New York Times White House correspondent Glenn Thrush appeared on MSNBC's "Hard Ball with Chris Matthews" Wednesday evening to discuss the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) role in the Trump-Russia dossier and how it became a part of the FBI-Russia investigation. It was revealed that the DNC paid for the opposition research that led to the dossier after House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) issued subpoenas for Fusion GPS financial records.
Chris Matthews, before handing off to Thrush, states that the DNC and Fusion GPS did not want to have the dossier and financial information released but they had no choice because of the subpoenas. Clearly, the Democratic Party didn't want the public to know about this, Matthews states. Thrush replies:
Well, there's another factor here. When ... Comey was talking about it, the FBI looked into this, remember that President Obama hedged up president-elect trump during the transition period about this. The Democrats clearly wanted this information coming from the intelligence community.
According to Thrush's analysis, if people knew the dossier and the information within it came from the DNC, the information would be brushed under the rug and seen as less credible. It would not have been "as good of a story." Thrush says, "They obfuscated this." Matthews then asks how it looks for the DNC now and Thrush replies, "It doesn't look great for them."
New DNC leadership is refusing to take the fall for the new revelation but they are still focused on putting the spotlight back on the Trump-Russia investigation.
Tom Perez and the new leadership of the DNC were not involved in any decision-making regarding Fusion GPS, nor were they aware that Perkins Coie was working with the organization. But let's be clear, there is a serious federal investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, and the American public deserves to know what happened.
CNN reported that the dossier helped "fuel the ongoing investigations into Trump and Russia, including the special counsel probe led by Former FBI Director Mueller."
Watch the clip from MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" below.