Ahead of Thursday’s Senate Judiciary confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel, The New York Times dropped a hit job accusing Patel of lying about the bureau’s 2016 investigation into then-candidate Trump.

In their lede, Charlie Savage, Adam Goldman, and Alan Feuer accuse Patel of having “repeatedly undercut the work of the very agency he is set to lead by making false statements” about the FBI’s sham investigation into Trump for supposed collusion with Russia. Lost on them is the reality that Patel’s understanding of the FBI’s corruption and willingness to “undercut” their partisan witch hunts make him the perfect candidate to clean house at the bureau.

“Mr. Patel’s pattern of peddling misinformation is at sharp odds with Mr. Trump’s proposal to put him in charge of the nation’s premier agency charged with figuring out what is true,” they continue. It’s a mendacious claim coming from Savage and Goldman, two Russiagate veterans who have been invested in the hoax from the beginning. (Goldman was rewarded for his part in it with a Pulitzer Prize.)

The reporters’ suggestion that the FBI is still in the business of “figuring out what is true” is laughable, considering their own roles in helping the FBI generate a national frenzy over false claims about Trump and Russia. Kash Patel, who was one of the first people to expose the Russia hoax while working for then-Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes, took down the false narrative that Savage and Goldman helped create, so it’s no wonder they haven’t forgiven him for it.