The Media Research Center’s Trump Regime Media routine in embracing a document dump about the investigation into President Trump and his ties to Russia — and its whining about people calling out the obvious motivation for the release, that it’s a distraction from the resurgent Jeffrey Epstein scandal — continued in a July 24 post by intern Matthew Seck:
On Thursday, MSNBC’s Ana Cabrera ran a segment on her eponymous show regarding the recent Russian election interference report from DNI Tulsi Gabbard. NBC News Justice Reporter Ryan Riley was asked about the details, which led to him talking in circles about the minority of the report and how “in the weeds” it supposedly was.
After Cabrera made it very clear that she believed this report was all just a cover-up for the Epstein files, because obviously people were incapable of focusing on two things at once, she asked Riley about the details of the documents, teeing him up to muddy the waters and to discuss and dismiss the those details in broad strokes[.] […]
Riley said that the documents released by DNI Gabbard only showed a “speed up of procedure” and that everyone knows that Russia interfered with the 2016 election.
The problem was that’s not what the documents argued at all! They claimed that the Obama administration knew that Russia did nothing in the way of actually helping Trump win in 2016, but still pushed it anyways. Sorry if that’s “in the weeds” or too long ago, but the American people deserve to know of intelligence failures.
But as people who aren’t Trump Regime Media partisans like the folks at the MRC have noted, Gabbard’s document drop is an attempt to rewrite history by denying there was an actual Russian attempt to interfere with the U.S. election system. Nevertheless, the MRC’s new nepo-baby leader peddled the conservatively correct narrative in an appearance on a far-right TV channel:
The Russiagate narrative, a persistent shadow over Donald Trump’s first term, has resurfaced with explosive new evidence. MRC President David Bozell joined Stinchfield Tonight with host Grant Stinchfield on Real America’s Voice to unpack the hoax that consumed headlines from 2016 onward.
Recently unearthed classified documents, revealed by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, tie a who’s who of Obama loyalists, including the former president himself, to the fabricated story of Trump-Russia collusion in the 2016 election. Bozell’s appearance spotlighted the media’s role in perpetuating this web of deceit, which sought to derail Trump’s agenda and distract from the president’s successes.
[…]Bozell didn’t hold back on the “media’s complicity,” calling out major networks for their role in sustaining the hoax. He criticized CNN for platforming former FBI agent Andrew McCabe, noting, “It’s outrageous for CNN to have former FBI agent Andrew McCabe on when he was a central player in this whole deal, and then not ask inquisitive questions about his role in all this.” Bozell also highlighted how CNN and MSNBC hired figures like James Clapper and John Brennan, who continued to peddle the narrative after leaving public service. Now, as Gabbard’s findings bring the “irrefutable” evidence to light, Bozell pointed out the media’s attempts to downplay the revelations, which are framing them as a designed “distraction” from the Epstein Files.
Bozell suggested the potential for “the mother of all defamation lawsuits” against those who orchestrated the hoax, including Obama.
Does that mean that President Obama should sue Bozell’s dad for viciously smearing him as a “skinny ghetto crackhead“? We don’t know, because the younger Bozell was in a right-wing safe space where his narrative would never be serious challenged.
Clay Waters groused that PBS pointed out the distraction motive in a July 25 post:
While the broadcast networks mostly ignored it, Wednesday’s PBS News Hour devoted a five-and-a-half-minute segment on Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s White House briefing on details of how the Obama administration manipulated intelligence to frame Donald Trump’s alleged “collusion” with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Of course, the News Hour also included extensive discussion of the Epstein files and how they serve as a distraction from Trump’s policy agenda.
The online headline was loaded, linking the resurfacing of Russiagate to the ongoing imbroglio over sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein: “Gabbard pushes report on Obama and Russia probe as Trump faces pressure over Epstein.” Host Geoff Bennett’s introduction was certainly “sowed with doubt” regarding Gabbard’s revelations.
[…]The segment included a clip of Trump accusing former President Obama of being “caught directly” in the witch-hunt against him, followed by an Obama spokesman’s denial.
How dare PBS allow Obama to respond to Trump? That’s telling both sides of the story, which it opposes when telling only one side benefits right-wing narratives.
Jeffrey Lord devoted his July 26 column to more whining:
Over at Newsmax (and full disclosure I am a Newsmax contributor), evening anchor Rob Schmitt did a spot-on analysis of the media’s coverage of the so-called “Russia-Trump” collusion.
Rob opened by noting that “the media ignores the biggest Russiagate bombshell in six years.”
Exactly.
He went on to note that the media had been, for years on end, “obsessed” with the idea that Donald Trump had colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election, defeating Hillary Clinton. They “simply could not get enough of the story,” he quite correctly said.
[…]The fact is that the American media – whether the big broadcast networks, cable news at MSNBC and CNN, or the old time print journals all lean seriously Left. And after presenting a repeated story on so-called Trump-Russia collusion they are face-to-face with the hard reality that the story they had been so arduously promoting was not only not true but in fact it was the reverse.
Which left the media with their chosen response – ignore the story.
And in doing so, they vividly illustrated exactly how Fake News works.
When the Left loves the Fake News, they promote it endlessly.
When they hate Real News that tells the truth, they just ignore it. Nothing to see here, folks, just move along.
It is, alas, the way the liberal media works. And always has.
Lord didn’t disclose that the MRC treats any bad news about right-wing media the same way — witness its efforts to deflect and downplay Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News and the $787 million settlement it was awarded — and he has never complained about that.