A liberal activist’s demonstratively inaccurate description of a controversial dossier  went unchallenged Wednesday on CNN.

Karine Jean-Pierre, a senior adviser and spokeswoman for MoveOn.org, responded to comments by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that the FBI should not have relied on the dossier former British spy Christopher Steele wrote, detailing salacious but unverified allegations against President Donald Trump.

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Graham told CNN that Steele was “out to get Trump” and that the Democratic National Committee paid for the document.

Jean-Pierre pounced, arguing on “The Lead” that Graham was peddling a false narrative.

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“It’s just not true,” she said. “I mean, there’s this whole thing about getting out, to get Trump, when all of this, I mean, didn’t even start with Democrats. It started with the Republicans, actually, paying for the dossier first.”

Jake Tapper, anchor at the self-described “Facts First” network, failed to challenge Jean-Pierre’s assertion, even though it is untrue.

Jean-Pierre conflated facts to come up with her matter-of-fact statement that Republicans paid for dossier. There is a germ of truth in the statement. It was a conservative news website financed by billionaire Republican donor Paul Singer that first hired Fusion GPS — the firm that later brought Steele into the project — to look for damaging information about Trump and other Republican candidates during the primaries.

The news site, the Washington Free Beacon, acknowledged in October it had hired Fusion GPS in 2015. Free Beacon editor Matthew Continetti and chairman Michael Goldfarb said in a joint statement in October that the research was based on public sources and that none of the work paid for by the Free Beacon ended up in the dossier.

“The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele,” they said in their statement at the time.

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The Free Beacon ended the effort in May 2016. A month earlier, Fusion GPS began digging for dirt on Trump for a new client — Perkins Coie, a Washington law firm working on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

It was while working for Clinton and the Democratic Party that Fusion GPS retained Steele, who put together the dossier from confidential sources in Russia, along with Clinton associates. Then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe testified at a close-door congressional hearing that the agency would not have sought a warrant to wiretap Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had it not been for the dossier.

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All of this information has been publicly known for months, reported by mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times. Tapper must have been aware of it, yet he failed to correct Jean-Pierre on air when she pinned the dossier on Republicans.

Instead, Tapper sat passively as Jean-Pierre continued her rant against Trump, former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and former campaign chairman Stephen Bannon.

“Look, I think there is lot of people wanting, on the Republican side, wanting to do this defense, or cover up for Donald Trump,” she said. “And it’s just once again, it shows us when you hear Graham, when you hear Lewandowski and Steve Bannon not wanting to talk about or go in front of the committee and answer more questions, it’s incredibly problematic because we are trying to get to the truth, and that is not happening. It’s just a continuing cover-up.”

PoliZette senior writer Brendan Kirby can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.