We’ve noted how, like its Media Research Center parent, CNSNews.com likes to quote Trump defender Alan Dershowitz without noting the fact that he’s a former lawyer for convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and has been accused of having sex with one of Epstein’s underage victims. CNS has continued its promotion of Dershowitz’s arguments — and stayed silent about his sleazy side gig.
On Dec. 9, managing editor Michael W. Chapman promoted how “Famed defense lawyer, constitutional scholar, and best selling author Alan Dershowitz said that through the impeachment inquiry House Democrats are acting like the KGB under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Evidence does not matter to them, he said, and like KGB henchman Laverntiy Beria, all they declare is ‘show me the man,’ President Trump, and we’ll ‘find you the crime.'” Ten days later, Craig Bannister transcribed Dershowitz’s rant that “If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) withholds articles of impeachment from the Senate as a negotiating tactic, it would be both unconstitutional and destructive.” (It’s not, and it wasn’t.)
When Dershowitz was named to Trump’s defense team for the Senate impeachment trial, Bannister gushed on Jan. 17 that he was an “iconic liberal civil and human rights defense attorney” and highlighting that Dershowitz said that “even though he voted for Hillary Clinton for president, he is non-partisan regarding the Constitution.”
The promotion baton was then handed to Susan Jones, who touted on Jan. 20 how Dershowitz “made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows to discuss his upcoming role in the Senate impeachment trial” and that his “mandate is to determine what is a constitutionally authorized criteria for impeachment.”
None of these articles mention Dershowitz’s ties to Epstein. By contrast, CNS has obsessed over minor, possibly unflattering details involving people it doesn’t like, such as suddenly caring about what Pete Buttigieg’s husband has to say and mentioning in two articles the utterly irrelevant fact that the two met on a dating app.
So, CNS clearly has an eye for detail — except when that detail interferes with its pro-Trump agenda.