OF COURSE

Fox News Hosts, Conservative Media Use Russia Charges to Bash FBI

Conservative pundits far and wide claimed the FBI was too busy probing Trump’s Russia ties to prevent Kremlin meddling in the election or even Wednesday’s Florida massacre.

President Donald Trump’s top media allies came to a series of confusing conclusions following news that special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals for meddling in the 2016 election.

While Friday’s announcement did not indicate whether Muller would indict anyone connected to Trump’s 2016 campaign, conservative media stars were quick to echo the president’s own claim that the new indictments completely vindicated him.

They additionally used the indictments to bash the FBI for the news that the bureau’s Miami office failed to act upon a tip about the Florida massacre’s gunman; or for the Mueller probe of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia—a subject of incessant right-wing fury.

“Today marks the day that the Democrats’ Russia collusion conspiracy theory unravelled,” former cable news star and current Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany boldly declared on Fox News immediately following the news.

Similarly, pro-Trump news site The Daily Caller reacted to the indictments with a “COLLUSION CRUMBLES” headline. Their even more pro-Trump counterparts at Breitbart News blared that the indictments showed “STILL NO ‘COLLUSION’” in the Russia probe. The site additionally noted that the Russian trolls “HELD RALLIES *AGAINST* PRESIDENT-ELECT” as part of their disruptive efforts.

Breitbart also pivoted to bash the FBI, arguing that the bureau spent “untold number of resources” investigating the “pee pee” dossier—a reference to some of the dossier’s more salacious claims—while it failed to follow a tip about Nikolas Cruz, the alleged gunman behind the Florida massacre.

Fox Business Network anchor and vocal Trump booster Trish Regan made a similar pivot, arguing that there needs to be a “change of guard” at the FBI because it was allegedly too distracted by the controversial Trump dossier to prevent any Russia meddling in the election or the Parkland, Florida, shooting that left 17 people dead on Wednesday.

“They’re too busy working on that Christopher Steele memo so that they can get a FISA warrant to spy on people,” Regan ranted. “It seems like the priorities have completely gotten lost.” She additionally used the opportunity to call upon FBI chief Christopher Wray to resign.

Fox News weekend host Jeanine Pirro took to Twitter with a bizarre theory that Mueller’s latest indictment was a planned distraction. “Why is DOJ announcing indictment - to deflect from fact FBI DROPPED THE BALL twice on shooter who killed 17 people?

Perhaps the biggest whiplash-inducing reaction came from Fox News host Sean Hannity, who declared the indictments definitely proved “no collusion.”

He then tweeted, “We have been warning everyone about Putin and Russian operatives in the USA for a long time,” before abruptly pivoting to Hillary Clinton: “That’s the BIG story of Uranium one. This needs to end.”

The talk-radio star was referring to the conservative desire for further investigation of Clinton’s involvement in an Obama-era decision to allow a Russian company to purchase a uranium mining company in the United States.

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