After The Washington Post reported on November 21 that the Justice Department inspector general “found evidence that an FBI employee may have altered a document connected to” the FISA warrant on Trump 2016 campaign adviser Carter Page, some in right-wing media leapt at the chance to declare that their years of theories about illegal surveillance were about to be proven true.
However, both Fox’s “news” and “opinion” sides ignored that the lede of the article also said that DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz “has concluded that the conduct did not affect the overall validity of the surveillance application.”
Representing the network’s so-called “news division,” Fox chief national correspondent Ed Henry said that “this may just be the beginning” of evidence of FISA abuse, suggesting that the report will uncover that the FBI was “concocting a case” against President Donald Trump. Henry also bragged that “the president was laughed at by people in the media and a lot of Democrats said that this was a conspiracy theory and everything else. Now it is coming home to roost that something stinks here.”