Sen. John McCain said he “did what any citizen should” by providing the FBI with a sketchy dossier containing information alleging that Russia has dirt on President-elect Donald Trump.  But there’s far more to the story.
BuzzFeed and CNN published reports taking seriously the unverified intelligence reports months after serious journalists from a number of other news outlets declined to touch the story.
Soon after national uproar over the outrageous and unverified reports that the Russians are blackmailing Trump over information about perverse sexual encounters, McCain appeared before the press taking credit for putting the information into the FBI’s hands.
“Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public. Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI. That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue.”
McCain told reporters that he didn’t know whether he was concerned about the information he allegedly received because he doesn’t know if it’s true. He added that he simply did what any American citizen should do if they find themselves in position of information that could compromise national security.
What McCain didn’t say— and what CNN and BuzzFeed conveniently forgot to mention— is, however, more important.
McCain, a never Trump Republican from the get-go, received the sensitive information in question from a former British intelligence officer who also happened to be a current political dirt digger paid by never Trump factions within the GOP and later the DNC to dig up dirt on Trump.
That’s why, as WikiLeaks noted, the file that everyone is talking about bears no resemblance to an actual intelligence document. In fact, if you’ve ever seen such material, you can’t help but notice that the document in question actually looks a lot more like political opposition research in its rawest form.
And that’s pretty important to this story. The creator and funders of the document currently making headlines tried like hell to get it published, even mentioned by legitimate media, while the 2016 election was still underway.
Of course, journalists with even a modicum of care for their reputations wouldn’t touch it. Why? It stunk of opposition research…. You know, the crap that PACS use to make YouTube videos during elections.
The document being peddled lacked any credible sources and wasn’t worth anyone’s time. But then something changed.
As The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald reported:

In December, John McCain provided a copy of this report to the FBI and demanded they take it seriously.
At some point last week, the chiefs of the intelligence agencies decided to declare that this ex-British intelligence operative was “credible” enough that his allegations warranted briefing both Trump and Obama about them, thus stamping some sort of vague, indirect, and deniable official approval on these accusations. Someone — by all appearances, numerous officials — then went to CNN to tell the network they had done this, causing CNN to go on air and, in the gravest of tones, announce the “Breaking News” that “the nation’s top intelligence officials” briefed Obama and Trump that Russia had compiled information that “compromised President-elect Trump.”

In other words, McCain demanded that somebody get the document in front of the American public during a visit to the FBI. Of course, the FBI knew that a legitimate investigation into any of the outrageous claims listed in the document would turn up nothing newsworthy.
So someone leaked it with a wink and a nod. This time, the documents are coming from an unnamed official within the U.S. intelligence community.
Now, to their credit, many of the journalists who originally turned up their noses at the document called BuzzFeed and CNN out for publishing the material. But the damage was already done.
It’s no coincidence that the viral list makers at BuzzFeed were chosen as a vehicle for the story. The website doesn’t exactly scream journalistic excellence—but what it lacks in credibility and sound research it makes up for in the ability to reach mass audiences with extreme rapidity.
What Americans are witnessing is a good old fashioned Deep State propaganda play. And McCain is involved simply because he’s the Deep State’s finest Manchurian. The same reason, really, that they sent him to Syria.
This is one of many shadow government attempts to undermine the Trump administration Americans will witness over the next four years.