CNS Coverage Of Trump Raid Laden With Right-Wing Spin

CNSNews.com was slow to respond to the Aug. 8 search warrant that the FBI executed on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound seeking classified documents– perhaps it was taking its time to figure out the best way to spin things to make Trump look good and law enforcement look bad. But the next morning, it was loaded for bear and spewing out all the right-wing hot takes it could throughout the day:

• Trump Calls Raid ‘Prosecutorial Misconduct, the Weaponization of the Justice System’
• Rubio on FBI Mar-a-Lago Raid: ‘This is What Happens in Places Like Nicaragua … They’re Playing With Fire’
• Gingrich: If They Can Do This to a Former President, ‘What Can They Do to You?’ (Susan Jones didn’t mention that holding a former president accountable to the same laws as everyone else is what makes America great)
• Prof. Dershowitz on FBI’s Mar-a-Lago Raid: ‘They Darn Well Better Have Smoking-Gun Proof – Which I Don’t See Happening’
• Conservatives Denounce FBI Raid on Trump’s Home
• Florida AG Ashley Moody: FBI Raid Is ‘Uncommon’ for a ‘Document Dispute’
• ‘Take a Polygraph,’ Brent Bozell Dares, Responding to Reports WH Claims It Was ‘Blindsided’ by FBI’s Mar-a-Lago Raid
• House GOP Leader McCarthy to Attorney General Garland: ‘Preserve Your Documents and Clear Your Calendar’
• Levin: Raid on Trump’s Home is ‘Worst Attack on This Republic in Modern History’

CNS churned out even more right-wing attacks over the next couple days:

• Rep. Banks: FBI Raid on Trump’s Home ‘Unifies Us in Our Outrage to Fight Back’
• Graham: ‘Is It Plausible the FBI Would Open Up an Investigation of Donald Trump Without Merit? Hell Yeah, They’ve Done It Before’
• Megyn Kelly: FBI Raid on Trump Was ‘About January 6,’ ‘They Don’t Want Him to Run Again’
• Victor Hanson: ‘We Don’t Have Rule of Law in Washington … FBI is Beyond Redemption’
• Trump Attorney: ‘If They Needed Any Other Documents, They Could Have Just Asked’

There was also a hot-take column that CNS published on Aug. 10 in which Michelle Malkin raged against the raid and “Feds Behaving Incorrigibly” and called President Biden “the White House occupant.”

CNS also tried to play the whataboutism game with Nancy Pelosi. Jones wrote in an Aug. 10 article:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Tuesday that she did not have advance knowledge that the FBI was executing a search warrant on Donald Trump’s Palm Beach home, leaving with some ten boxes of material.

“It will be interesting to find out exactly what the warrant was, what the order was to have a search warrant and for what purpose. But again, we can only speculate,” she told NBC’s “Today” show.

“But nonetheless, we believe in the rule of law, and that’s what our country is about and no person is above the law, not even the president of the United States, not even a former president of the United States,” Pelosi said.

She did not question the unprecedented move by the FBI and Biden Justice Department, searching the home of a political rival of the sitting president. Nor has Pelosi commented on the FBI seizure of Rep. Scott Perry’s cell phone.

It wasn’t until Aug. 11 that CNS published an article that led with a defense of the raid, in which intern Stephanie Samsel also tried to play whataboutism with Pelosi:

“No person is above the law…not even a former president of the United States,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Aug. 9, when she discussed the FBI’s raid of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home.

While Republicans like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) say the Department of Justice (DOJ) has reached “weaponized politicization,” Pelosi called McCarthy’s claims “idle” during an interview with TODAY host Savannah Guthrie.

“We believe in the rule of law, and that’s what our country is about,” said Pelosi. “And no person is above the law, not even the president of the United States, not even a former president of the United States.”

[…]

Despite there being an ongoing investigation into potential crimes of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, Trump is the only U.S. president to have his home raided by the FBI. 

When Attorney General Merrick Garland addressed the raid later on Aug. 11, Melanie Arter served up a stenographical article on it. That was followed a half-hour or so later by Arter serving up Republician Sen. Lindsey Graham’s hot take on Garland. The right-wing hot takes continued on Aug. 12:

• Trump: ‘Release the Documents Now!’
• Trump Attorney: ‘This Is What the Democrats Do…Create Fear’
• Intel Committee Republicans Demand Answers: ‘No One Is Above the Law and That Includes the Attorney General’

CNS also took offense at a soap opera actor who, in Arter’s words, that “suggested Wednesday that the FBI dig up the body of former President Donald Trump’s ex-wife Ivana Trump in its search for classified documents.”

To sum up: CNS’ reporting on the raid was entirely dominated by right-wing bias — contradicting the boilerplate text in the money beg at the end of each article that purports to claim that CNS “covers the news as it should be, without fear or favor.” Or maybe the massive right-wing bias is CNS’ idea of covering the news “as it should be.”