lies, repeating the facts at least as often as the lies.

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