Tipsheet

Should Chris Cuomo Apologize To Former NSC Chief, CIA Analyst Fred Fleitz?

Timothy Meads
Timothy Meads  |  October 03, 2019 12:30 PM

Hats off to Fred Fleitz, former National Security Council Chief and CIA analyst, for his expert breakdown of why it was likely that Congressman Adam Schiff received inside information regarding the Ukrainian whistleblower before other lawmakers and the general public saw the official complaint. On Tuesday night, CNN's Chris Cuomo accused him of more or less touting "meaningless" talking points for the purpose of giving Republicans fodder to discredit Schiff and the Democrats. Well on Wednesday, after the New York Times reported that Rep. Schiff did indeed have early access to the complaint, Fleitz had his day on Twitter and made sure that Cuomo saw the latest news. 

Daily Caller reporter and Townhall columnist Scott Morefield broke down the sequence of events from Fleitz's CNN appearance:

Drawing on his own experience with whistleblower complaints, Fleitz told Cuomo he thought this one “was very unusual.”

"When I saw this one, I thought it was very unusual, not just that it was extremely well written, but it had legal references and footnotes. That was a little bit unusual, but I compared that with the fact that Adam Schiff was talking about the subject matter of this complaint throughout the month of August. He posted a tweet at the end of August that almost identically reflected this complaint.

“But you don’t know any of that,” Cuomo pushed back. “You’re raising it as questions. You know that is meaningless unless you can put some meat on the bones. Of course the Republicans are agreeing with you. That’s the whole state of play. Anything you say that’s negative about this guy or this woman they’re going to pick up on.”

You were pretty hard on me last night on  @CNN last night  @ChrisCuomowhen I told you that I assessed @RepAdamSchiff probably knew about the CIA whistleblower in advance.  We now know from the NYT that I was right.  Apology not necessary.  @realDonaldTrump," Fleitz tweeted Wednesday evening. 

But, CNN should apologize. Rather than respect Fleitz's career and pedigree as reason for why he should be seen as credible, Cuomo dismissed his viewpoint as partisan nonsense. He was pretty sharp on his prediction. Here's a breakdown from Fleitz of why Rep. Schiff's and the wistleblower's actions were so damaging.