Democrats on the House Intel Committee are desperately trying to beat back one of the key findings in the FISA abuse memo — that Deputy FBI Dir. Andrew McCabe admitted under oath that there would have been no FISA warrant without the “dirty dossier.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) explained concisely why the revelations in the memo amount to a major scandal: “The Democratic party hired the Perkins [Coie] law firm. The Perkins [Coie] law firm hired Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele to go and dig up the dossier and then they hired Nelly Ohr, the wife of Bruce Ohr, to get the fake dossier from a political environment into the bloodstream of the intelligence community and to convert it into an intelligence document.”

.@mattgaetz: "Dem. Party hired the Perkins law firm. The Perkins law firm hired Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele…& then they hired Nelly Ohr, the wife of Bruce Ohr, to get the fake dossier from a political environment into the bloodstream of the intel. community" pic.twitter.com/Po8hTPg0g5 — Fox News (@FoxNews) February 2, 2018

But it’s McCabe’s admission that there would have been no FISA warrant without the dossier that gives teeth to the rest of the revelations.

The Daily Beast’s Spencer Ackerman today published a story refuting the key point based on allegations from Democrat sources:

NEW: Nunes memo says FBI's McCabe testified there would be no surveillance warrant on Page "without the Steele dossier information." Two sources tell me McCabe never said that.https://t.co/H5c1j7HYx7 — Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) February 2, 2018

However, just this week Ackerman got a major story wrong based on faulty tips from Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee:

https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/959534732332675072

Jim Sciutto, who went straight from being an Obama administration political appointee to being a reporter at CNN in 2013, filed the same report as the Daily Beast, also based on Democrat sources:

New: Two Democratic members of House Intel tell me McCabe did not say dossier was basis of FISA warrant, disputing central claim of #NunesMemo — Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) February 2, 2018

CNN, it should be noted, recently won a well-deserved “Fake News Award” for reporting that Donald Trump Jr. received an email on September 4, 2016, with a link to the WikiLeaks archive of the DNC hack more than a week before the hacked emails were made public, thus proving “collusion” with the Russians. That story, based on Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, turned out to be fake news. Documents showed that Don Jr. got the link the day after it was published.

Embarrassingly enough, it looks like both Ackerman and CNN were burned by their sources again.

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) tweeted that McCabe did indeed “testify under oath that there would not have been a FISA warrant if not for the dossier.” And — “It was recorded”:

McCabe did in fact testify under oath that there would not have been a FISA warrant if not for the dossier. It was recorded. — Lee Zeldin (@RepLeeZeldin) February 2, 2018

There are also transcripts of the testimony.