Trump Takes Pot Shots At McCain, Falsely Claims He Shared Dossier Before Election

Months after Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) death, President Donald Trump on Saturday and Sunday took pot shots at McCain on Twitter over his role in handing off the so-called “Steele Dossier” to the FBI.

Spreading the fake and totally discredited Dossier “is unfortunately a very dark stain against John McCain.” Ken Starr, Former Independent Counsel. He had far worse “stains” than this, including thumbs down on repeal and replace after years of campaigning to repeal and replace!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2019

So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) “last in his class” (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election. He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019

In the tweets, Trump partly reiterated what McCain himself acknowledged in life — that the senator handed off the dossier to the FBI — but also falsely accused McCain of attempting to get the dossier’s contents into media reports before the 2016 election.

The claim is a false distortion of what former McCain aide David Kramer testified to in the defamation suit a Russian tech executive filed against BuzzFeed News, the first outlet to publish the dossier. Though a judge found late last year that BuzzFeed had the right to publish the dossier, Kramer’s testimony was only recently unsealed unsealed.

Trump’s tweets are incorrect in multiple ways: Not only did McCain learn about and obtain the dossier several days after Trump’s election, Kramer said during a deposition that he — not McCain — was in touch with media outlets concerning the dossier in December, also after Trump’s election.

Also, The Washington Post pointed out, McCain graduated fifth-to-last in his 1958 Naval Academy class, not last. Trump has never released his academic record.