> (Posting unverified documents without making any attempts to verify them is not a journalistic activity.)
Seems like main stream media in the US proved the last few years that they were not journalistic by not making any attempt to verify the Steele Dossier.
They verified the source and voracity of the dossier, the dossier was the news the findings of the dossier were not presented as fact initially. Eventually some of the findings from the dossier were verified.
Hmm. I didn't read that in the Mueller report, and yet, I though the Mueller investigation was initiated with a FISA warrant request based on the unverified Steele Dossier.
That is nonsense you hear on Fox News. Investigation started because Trump sacked Comey and so Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller to lead a special counsel:
"Yet, 10 months after the probe started and a month after Robert Mueller was named special counsel in the Russia probe, Comey cast doubt on the the Steele dossier, calling it “unverified” and “salacious” in sworn testimony before Congress.
Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page further corroborated Comey’s concerns in recent testimony before House lawmakers, revealing that the FBI had not corroborated the collusion charges by May 2017, despite nine months of exhaustive counterintelligence investigation." [1]
Also, the FBI was given information about the dossier prior to the FISA application that should have made them think twice:
"Newly unearthed memos show a high-ranking government official who met with Steele in October 2016 determined some of the Donald Trump dirt that Steele was simultaneously digging up for the FBI and for Hillary Clinton’s campaign was inaccurate, and likely leaked to the media.
The concerns were flagged in a typed memo and in handwritten notes taken by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec on Oct. 11, 2016.
Her observations were recorded exactly 10 days before the FBI used Steele and his infamous dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the campaign’s contacts with Russia in search of a now debunked collusion theory." [1]
I have a theory about the Steele Dossier. I posit that Comey and company didn't bother with trying to verify it because they knew ahead of time it would bear out to be unproven. Why would they know that? Perhaps they helped Steele write it.
Seems like main stream media in the US proved the last few years that they were not journalistic by not making any attempt to verify the Steele Dossier.