Rep. Gaetz asks Mueller whether the Dossier could be misinformation. Except that a number of points in the dossier have been confirmed.
Without purporting to argue for or against the veracity of the dossier, or any of the arguments arising from the dossier one way or the other, I want to push back on this particular line of reasoning.
Presumably, any good piece of disinformation would include verifiable claims to bolster its appearance of truthfulness, and to reinforce the conclusion that its unverifiable claims were also true.
If that were the case, I'd expect the verifiable bits to be mundane, or easily available from other sources, or both. And I'd expect the really important bits - the bits that directly matter to questions of criminality and conspiracy - are the unverifiable bits.
So, for me, the argument, that something is less likely to be disinformation if parts of it have been verified, doesn't work. We should expect disinfo to have verifiable elements to it. Without examining which elements have been verified, and which elements actually have bearing on the claim that info is supposed to support, we can't say that having verified parts of it speaks to the veracity of the whole.
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Mister X went to Metropolis last week to arrange the sale of 20 grams of weaponized unobtanium. It's been verified from train ticket stubs, security camera footage, and hotel records that Mister X went to Metropolis last week as we claimed. You'll have to trust us about his business there, but we were right about him being there in the first place, so that should count for something.
Not when you're accusing the man of dealing in weaponized unobtanium, it shouldn't. For that, you'll have to produce evidence of the thing itself. Circumstantial won't cut it.
