Stunning. Deep State Pawn Isikoff Who First Broke Bogus Report on Carter Page Now Says He’s ‘Skeptical’ of Steele Dossier

Guest post by Joe Hoft

Deep State uses the compliant liberal media whenever they want a particular farce spread throughout the country. The liberal media complies with the deep state announcing ‘anonymous sources’ have shared whatever made up story line the deep state wants publicized.  No one in the media is more accommodating to the deep state recently than ‘old faithful’ – Yahoo’s Michael Isikoff.

Sara Carter reported in February 2018 that –

Victoria Toensing the attorney for William Douglas Campbell, the FBI informant in the sale of the Canadian firm Uranium One to Russia, is asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions for a leak investigation into unnamed  federal officials who leaked false and illegal information on her client.

Toensing’s claim states that –

…the leakers disparaged her client in an effort to silence him from providing testimony to Congress regarding his role in exposing Russia’s long-term strategy to dominate the global uranium market and how Moscow achieved its goal in 2010 of obtaining roughly 20 percent of the U.S. uranium mining industry, according to a letter delivered to the DOJ.

Carter notes that Toensing’s claim references –

…several articles that she alleges contain false information regarding Campbell. On Nov.16, 2017 a Reuters article by Joel Schectman and on Nov. 17, 2017 a Yahoo News story by Michael Isikoff referred to unnamed federal officials. Both outlets described these officials as having “detailed knowledge” of Campbell’s role as an undercover FBI informant.

This was not the first time of late that we hear Isikoff’s name related to deep state media messaging.

Last year, it was reported that Isikoff’s Yahoo report was used in obtaining FISA warrants to spy on President Trump while at the same time Isikoff was working with the DNC.

WikiLeaks Julian Assange tweeted evidence that Isikoff was secretly working for the DNC in September of 2016, the same time his FISA article was released:

Democratic consultant Alexandra Chalupa wrote to Luis Miranda, communications director of the Democratic National Committee, “I spoke to a delegation of 68 investigative journalists from Ukraine last Wednesday at the Library of Congress – the Open World Society’s forum – they put me on the program to speak specifically about Paul Manafort and I invited Michael Isikoff whom I’ve been working with for the past few weeks and connected him to the Ukrainians.”

The memo on FISA abuse prepared by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and released earlier this year states:

The Carter Page FISA application also cited extensively a September 23, 2016 Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focused on Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow. This article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News. The Page FISA application incorrectly assesses that Steele did not directly provide information to Yahoo News—and several other outlets—in September 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS. Perkins Coie was aware of Steele’s initial media contacts because they hosted at least one meeting in Washington D,C, in 2016 with Steele and Fusion GPS where this matter was discussed.”

While discussing his story being one of the justifications in the FISA warrant application against Page during an episode of his podcast, “Skullduggery,” Isakoff claimed that he was “stunned.”

The Daily Caller reported at the time:

…the [House FISA] memo reveals that the FISA application “extensively” cited an Sept. 23, 2016 news article that was in effect planted by Fusion GPS.

That is significant because the article, written by veteran reporter Michael Isikoff, is itself based on the unverified dossier. Isikoff was among a small group of reporters who in September 2016 was briefed on the dossier by Steele and Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson. (RELATED: Inside Fusion GPS’s Media Outreach Campaign)

A private investigator who knows both Steele and Isikoff told The Daily Caller last year that the pair are good friends, having been fixtures of the Washington, D.C. journalism circuit for decades.

The FISA application made no mention of the link between the Isikoff article and the dossier. Instead, the article was treated as corroborating evidence for the dossier. The memo says that the FISA application “incorrectly assesse[d]” that the Isikoff article was based on information separate from the dossier.

“That’s truly insane,” Page told TheDC on Friday about the Isikoff article’s link to the FISA.

 

But now Isikoff is trying to distance himself from this entire scandal that he was instrumental player in starting up.

Isikoff now says the Steele Dossier was always suspect.
It appears the rats are fleeing the sinking ship.

The Daily Caller reported:

The investigative reporter who broke the first news story based on information from Christopher Steele now says that he and others in the media should have had “more skepticism” about the former British spy’s infamous dossier.

“I think it’s fair to say that all of us should have approached this, in retrospect, with more skepticism, particularly when we didn’t know where it was coming from,” Yahoo! News reporter Michael Isikoff told Vanity Fair.

“It’s been surprising to me the degree to which some people have wanted to maintain that the dossier was checking out when, as far as I can tell, it hasn’t,” he added.

Isikoff is best known in the Russia saga for his Sept. 23, 2016 article about former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Isikoff reported that federal officials were investigating claims that Page met secretly in Moscow in July 2016 with two Kremlin insiders.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

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