By this point most are aware of Trump’s idiotic and false statement about the UK spying on Trump on behalf of Barack Obama.  As Politico notes:

Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and blogger, acknowledges he was one of the sources for Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano’s claim — later repeated by the White House — that British intelligence services spied on Trump during the election. The U.K. has rejected the claims and the White House has appeared to distance itself from the specific accusation, putting the onus on Fox News…

Johnson, a key source for the report that was roundly denied by U.K. and U.S. officials, told POLITICO on Saturday that he received his initial tip from a Democrat who is not in the intelligence community but has ties there. “He was alarmed at what he saw as this meddling in the election,” Johnson said, declining to cite the individual involved.

Are you fucking kidding me?  Larry Johnson used to post on DKOS.  He was one of the more unglued Clinton supporters.  He said, and he said it at DKOS, that Karl Rove was aiding Back Obama.  The link to that post gets a 404.  All of this serves to remind me just how much uglier 2008 was than was 2016.

The American Prospect give the full story of this idiot:

It was months later — in late April — that the “whitey tape” rumor started, mostly among pro-Clinton Democratic donors in New York. One of the earliest versions of the rumor, according to one reporter who heard it in April, was that researchers for Rudy Giuliani had their hands on a tape of Michelle Obama at Trinity United giving a speech where she attacked white America using the word “whitey.”

Johnson told me over e-mail that he heard the rumor for the first time in early May. On May 16, he claimed to “have it from four sources (three who are close to senior Republicans) that there is video dynamite — Michelle Obama railing against ‘whitey’ at Jeremiah Wright’s church.” The next day Johnson posted a fresh rumor of “an ultra conservative Republican billionaire” who “hates John McCain” and had put out a $1 million bounty on the tape.

The new story came from a “major Republican operative” who told Johnson that “Karl Rove and his political allies control the tape.” It was corroborated by “a retired CIA buddy” who was “friends with a lawyer who saw the tape.” Two days later, with this story still uncorroborated, Johnson speculated that Barack Obama’s angry response to criticism of his wife came from fear of “the ticking ‘whitey’ time bomb.”

All of this was, of course, complete bullshit.  He made the whole thing up.  Later he claimed that that he been used by Republicans.

THIS is the source that was behind Trump’s accusation that the UK had been spying on him.

Larry Johnson is a nut job.  He came completely unhinged in s008.

Just the kind of nut job a a guy like our President, himself a nutjob, would rely on.

For the record, Larry Johnson said the source of the Whitey tape was David Brock.  Who the hell knows who made that rumor up.  But at no point did Johnson have 4 sources for it.

A kind of update. My memory of 2008 is mostly at a now defunct website (openleft). I had forgotten this, but who took up the “whitey Tape”?
Roger Stone

Roger Stone, master of right-wing political hit jobs, helped a push rumor that’s been creeping through the blogosphere the past couple weeks, in which Michelle Obama used the word “whitey” on a panel at Trinity United. If that’s not enough, supposedly Louis Farrakhan was also on the panel, according to blogger Larry Johnson (a former CIA analyst and Clinton supporter).

“At least seven news organizations have contacted me, wanting to know how to get their hands on this tape, giving me more information than I had after I’ve spoken to each one of them,” Stone told Gerald Rivera yesterday on Fox.

“I now believe the tape exists,” Stone added.

So the Johnson rumor went to Stone. And of course Stone said he had SEVEN sources, which is three better than Johnson said he had.
This was all, most assuredly, fake news. What is surprising in retrospect was how much circulation it got, and how little impact it had on Johnson’s ability to get stories circulated broadly.

I suppose Johnson had his connections to far right nutjobs back then, but I find the connection interesting.

Stone of course had some sort of connection to Wikileaks, and Johnson and Stone both firmly deny that Russia was behind the Wikileaks.

We learn tonight that Napolitano is off the air at Fox. For how long The Hill doesn’t say. My guess is Napolitano is off because British conservatives got angry, and Sir Rupert is a bit sensitive about his reputation in the UK.