For a few hours, the media was buzzing about a story reporting the Russians had compromising information on Donald Trump.
The story ended up being fake news, but the story about how it got injected into the media’s bloodstream infuriated conservatives.
One of Trump’s most ardent critics – Senator John McCain – was the saboteur behind the media’s hatchet job.
CNN reported the Russians had compromising information on Trump based on a political opposition research memo put together by a former British intelligence agent who first worked for Trump’s political opponents and then the Democrats.
The document eventually made its way up the government food chain to FBI Director James Comey.
Officials who were already set to brief President-elect Trump on the allegations of Russia meddling in the 2016 election prepared a two-page synopsis of the memo and were planning to use it during the briefing as an example of “disinformation”.
But they never used the information contained in the memo during the briefing.