P.J. Gladnick had to dig deep to play whataboutism in promoting the Media Research Center’s “Russia hoax” hoax in an Aug. 3 post:
You can be excused for having flashbacks to October 2020 and 51 former intelligence officials claiming that the damning material (later revealed as true) on Hunter Biden’s laptop have all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation if you had read the latest works of Rolling Stone.
Why? Because they are rolling out that worn, sad trope again in a pathetic attempt to discredit the recent shocking Russiagate findings based on material in John Durham’s annex. Without seeming to have any sense of shame or embarrassment, Rolling Stone published this story on Friday by Nikki McCann Ramirez, “MAGA’s New Russiagate ‘Evidence’ Was Likely Made Up by the Kremlin.”
Put aside for the moment that ten years ago, it was Rolling Stone that made up some evidence and charged innocent of men of rape on the campus of the University of Virginia. They had to fork over $1.6 millon in damages. Now Trump is making things up?
Meanwhile, Gladnick’s nepo-baby boss went to the safe space of a right-wing podcast to spread his assigned Trump Regime Media narrative:
On Sunday, MRC President David Bozell joined The Judge Jeanine Tunnel To Towers Foundation Show with Joe Concha on WABC TalkRadio 77, New York, the flagship conservative talk station in the nation’s largest media market. Concha, with a playful nod to the “stunningly handsome” David Bozell, dove into the shifting media landscape and MRC media studies on the Russiagate hoax and Stephen Colbert’s cancellation.
Concha highlighted an MRC study exposing the networks’ obsession with the Trump-Russia probe, which consumed “1000 times” more airtime than Tulsi Gabbard’s revelations that Obama officials falsified intelligence to fuel the Russia collusion hoax and undermine Trump’s 2016 campaign and presidency. Concha questioned whether Gabbard’s findings could gain traction given the media’s refusal to cover them.
Bozell, paraphrasing Jonathan Turley, declared: “If the media were to cover this, they would have to admit their own culpability and their own complicity in this whole scandal.” He emphasized that this is not something they are likely to do. Bozell also pointed out an MRC study showed that the media concocted “this ruse against President Trump,” dedicating 2,284 minutes of airtime to it, in stark contrast to just two minutes of coverage on Tulsi Gabbard’s revelations. “When President Trump tells the American people that the media in the rows behind him are the enemy of the people, this is what he’s referring to,” he added.
Bozell suggested Trump could pursue “the mother of all defamation lawsuits” against Obama for the scale of the deception.
Craig Bannister checked from the right-wing propaganda ghetto of what used to be the MRC’s “news” division CNSNews.com to spread a dubious poll:
Three-fourths of U.S. voters who follow the news of the investigation into the Trump Russia Collusion hoax think it’s likely that Obama Administration officials “committed serious crimes” to foster the false narrative used to smear and impeach President Donald Trump.
Referencing a recent report from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard concluding that then-President Barack Obama’s national security team manipulated and manufactured intelligence to promote a false narrative about Russia and Donald Trump, a Rasmussen poll of U.S. likely voters conducted July 29-31, 2025 asked the following question:
“How likely is it that Obama administration officials committed serious crimes in manipulating intelligence?”
Fully 73% of voters who say they’ve followed recent news of the investigation “very closely” think that it’s at least somewhat likely that Obama officials committed serious crimes.
What’s more, two-thirds (65%) of those who followed the news very closely believe it’s “very likely” that Obama officials are guilty of serious crimes.
Bannister didn’t disclose the right-wing bias of Rasmussen, making its results quite suspect.
Jorge Bonilla whined once more that it was mentioned the Trump administration is using the Russia story as a distraction:
NBC Nightly News was the ONLY legacy nightly newscast to report tonight on the decision by Attorney General Pam Bondi to order a grand jury investigation into the Russia Hoax document drop, pursuant to a criminal referral by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. But they didn’t actually report anything.
Instead, the story was used as an example of a “distraction” from President Donald Trump’s firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor statistics:
[…]Whereas ABC and CBS omitted the story entirely from tonight’s evening newscasts, NBC did something far more insidious. They reported on the allegations as intentionally ambiguously as possible so as to avoid discussing the matter and immediately pivoted to more favorable territory. If it weren’t for double standards, there’d be none at all.
Bonilla didn’t disprove any of this. Weirdly, the image illustrating Bonilla’s post on the NewsBusters front page is one of MRC blogger Mark Finkelstein, who was in a plane crash the same day off the North Carolina coast (he was unhurt). Finkelstein’s plight was not otherwise referenced in Bonilla’s post.
Curtis Houck served up his own whine:
Shockingly, Tuesday’s CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today covered Attorney General Pam Bondi’s order for the Justice Department to convene a grand jury and explore criminal charges, building on the dogged work of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard exposing the Obama regime’s concoction of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax in 2016.
Along with the unfortunate bias by omission from ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS and NBC unsurprisingly dismissed these steps as “without evidence” and recklessly “turn[ing] back the clock in effect, to revisit the 2016 election.”
Houck also tried to obfuscate the issue:
In reality, Gabbard hasn’t disputed Russia interference in the election. Rather, she’s been arguing since July 18 that it was false to assert Russian finagling was done to win the election for Trump and the fact was they did so to create distrust in our electoral process and sow partisan divisions.
But the MRC’s emphasis on a “Russia hoax” narrative makes no room for admitting there was Russian election interference. Indeed, Houck himself isn’t conceding that fact, saying only that Gabbard is arguing it. And he didn’t mention the numerous contacts between Russian operatives and Trump’s 2016 campaign that made an investigation justified.