Back in 2018, we documented how CNSNews.com served as a servile stenographer for right-wing legal group Judicial Watch — at least 46 articles that year alone. After a couple years of relative inactivity because Judicial Watch was giving Donald Trump’s corruption a pass — indeed, Judicial Watch was such a Trump stan that CNS published an article after the 2020 election featuring Judicial Watch leader Tom Fitton embracing Trump’s Big Lie by ranting that “‘Joe Biden is not ‘president-elect” despite what the liberal media claim, and they do not have the constitutional authority to declare the winner of a presidential election.”
But it appears CNS is firing up the stenography machine again. An anonymous “CNSNews.com Staff Writer” wrote in a Nov. 18 article:
A new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) report from Judicial Watch shows that the Secret Service’s travel costs for President Joe Biden to go to his home in Delaware, and several other domestic stops, total at least $2,252,600.50.
Those costs cover from the start of his presidency in January through Aug. 8, 2021. However, the full costs are likely much higher because the Air Force has yet to provide information on the Air Force One travel costs, and the Secret Service has not provided cost records for other Biden trips to Delaware, reported Judicial Watch.
“The costs of presidential travel and security is of obvious public interest,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement. “It is frustrating that after years of litigation through two presidential administrations, the Secret Service and Air Force are still stonewalling the costs of presidential travel.”
The anonymously written article was conveniently lacking context — specifically, any mention of a certain former president who liked to spend his weekends away from the White House. After all, doing so would make Biden look good by comparison. It was reported that Trump’s weekend trips to Florida’s Mar-a-Lago — of which Trump made four during the first three months of his presidency alone — cost about $3 million each, or the total of Biden’s trips to Delaware over the first seven months of his presidency.
The funny thing is, Judicial Watch tracked Trump’s travel expenses too, which is also omitted from the CNS article — and, curiously, from the Judicial Watch press release that was rewritten for this CNS article. Perhaps that’s because Judicial Watch found that Trump’s travel expenses in the first year of his presidency surpassed $13 million, a pace that far outstripped Biden’s expenses.CNS dedicated no article exclusively to Trump’s huge travel expenses; instead, a November 2017 article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman hyped that “travel expenses for President Barack Obama and his family totals $114.6 million, including trips in 2017,” adding as an aside that “travel costs for President Donald Trump and his family, so far, total $10.3 million.”
That’s how CNS’ right-wing bias works. It had similarly complained about “taxpayer funds” being spent to build a fence at Biden’s Delaware beach house while censoring that the government was still paying for security upgrades at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.