What's unbelievable is that The @guardian, and @VanityFair, and @brianstelter all wrote about this late-night meeting and missed that it occurred hours after Barr found out Parnas and Fruman were being arrested; hours before Hannity was to interview Shokin. https://twitter.com/matthewamiller/status/1297246259582042117

And remember that Parnas and Fruman were on a plane to prep Shokin for that remote Hannity interview when they were arrested.

The interview was cancelled.

Also remember that Shep Smith unexpectedly and suddenly quit the day after that.

And so when @brianstelter writes a book where he says this was about Napolitano and other vague general non-urgent things that don't result in late-night unplanned meetings, it feels a lot like he's another reporting falling into the trap of trusting insider information.

Of course I don't _know_ what that meeting was about. But to completely fail to mention this context while reporting as news things White House insiders have told you is deeply irresponsible.

To be completely clear, the speculative narrative I would build around this story is that Barr and Murdoch and Hannity were all knowingly part of the foreign propaganda plot, and Barr rushed to Murdoch to stop it that night.

And that Shep Smith being a bright guy put two and two together and reached this very same conclusion, and quit in disgust, despite the fact that this meant he wouldn't be allowed to work for years based on his contract.

And so you can see if this is a possible narrative, the narrative that Barr was there to lean on Murdoch regarding Napolitano is a puff piece. It's the lie that you tell to cover up the truth.

I've thought for a long time that the House should subpoena Shep Smith. I would guess he wants to give information, but his contract forbids him from speaking.

But subpoenas trump contracts, and a subpoena would let Shep say whatever he wanted to.

As far as I can tell, no one in mainstream media every covered this full sequence of events as a single story. The closest I can come is this article from @emptywheel, who is far less prone to wild speculation than I am. https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/10/24/if-the-ag-is-involved-in-a-foreign-influence-operation-does-he-have-to-register-with-himself/