Trying to defend the FBI from charges from politicization on Monday, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough had a Joe Biden moment, forgetting the name of the Steele dossier as he introduced disgraced ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok.
Introducing Strzok, the Morning Joe host’s train of thought was derailed:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Peter, thank you so much for being with us. There are people out there obviously who say, “We can’t trust anything the FBI does. Look at what Peter Strzok did and look what happened with the — with the — ” [pause] what was that? I can’t even remember it. Uh, the —
BRZEZINSKI: Text messages?
SCARBOROUGH: Just all the stuff. I can’t believe — That said that Donald Trump did horrible things in Russia. The Steele dossier! The Steele dossier, which we didn’t believe from the start.
The exchange was reminiscent of a Biden moment in 2020 when he attempted to quote from the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are created, by the, you know, you know the thing.”
As for Strzok, Scarborough brought on a then-FBI agent who famously declared in a text to the woman he was having an affair with that “we’ll stop” Trump from being president. Here’s the host’s logic:
The FBI makes mistakes. The church makes mistakes. People make mistakes. They screw up. Should this be any reason for Americans to not trust that what the FBI and the DOJ are doing now is in pursuit of protecting classified documents.
Regarding Scarborough’s claim that “The Steele dossier, which we didn’t believe from the start,” MSNBC promoted it. On April 9, 2018, the network went live for an hour. Guest Bret Stephens insisted, “It reminds us that the salacious and unverified details in the Steele dossier are eminently plausible.”
Scarborough’s Biden moment was sponsored by Comcast. Click on the link to let them know what you think.
A partial transcript of the segment is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Morning Joe
8/15/2022
7:21
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Let’s bring Peter Strzok into the conversation. He is former Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s counter intelligence division.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Peter, thank you so much for being with us. There are people out there obviously who say, “We can’t trust anything the FBI does. Look at what Peter Strzok did and look what happened with the — with the — ” [pause] what was that? I can’t even remember it. Uh, the —
BRZEZINSKI: Text messages?
SCARBOROUGH: Just all the stuff. I can’t believe — That said that Donald Trump did horrible things in Russia. The Steele dossier! The Steele dossier, which we didn’t believe from the start, I must say. But I don want to read this first before you answer that question. It’s from Wikipedia and it talks about The Wall Street Journal investigation. Comprehensive review in February 2018 of Strzok’s messages concluded that texts critical of Mr. Trump represented a fraction of roughly 7,000 texts, which stretching across 384 pages and show no evidence of a conspiracy against Mr. Trump. That is, of course, from Mr. Murdoch’s Wall Street journal. Despite that fact, I put that out there. The FBI makes mistakes. The church makes mistakes. People make mistakes. They screw up. Should this be any reason for Americans to not trust that what the FBI and the DOJ are doing now is in pursuit of protecting classified documents?