CNSNews.com has fixated on petty federal spending mismanagement in recent days, as cited by department inspectors general — though weirdly anonymously written, credited only to CNSNews.com Staff.”
An Oct. 25 article pointed out that “an Internal Revenue Service employee used a federal government charge card to purchase an Amazon Prime membership.”And an Oct. 31 article by “highlighted a U.S. Housing and Urban Development inspector general’s report noting that “Employees of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, armed with government charge cards, made ‘at least 950’ ‘unauthorized, unsupported, or ineligible purchases’ in fiscal 2017,” including “a $400 charge at ‘an adult entertainment gentlemen’s club’ and a $282 ‘unauthorized ATM withdrawal’ followed by an $849 ‘unauthorized charge’ at a Las Vegas casino hotel.”
Curiously — or maybe not so curiously, since CNS is such a loyal pro-Trump stenographer — CNS has not given the same granular level of scrutiny to Trump cabinet members and agency leaders as it has to the federal rank-and-file.
We’ve already documented how CNS reported the departure of Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt under a growing cloud of scandals by stating only that it came after “months of misconduct allegations.”
Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is caught up in his own mounting swirl of scandals — there were 15 ethics probes into Zinke’s conduct at one point, with particular focus on his closeness to the oil and gas industry.
But you won’t read a thing about Zinke’s scandals at CNS. In fact, he hasn’t even been mentioned on the pages of CNS since Aug. 24 — as near as we can tell, one of only three references to him at CNS in the entire calendar year of 2018 — when columnist Paul Driessen cheered Zinke for “his recent decision to reopen certain wildlife refuges to modern farming practices.” (The other two are also columnist praising Trump-era policy as implemented by Zinke.”
Once again, so much for CNS’ mission statement to “fairly present all legitimate sides of a story.”