White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called out the press on Thursday for not asking her about Russia-related news that bolstered President Donald Trump's argument about his relations with Moscow.
At the end of the White House press briefing, Sanders took a few moments to draw the media's attention to a story that suggested Russia may have been tied to a dossier full of salacious, unfounded claims about Trump.
"You guys love to talk about Russia, and there's been nonstop coverage," she said. "Then the one day that there might have been a question on Russia, there wasn't."
"Often, we have a lot of media with Russia first, but today, there was public testimony that further discredited the phony dossier that's been the source of so much of the fake news and conspiracy theories, and we learned that the firm that produced it was also also being paid by the Russians," she added.
Sanders was referring to testimony by Bill Browder, the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital, before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Browder testified about the firm Fusion GPS, which funded the collection of information in a dossier of harmful claims about Trump during the 2016 election. According to Browder, Fusion GPS also has ties to Russia.
"This is yet the latest piece of evidence that vindicates what the president has said, that this is a witch hunt and a hoax," Sanders said. "And it's a shame that the president and the country have had to go through this charade continually and hopefully this will help us move forward in that process."
EDITOR'S NOTE, October 30, 2017: Prior to October 27, 2017, the Washington Free Beacon published several articles referencing the research firm Fusion GPS that did not disclose the relationship between Fusion GPS and the Washington Free Beacon. The reason for this omission is that the authors of these articles, and the particular editors who reviewed them, were unaware of this relationship.
The articles in question tended to be aggregated stories relying on the reporting done by other media outlets. This type of article undergoes a different editorial process from the original investigative pieces that appear on our website. Beginning today, all articles referencing Fusion GPS will mention its history with the Washington Free Beacon. The Free Beacon is also reviewing its editorial process with respect to aggregated news sources to consider ways to avoid similar issues in the future. We regret the error.