News and Commentary

Stephanopoulos Parrots ’17 Intelligence Agencies’ Lie

   DailyWire.com

“Russia — according to 17 intelligence agencies — interfered in our campaign,” said ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, repeating the false claim of universal agreement across 17 federal intelligence agencies regarding alleged Russian state interference in last year’s presidential election.

Stephanopoulos presented former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s statements as definitive facts predicated on consensus across the federal government’s intelligence apparatus:

And then, on the broader question, the underlying issue of our relationship with Russia and the fact that Russia, according to our 17 intelligence agencies, interfered in our campaign, James Comey was unequivocal on that point.

Stephanopoulos made the false claim in an interview with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) for This Week.

Originally pushed by Hillary Clinton during her third presidential debate with Donald Trump, the false claim has since become ubiquitous, forwarded primarily by Democrats and their news media allies.

The false claim is based on a misrepresentation of a declassified intelligence report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence of the role of the director of national intelligence (DNI), whose role is to consolidate intelligence from across the federal intelligence apparatus and advise the president. Left-wing and Democrat-aligned news media outlets have framed the DNI as a director of and spokesperson for a non-existent consensus across “the intelligence community.”

PolitFact — which presents itself as a politically objective and non-partisan “fact-checking website” — grades the false claim as “true:”

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism in May, former DNI Clapper directly responded to the aforementioned false claim, claiming that his assessment of “Russian efforts to … influence the outcome of the presidential election” was based on intelligence from three intelligence agencies: the CIA, FBI, and NSA.

Stephanopoulos presents himself as a politically objective and non-partisan news figure. ABC News similarly presents itself as a politically objective and non-partisan news media outlet.

Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter.

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