Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) faced criticism from two legal experts on Tuesday after commenting on recent court documents filed by special counsel John Durham, who was appointed by Bill Barr.
The filing has been misconstrued by right-wing media outlets. Fox News falsely claimed that Durham discovered Hillary Clinton's campaign paid for hackers to spy on Donald Trump while he was in office. The conservative Washington Examiner also falsely claimed that there had been spying on Trump's White House office. The Daily Caller called it the biggest political scandal in history. The National Review called it "jaw-dropping" revelations that will be ignored by the media.
"There were many problems with all this," wrote Charlie Savage for the New York Times. "For one, much of this was not new: The New York Times had reported in October what Mr. Sussmann had told the C.I.A. about data suggesting that Russian-made smartphones, called YotaPhones, had been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.
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The data predates Trump's inauguration and the spying occurred exclusively under President Barack Obama's administration.
Legal experts piled on Rubio, who they said knows better. The Republican is a ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
.@marcorubio is basically arguing that it would be wrong to chase down whether a Secret Service Agent, protecting both Obama and Trump, were communicating clandestinely with Russia.— emptywheel (@emptywheel) 1644932265
Since that's not what Durham said, I assume you'll be deleting this tweet and apologizing, Senator.https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1493578085710671875\u00a0\u2026— Bradley P. Moss (@Bradley P. Moss) 1644936293
