Fox & Friends Uses NY Times Report to Declare Vindication For Trump’s (Still Wrong) Spygate Theory
Fox & Friends took a three-hour victory lap on Friday morning, claiming vindication for President Donald Trump in light of a New York Times report that the FBI sent an undercover agent to speak to George Papadopoulos in 2016.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that as part of the investigation into Trump’s campaign, the FBI dispatched an undercover agent to London to meet with Papadopoulos, a Trump foreign policy adviser. The agent met with Papadopoulos, along with FBI informant and Cambridge professor Steve Halper, to try to find out if the campaign was working with the Russians.
It’s a solid and interesting report, though perhaps not a bombshell. The only fresh news from the Times report is that the FBI informant who spoke to Papadopoulos in September 2016 was supported by an FBI agent.
Nonetheless, the story received blanket coverage on Fox & Friends, where it was wheeled out as vindication for Trump’s repeated claims, in May 2018, that the FBI “implanted” a spy inside his campaign in order to sway the election to his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
At the time, Trump based his theory, which he labeled “SPYGATE,” on reports that Halper met with Papadopoulos to glean information about his campaign’s Russia contacts.
“Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president,” Trump tweeted on May 18, 2018. “If true – all time biggest political scandal!” In another tweet, he cited a ludicrous claim made on Lou Dobbs’ Fox News show that the FBI “put a Spy in the Trump Campaign” in order to “frame” him.
In another tweet the next day, Trump accused the FBI and Justice Department of “infiltrating” his campaign “for the benefit” of Clinton’s campaign.
Despite the coverage on Fox & Friends this morning, none of those claims from Trump have been proven. There is no evidence that a spy was implanted inside Trump’s campaign. That an FBI agent spoke to a Trump campaign aide does nothing to change that. The debate over whether what the FBI did constitutes spying is a question for another piece.
But it wasn’t just Trump’s claims that Fox & Friends was celebrating. The hosts of the breakfast show were anxious to make the case that the Times report also vindicates Fox’s coverage of the story over the past two years.
“Remember a couple years ago when Donald Trump said that the government was spying on him?” host Steve Doocy announced triumphantly. “We have been telling you parts of the story for the last year or so.”
But it has been known for years that the FBI probed Trump’s campaign for potential ties to Russia. An FBI agent accompanying an FBI informant to try and glean information from Papadopoulos is hardly proof of the grand conspiracy, SPYGATE, that has made its way from Trump’s Twitter feed onto the air at Fox and back onto Trump’s Twitter feed in a self-propelling cycle. That theory, to reiterate, holds that the FBI infiltrated Trump’s campaign in order to frame him, derail his candidacy, and install Hillary Clinton as president.
“I’m fascinated by the fact that the New York Times broke this story,” Brian Kilmeade fumed. “Because it’s in [Papadopoulos’s] book. And we’ve been talking about this for about two years. And you saw Dan Bongino, among others, leading the charge and nobody was picking this up outside this network, virtually.”
Kilmeade even accused the Times of publishing their story to try to “get ahead” of an upcoming report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz on the Trump-Russia investigation — a ludicrous conspiracy theory that likely pleased the president.
He was watching:
Finally, Mainstream Media is getting involved – too “hot” to avoid. Pulitzer Prize anyone? The New York Times, on front page (finally), “Details effort to spy on Trump Campaign.” @foxandfriends This is bigger than WATERGATE, but the reverse!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2019
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
