Journalist Glenn Greenwald told Hill.TV's "Rising" on Monday that the news media's response to the release of special counsel Robert Mueller Robert (Bob) MuellerCNN's Toobin warns McCabe is in 'perilous condition' with emboldened Trump CNN anchor rips Trump over Stone while evoking Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting The Hill's 12:30 Report: New Hampshire fallout MORE's report is "genuinely stunning," accusing the press of continuing to promote the "conspiracy" that President Trump Donald John TrumpBiden on Trump's refusal to commit to peaceful transfer of power: 'What country are we in?' Romney: 'Unthinkable and unacceptable' to not commit to peaceful transition of power Two Louisville police officers shot amid Breonna Taylor grand jury protests MORE's campaign conspired with Russia in 2016.

“I find that genuinely stunning as somebody who’s been a pretty harsh media critic for more than a decade," Greenwald, co-founding editor at The Intercept, told hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton. "My bar for their behavior is, I think, rather low, and yet they somehow descended beneath it.

“The reality is that for three years there has been a conspiracy theory that has dominated our political and media discourse, which is that Donald Trump conspired with Russia over the 2016 election and that he’s an agent of the Russian government along with many of his associates," he continued.

“In the Mueller report in one section after the next said either they couldn’t establish that or there was no evidence for it, and yet they’re acting as though it said exactly the opposite, that this conspiracy theory was demonstrated and proven and vindicated," he said. "They're living in some bizarre fantasy land because they’re worried that admitting that they got this story wrong will damage their credibility."

“Pretending they got it right is just worsening the problem," he added.

Mueller's final report on his nearly two-year-long investigation into Russian election interference did not find evidence that Trump's campaign coordinated with Russia.

The special counsel also looked into the issue of whether the president obstructed justice in the investigation, focusing on 10 episodes of potential obstruction. He was not able to conclusively confirm that no criminal conduct occurred.

— Julia Manchester