About That FBI Informant

The Times and the Post both had stories up Friday evening on a topic which has been roiling right-wing media over the last week or more but is only now getting sustained attention in the mainstream press. It is also an example of the ways in which the cacophony of on-message pro-Trump media and talking heads can have a demonstrable and malign distorting effect on the news we receive and how we understand it. The topic here is the FBI’s use of an informant to talk to and solicit information from at least three Trump officials and advisors starting in the summer of 2016.