We’ve documented how CNSNews.com has become enamored of right-wing lawyer Joe DiGenova as something of an insult comic, hurling clickbait invective at liberals and other people he doesn’t like — at one point ridiculously and maliciously claiming that deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the Mueller investigation, “deserves the guillotine.” DiGenova has continued to serve up the ranty sound bites, and CNS — usually managing editor Michael W. Chapman — has continued to pretend they’re newsworthy.
Chapman served up a DiGenova rant on Jan. 30, in which he claimed that “the scandal at the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) involves a “brazen plot” to exonerate Hillary Clinton of felony crimes involving her mishandling of classified documents, and an ongoing “false case” to “frame” President Donald Trump with a “false Russian conspiracy that never existed.”
On Feb. 22, Chapman touted another DiGenova rant that the U.S. is in a “civil war” because non-conservatives criticize President Trump, adding, “And as I say to my friends, I do two things – I vote and I buy guns.” Chapman chimed in that “the leftist press constantly refer to President Trump as Hitler, Stalin, a dictator, a Nazi, Mussolini, racist, white supremacist, treasonous, disturbed, demented, bigoted, etc.,” referencing his own piece last October that conveniently omits that CNS never complained about similar epithets hurled at President Obama; for instance, in 2016 Chapman uncritically promoted Roseanne Barr’s hyperbolic claim that “Obama’s actions on the eve of Hanukkah mirrored those of the Nazis.”
Susan Jones did the honors in a March 5 article, cheering how DiGenova encouraged Americans to break the law by refusing to respond to subpeonas from the Democratic-run House Judiciary Committee asserting in Jones’ words that “private citizens should refuse to cooperate.”
Chapman returned for an April 24 item repeating DiGenova’s claim that “the forthcoming report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will be “condemning of senior DOJ/FBI officials” in their abusive handling of the Russia-Trump collusion matter, and that he is ‘100%’ certain Attorney General William Barr will use the report to launch a ‘full-scale, criminal investigation’ of the Justice Department and the FBI.
Then, an April 25 piece piece by Chapman featured a prime DiGenova rant under the headline “DiGenova Shreds TheHill.TV”:
After The Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball strongly implied that Attorney General William Barr lied about part of the Mueller Report, former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova strongly denounced her insinuation, stating that Ball had “no evidence that he lied, and you know it!”
He added that Barr had come “out of retirement to serve this country” in the Justice Department and that it was not acceptable to go on “national television calling the attorney general a liar!”
By contrast, CNS had no problem uncritically repeating claims by, among others, Brent Bozell, Mark Levin and Ted Nugent calling Obama a liar.