An otherwise mundane legal filing led to a political maelstrom this week, with outlets such as Fox News asserting that it was proof Hillary Clinton's camp spied on the Trump White House. Critics shot back that right-leaning sites were badly misinterpreting the filing by special counsel John Durham, and now Durham himself is distancing himself from the media coverage he ignited, reports the New York Times.
- "If third parties or members of the media have overstated, understated, or otherwise misinterpreted facts contained in the government’s motion, that does not in any way undermine the valid reasons for the government’s inclusion of this information," he wrote in a new filing Thursday.
- However, Durham pledged to make future filings of this nature under seal if they contain "information that legitimately gives rise to privacy issues or other concerns that might overcome the presumption of public access to judicial documents."