Fox News’ Chris Wallace corrected the record on an aspect of the Russia investigation Friday morning, acknowledging as he did so that it would drive some Fox News viewers “nuts.”

Wallace said on America’s Newsroom yesterday that it’s not premature for Trump to take a victory lap on the Mueller report because he has a “clean bill of health” on collusion and a “mixed” one on obstruction.

During the segment Bill Hemmer ran a clip from Rush Limbaugh on Bret Baier‘s show saying, “They began an investigation based on a phony dossier that was created and written by associates of Hillary Clinton. It was opposition research. This is outrageous what has happened here. There needs to be an investigation into this. There needs to be accountability for everybody who participated in this.”

Hemmer said it’s likely Democrats will question whatever gets redacted, adding, “My guess is that for most people they’ve either made up their minds and they’ve moved on and there’s not a lot of convincing at this point forward.”

Wallace responded to Limbaugh and said “there is an investigation going on,” before making a point about the genesis of the original probe:

“I know this is going to drive some of our viewers nuts. The Trump investigation did not start with the FISA warrant and Carter Page and even the dossier. It started in June and July of 2016 when George Papadopoulos had spoken to a Russian agent and spoke to an Australian diplomat and said he had heard they had information on––dirt on Hillary Clinton. That’s when the investigation started. So it wasn’t October, it wasn’t September. It was in July and it was George Papadopoulos. Not to say that the FISA warrant was a legitimate basis… for inquiry, but that is not where the investigation started. It’s just a fact.”

Hemmer said, “I think I would add ‘we think’ in quotes. Because the story is not entirely yet revealed.”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that they started investigating,” Wallace said. “Everybody agrees they started investigating in the summer of 2016. Look, I’m not saying that what they did was right or any of that but we know that’s when the investigation started. There’s been documentation of that.”

You can watch above, via Fox News.

[image via screengrab]

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