RUTHFULLY YOURS

Mr. Trump tweeted that McCain embraced the dossier before the 2016 election when recent testimony suggests it was just after the election. Also, Mr. Trump claimed on Twitter that McCain finished last in his class at the U.S. Naval Academy when most reports indicate McCain actually finished fifth from the bottom.

Let’s hope for more accuracy from the President in the future, but he and many other Americans seem to have every right to be angry. On Thursday Rowan Scarborough reported for the Washington Times:

David Kramer, the then-Sen. John McCain aide who leaked the discredited Christopher Steele dossier on President Trump, testified in a libel case that he spread the unsubstantiated anti-Trump material all over Washington during the presidential transition.

Mr. Kramer shared the Clinton-funded collection of unverified claims with numerous media outlets including BuzzFeed, which published it without verifying its contents. Mr. Scarborough continues:

Mr. Steele, whose mission was to sink the Trump campaign and then his presidency, believed Mr. McCain’s involvement would give “the FBI additional prod to take this seriously,” Mr. Kramer testified.

“I shared with [Mr. McCain] the document, and he took some time to review it, he asked me what I thought he should do, and I suggested that he provide a copy of it to the Director of the FBI and the Director of the CIA,” Mr. Kramer testified.

Mr. McCain shared the document with the FBI’s then-director James Comey, who had already seen it, while McCain’s associate leaked it far and wide to the media. The litigation also reveals that according to Mr. Steele, one of his sources was nothing more than a viewer comment posted on CNN’s website. Mr. Scarborough reports:

The libel lawsuit was brought by Russian businessman Aleksej Gubarev. Mr. Steele accused him of conducting the hacking into Democratic Party computers — a charge the Russian denied from the start.

Mr. Steele said the charge came from unsolicited information and that he tried to verify it on an internet site called CNN iReport. Mr. Steele testified that he relied on an article on XBT, Mr. Gubarev’s firm, published on July 28, 2009.

Mr. Steele was asked by Mr. Gubarev’s attorney, Evan Fray-Witzer, “Do you understand that they have no connection to any CNN reporters”?

“I do not,” he answered.

The attorney added, “Do you understand that CNN iReports are or were nothing more than any random individuals’ assertions on the internet?”

Mr. Steele: “I obviously presume that if it is on a CNN site that it has some kind of CNN status.”

The dossier did not even meet the journalistic standards of CNN?

As for Mr. McCain’s oft-repeated pledge to eliminate the so-called Affordable Care Act, it was the key to extending his Senate career. “In fight of his political life, McCain hammers Obamacare,” said a Politico headline in 2016. The publication’s Jennifer Haberkorn and Theodoric Meyer reported at the time:

John McCain is running for reelection like it’s 2010.

The Arizona Republican has made his opposition to Obamacare — which dominated Senate races across the country six years ago — a central point of his campaign, by all accounts, the toughest reelection fight of his career.

… The issue helps him run to the right of his GOP primary opponent, while also taking a direct shot at his Democratic opponent, Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who called her 2010 vote for the law the one she’s “most proud about.”

“I think it’s a very strong issue,” McCain told POLITICO about his focus on Obamacare.

It turned out to be strong enough to get him re-elected, but not strong enough to make him keep his promise.

As long as Americans remember the bravery of our military, they will recall the courage of John McCain during his captivity in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison operated by the communist government of North Vietnam.

But Americans should also recognize that Mr. McCain’s role in promoting unverified conspiracy theories generated by the President’s political opponents was not the late senator’s finest hour. And neither was his breaking of a signature campaign pledge.