Fox's Mike Huckabee: Reporting about Trump being investigated for obstruction of justice could be “Russian fake news”

Huckabee: Reporting on Trump and Russia probe is “an attempt to ... overthrow this president, and that is anarchy”

From the June 16 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom:

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SHANNON BREAM (CO-HOST): Let's start with this [President Donald Trump's] tweet. It sounds to me that he's suggesting that former FBI Director [and special counsel Robert] Mueller was the one who told him to fire [former FBI Director James] Comey? Is that where we're going?

MIKE HUCKABEE: Yeah I don't know if it was Mueller or if it was [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein. I think the interesting thing is that with Rosenstein's comment this morning and saying, “Don't take all this stuff to be serious,” look, the reliability today of the mainstream press, particularly The New York Times and the “Washington Compost,” as I like to call them, is somewhat between an Ouija board and Tokyo Rose. 

BREAM: That's quite a combo.

HUCKABEE: That's how reliable these anonymous sources are. And that's what we have to start questioning. Who are these sources? If you can't name them, maybe you shouldn't publish the story because you get embarrassed time after time, caught with your pants around your ankles, when it turns out that the stuff that you're breathlessly putting on the front page is absolutely untrue. And most of it has been. 

BREAM: Well and we've heard that from former FBI Director Comey when he was testifying. He said, “So many of these stories that were out were completely false, but it's not my job to go out and be correcting all these things that were said.” But here's what we know. Just a couple days ago, The Washington Post cited five sources, five, that they say told them that the president is now under investigation by Mueller for obstruction of justice. That's five people. Now a spokesperson for Mueller's office says, “We put very stringent controls in place and will deal severely with people who leak,” and yet it is still happening. 

HUCKABEE: Well whoever's still leaking this, if it's inside government person, they've committed a felony, and they should go to prison for a very long time. I don't think that's where it's coming from. I think a lot of this stuff they're just pulling out of the thin blue air. Are the people are just calling up and saying, “This is true.” You can fit Jets Stadium with people who will be anonymous sources, but it doesn't mean that there's any veracity to their claims. And we've lost the art of journalism in America when there is no checking of facts and getting it verified it repeatedly by many, many sources that are willing to go on the record. And the result is I don't blame Donald Trump for being angry. I want the entire country to be upset with this kind of shoddy reporting, because it's frankly disruptive to the work of our republic. 

BREAM: Well and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has issued a statement. We want to read part of that. He said, “Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous, quote, 'officials,' particularly when they do not identify the country, let alone the little branch or agency of government with which the alleged source is. Supposedly our affiliate.” He says, “America should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. The Department of Justice has a long-established policy to neither confirm nor deny such allegations.” I mean, he's making that statement in a week where we're getting all kinds of interesting revelations. 

HUCKABEE: Everybody talks about Russia and fake news. How do we know this doesn't come from Russian fake news sources? I want to go back to something I've said for years. People who know don't talk and people who talk talk don't know. That's a maxim of politics. When I see people who are telling me something that happens, I feel like that if they're talking, they don't really know, and if they don't really know, they're not talking. Because you don't get in a “circle of trust,” to borrow a Robert de Niro line from --

BREAM: Such a great movie.

HUCKABEE: Yeah it was a great movie. But you don't get in that circle of trust if you can't be trusted. And the people close to Donald Trump, if they're talking, they don't belong in the circle of trust. The truth is, that's not who's talking. These are people who are making this stuff up to make Donald Trump look bad because I'm convinced there is an attempt to overthrow, and I use that word purposely, overthrow this president, and that is anarchy.

Previously:

Fox's First Reaction On Bombshell Flynn/Trump New York Times Report Was To Call The Story “Fake News”

Fox covers for Kushner with report from single anonymous source

Fox & Friends' Kilmeade declares that “collusion is in our rear view mirror”