CNN’s organizational hypocrisy was on full display Wednesday night as host Erin Burnett kicked off OutFront by declaring that “Republicans are at it again” with their crazy conspiracy theories! Turns out, the alleged conspiracy theory was just a question raised by Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson in his Homeland Security Committee’s interim report on the Clinton e-mail scandal.

“The conspiracy de jour is that President Obama had quote, ‘personal involvement’ in the Clinton e-mail scandal,” Burnett claimed as she began her anti-Republican rant. Her smearing started by taking the question raised by Johnson completely out of context:

According to Johnson's report, Page texted Strzok about preparing talking points for them FBI-Director Jim Comey because, this is the operative line, quote: “POTUS, [President Obama] wants to know everything we are doing.” Okay. That one phrase was enough for Senator Johnson to make the connection between President Obama and the Clinton email investigation.

Burnett was adamant that Johnson was a conspiracy theorist, but she failed in her duty as a journalist to note that the Senator didn’t draw any conclusion, and even stated that fact outright.

“This report is not intended to answer these questions, but to demonstrate that the information received warrants further inquiry to examine possible bias and wrongdoing within the FBI and the Justice Department. Any serious and impartial reader of this material should find it hard to deny the need for further inquiry,” Johnson explicitly wrote.

The disdain for Johnson, and by extension Republicans (judging from her intro) was palpable as she chided the Senator by saying: “Lesson here is before you take on the FBI or a former president, both of whom are fair targets right, but make sure you have your facts straight.” And, of course, CNN reporter Evan Perez and Fusion GPS conveniently had an anonymous source in his ear to explain the context of the text messaged in question.

Burnett’s snide comment about getting facts straight, coupled with an earlier jab about how “facts and dates matter, okay,” demonstrated just how disingenuous her grandstanding was, especially considering CNN’s past blunders with peddling conspiracy theories. One instance that sticks out, in particular, was their conspiracy that Donald Trump Jr. got access to the WikiLeaks documents early. They got the story wrong because an anonymous source gave them the wrong date on an e-mail.

The CNN host unironically lamented how Johnson had “misinterpreted [the text], of course, for a political purpose pretty clearly in this case.” The indignant shot came after she conflated a Strzok/Page text message made in jest about an FBI “secret society” and Johnson’s claim that a whistleblower had come forward to confirm the existence of one.

Former FBI Special Agent James Gagliano was also brought on to give his analysis of the situation. “I'm confident that the Office of the Inspector General, which has the case, it’s not bi-partisan, it's nonpartisan. I trust they'll get to the bottom of this,” he praised. “And that’s, of course, where an investigation should be not in the partisan sphere where Senator Johnson and others are trying to put it,” Burnett sneered.

Again, Burnett proved just how dishonest CNN was when it came to who they chose to trust for information. She smeared Johnson for trying to make things political but her network hangs on every word Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff (Calif.) leaks to them to damage President Trump. The twisting of Johnson's interim report had since become a narrative for CNN.

The relevant portions of the transcript are below, click expand to read: