Therein lies a serious problem. Journalists or hosts who are not schooled in the law felt no reticence in drawing conclusions on air about criminal conduct without having the requisite education, proficiency, or experience in the law. When they rendered legal opinions with scant foundational knowledge, they disserved the viewing public while debasing themselves. Did any of them research the criminal codes? You don’t have to be a lawyer to comprehend them. They are sometimes dense, but they are mostly understandable even for laypeople. Thus a reference by journalists to a statute might have lent some credibility to their arguments. If their searches proved fruitless, they might have reformed their points of view. But personal biases blinded their minds to their fundamental ignorance about legal matters.
Nothing illustrated bias more than the way the press covered Comey. When he went against Clinton in the email investigation, he was the devil who cost her the election. When he testified before Congress in June 2017, after Trump had fired him, Evil Comey became Saint Comey trying to stand up to Mean Mr. Trump.
“Comey: Trump Lied,” blared the Dallas Morning News in a gigantic font on June 9, 2017. Buried in the story was Comey’s complaint that Trump had lied in a tweet, saying that the FBI was in chaos and people had lost confidence in his leadership. Trump’s assertion was true, but the misleading headline would be what people took away from the story.
Ultimately, not only were the media hysterical, but they were willing to commit malpractice to support their anti-Trump narrative.
Media Malpractice in the Age of Trump
In their zeal to bring down Trump, reporters revealed not only their bias but their sloppiness and sheer incompetence. Phone records and intercepted calls showed that Trump had had “repeated contacts with Russian intelligence,” the New York Times reported in February 2017, citing “four current and former American officials.”77 Comey later testified that the story wasn’t true: “The challenge, and I’m not picking on reporters, about writing on classified information is: The people talking about it often don’t really know what’s going on, and those of us who actually know what’s going on aren’t talking about it. . . . And we don’t call the press to say, ‘Hey, you got that thing wrong about this sensitive topic.’ We just have to leave it there.”78 The paper responded with no correction, no explanation, no asking of the question: Why did our sources tell us something that was false?
Bloomberg News published a piece on July 20, 2017, entitled “Mueller Expands Probe to Trump Business Transactions.” The president’s attorney John Dowd had checked with his contacts within Mueller’s independent counsel team, as he often did. They had confirmed that the story was false. “But I couldn’t get the press to accept it,” Dowd said. “They were off on their own toot.”79
In December 2017, the chief investigative correspondent for ABC News, Brian Ross, reported that General Michael Flynn was prepared to testify that Trump had ordered him to make contact with the Russians during the campaign, contradicting all the president had said to date.80 You could almost hear the sound of champagne corks popping across America’s newsrooms. That had to be the long-awaited “smoking gun” evidence of “collusion” with Moscow. The alarmed stock market took a precipitous plunge on the news. Impeachment seemed certain. Forget the fact that talking to Russians during a campaign is not, by itself, against the law.
Alas, Ross’s report was wrong. Trump had directed Flynn to speak with the Russians during the transition, as was common practice for most incoming administrations. The red-faced ABC News first “clarified” the story. When that was greeted with guffaws, the network officially issued a “correction.” Ross was suspended for four weeks without pay and banned from covering the president. But the damage was done. The network’s tweet about the story had been shared more than 25,000 times before it was deleted.81 It’s a safe bet that few of the people who had originally circulated the story tweeted the correction.
Less than a week later, CNN’s Manu Raju breathlessly hyped—for twelve straight minutes—his “exclusive” report that Trump, his son Don Jr., and others in the campaign had received an email giving them special access to a decryption key for WikiLeaks documents concerning stolen DNC emails.82 The email, from “Michael J. Erickson,” whom CNN did not identify, was dated September 4, more than a week before WikiLeaks had uploaded the trove of stolen documents on September 13, 2016.83 Chasing its competitor’s scoop, CBS News claimed it had confirmed CNN’s story through an independent source.84 MSNBC joined the chorus. Trump critics, including many in the media, crowed that this was credible proof of “collusion” with the Russians, who were suspected to have been behind the theft.
Hyped by CNN for hours, Raju’s stunning report was sucked up into the maelstrom of social media, traveled far and wide via Twitter, then crumpled with a whimper after being debunked by the Washington Post. From an ordinary Trump fan, the email was actually dated September 14, a day after WikiLeaks had published the stolen documents. Erickson, who identified himself as president of an aviation management company, had simply told the Trump family to check out the public posting. No secret early access. No conspiracy.
CNN insisted that “multiple sources” had provided the network with the false date, but Raju admitted that he’d never seen the email. CNN offered this laughably weak correction: “The new information indicates that the communication is less significant than CNN initially reported.” CNN and CBS corrected their stories only after the Post published its slap down.85 Most of the people who had tweeted the scoop moved on to something else without correcting the falsehood, leaving a trail of slime.
That would have been the perfect moment for newsrooms everywhere to ask if two anonymous leakers is enough to run a story, now that government officials across the branches had shown themselves willing to lie maliciously.
As Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept pointed out, “No Russian Facebook ad or Twitter bot could possibly have anywhere near the impact as this CNN story had when it comes to deceiving people with blatantly inaccurate information.”86 Calling for transparency, he speculated that the “multiple sources” peddling the story to three different networks at the same time were Democrat members of the House Intelligence Committee, which had obtained Donald Trump, Jr.’s, emails. CNN did not fire or discipline Raju, who remained mum on how he had been fooled.
The push for speed and the thrill of being the one to nail Trump’s hide to the barn door compelled many media personnel to violate long-standing journalistic norms. Raju’s embarrassment came on the heels of earlier reporting by CNN of Russian “collusion” involving an anonymous source who claimed that Trump Communications director Anthony Scaramucci was involved with a $10 billion Russian investment firm. The story was later retracted.87 The mistake about “The Mooch” resulted in three of the network’s journalists being shown the door for failure to follow editorial procedures. CNN issued a rare apology.
Numerous errors involved reporting on the president’s attorney Michael Cohen. Here are just two.
CNN reported in July 2018 that, according to two sources, Cohen would confirm that the president had had advance knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting between his son and Russian intelligence operatives. Collusion! Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis—the real originator of the lie—finally confessed, suggesting that the network had gotten “mixed up,” but CNN continued to pump it, rationalizing that Davis was trying to protect his client.88
BuzzFeed claimed in early 2019 that Special Counsel Mueller had evidence that Trump had ordered Cohen, who had recently been sentenced to prison, to lie to Congress about when negotiations ended for a potential Trump Tower construction project in Moscow, an allegation given credibility when both Cohen and Davis refused to comment. The thinly sourced story by Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier, which had been “months in the making,” relied on “two federal law enforcement officials.”89 Cormier admitted that he hadn’t seen the evidence but said that “two officials we have spoken to are fully, 100 percent read into that
aspect of the Special Counsel’s investigation.” He claimed that the sources had been working on the “Trump Moscow tower portion of the investigation” before Mueller’s appointment.
“So they had access to a number of different documents, 302 reports which are interview reports,” Cormier said. “That stuff was compiled as they began to look at who the players were speaking with, how those negotiations went, who all from the Trump organization and outside the organization were involved in getting that tower set up.”90 Wow. FBI 302 reports, extensive collection of documents. Despite the sketchy background of his fellow reporter, Jason Leopold, who had botched several other blockbuster stories, Cormier defended their sourcing as “rock solid.”
“This is stunning,” proclaimed CNN’s Don Lemon. For twenty-four hours, frenzy erupted. Trump had suborned perjury, a federal crime. ABC, CBS, and NBC spent more than twenty-seven minutes on three evening shows on the BuzzFeed report but provided meager critical analysis.91 Legislators called on Trump to resign. Former attorney general Eric Holder tweeted that “Congress must begin impeachment proceedings.” Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe predicted prison for Trump. All of this was predicated with the meaningless phrase “If it’s true.” Denials by the president’s lawyer were largely ignored or contemptuously dismissed.92
The BuzzFeed-triggered hysteria prompted Mueller’s team, usually silent, to do something extraordinary. Spokesman Peter Carr issued a public statement: “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.” Why Mueller waited twenty-four hours before deflating the swollen egos of TV anchors, hosts, and reporters remains a mystery. All the while, Trump was being battered like a human piñata.
“The larger message that a lot of people are going to take from this story is that the news media are a bunch of leftist liars who are dying to get the president and they are willing to lie to do it,” said CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.93 His comment was salient and correct; then he blew it by adding “And I don’t think that’s true.” Sadly, he failed to clarify that government operators might be a bunch of leftist liars and the news media continued to be willing to print their lies if it led to traffic and praise.
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo whined about the criticism of BuzzFeed and by extension his network. “Reporting is hard,” he said on The View. “The idea that anonymous sourcing is somehow weaker sourcing is BS, OK?”94 Except that the story had just been destroyed by the office of the special counsel. BuzzFeed had allowed lying sources to hide behind anonymity. It was media malpractice on steroids. BuzzFeed refused to concede. “We are confident that our reporting will stand up,” said editor Ben Smith. We’re still waiting.
The sourcing problem was pervasive. In May 2017, a Washington Post headline screamed, “Trump Revealed Highly Classified Information to Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador.”95 Specifically, he had divulged the name of a city in ISIS-held territory where an aviation terror threat had been detected. Media madness ensued. Except, as National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster repeatedly said, “it was a totally appropriate conversation” and a part of routine information sharing in cases of common interest, such as fighting terrorism.
The story was built on anonymous sources. “It’s all kind of shocking,” said a “former senior official who is close to administration officials.” But who are the “officials” the media are fond of quoting? How “senior” are they? In which branch of government are they? How politically biased might they be? Do they really know what they’re talking about? The WaPo story was editorializing disguised as straight news reporting.
Behind the scenes, Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele were still working their agenda, goosing the Trump “collusion” story when it lagged. Court documents obtained by the Washington Examiner in November 2017 showed that Fusion GPS had made payments to three journalists from June 2016 through February 2017.96 Though their names were withheld, all were known to have reported on the Russia allegations. The attorney for Fusion GPS argued that the reporters had been paid for research, not to publish stories, but that explanation was unconvincing given the tactics employed by Simpson and his dirty tricks team.
Every week brought a new bombshell, only to be debunked:
Relying on an anonymous source, CNN reported that Comey, during congressional testimony in June 2017, would refute Trump’s claim that the former director of the FBI had told the president multiple times that he was not under investigation. CNN was forced to retract its story after Comey’s testimony, which confirmed exactly that.97
According to Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, in late 2017 Mueller’s team had served Deutsche Bank with a subpoena for President Trump’s financial records.98 Bloomberg claimed that the independent counsel had “zeroed in” on Trump. Wrong.
CNN reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had failed to disclose meetings with Russian officials when he had applied for his security clearance, portraying him as dishonest. It walked back the story after it emerged that an FBI employee had told Sessions that he didn’t need to list dozens of meetings with foreign ambassadors that had occurred while he was a senator.99
In April 2018, McClatchy relied on two anonymous sources to resurrect Steele’s claim that attorney Michael Cohen had made a secret trip to Prague to collude with the Russians during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election and that the independent counsel had proof of that.100 The story was false and remained false when McClatchy hauled it out again in December 2018, now with four anonymous sources claiming that Cohen’s phone had “pinged” cell towers in Prague.101
CNN sent reporters to Thailand to interview the incarcerated Anastasia Vashukevich, a model and “sex coach” who claimed she had “top secret” information about Trump and Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska that she would divulge if someone would rescue her from the Thai pokey.102 Spicy, yes, but completely bogus.
Paul Manafort, according to The Guardian, sneaked into the Ecuadorian Embassy in London three times to meet with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. Spectacular, if true, but Manafort denied it and Mueller did not charge him with a crime related to consorting with WikiLeaks or colluding with Russia.103
Using anonymous sources, relying on material not seen but “shared,” reporters chased around the world looking for the elusive proof of Trump-Russia “collusion.” “Gossip treated as gospel,” in the words of Joe Concha, a contributor to Fox News. “Sources providing information to reporters all too willing to accept it, like seagulls at the beach.”104
Along the way, the urge to post snarky comments on their personal Twitter accounts sucked reporters into making errors that traveled the globe in an instant. In December 2017, to mock Trump’s tweet that a Florida rally “was packed to the rafters,” WaPo reporter Dave Weigel posted a picture of a half-empty arena—a picture taken well before the event had started. Weigel deleted it and apologized after Trump called him out.105 MSNBC’s Joy Reid tweeted that an Amtrak derailment that had killed three people was the result of the GOP putting tax cuts for the wealthy ahead of funding for infrastructure. But the accident had actually happened on a new track built for high-speed rail.106 Journalists spread disinformation in the blink of an eye. When challenged, they delete their tweets, often without correcting or apologizing for their errors.
If journalists couldn’t convict Trump of “collusion,” they sought to have him sentenced for the crime of obstruction of justice. CNN’s chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, called the firing of Comey “a grotesque abuse of power by the president of the United States. This is the kind of thing that goes on in non-democracies.”107 Of course, Comey himself admitted that the president had been constitutionally empowered to fire him.
But Toobin didn’t stop there. Days later, it was reported that Trump had allegedly told Comey that fired national security advisor Michael Flynn “is a good guy” and “I hope you
can see your way clear to letting this go.” Toobin brayed, “Three words: obstruction of justice.”108
Granted, Toobin is entitled to his legal opinion. But don’t you dare disagree with him, as former Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz did on air regarding Comey’s firing, which he called “not illegal today under the law.”109 In one joint appearance, Toobin, who was once a student of Dershowitz, scolded his former professor: “Alan, I don’t know what’s going on with you. How has this come about that, in every situation over the past year, you have been carrying water for Donald Trump?”110
Toobin seemed clearly exasperated:
TOOBIN: This is not who you used to be, and you are doing this over and over again in situations that are just obviously rife with conflict of interest. And it’s just, like, what’s happened to you?
DERSHOWITZ: I’m not carrying water. I’m saying the exact same thing I’ve said for 50 years. And, Jeffrey, you ought to know that, you were my student. The fact that it applies to Trump now rather than applying to Bill Clinton is why people like you have turned against me.111
Dershowitz, a strong Hillary supporter, has insisted that his fidelity is to the rule of law and the Constitution, not politics. In his denunciation, Toobin oozed contempt. Dershowitz had committed ideological treason. How could a liberal professor not abide by the liberal doctrine?
For his integrity, CNN banned Dershowitz.112 “It would confuse CNN’s viewers at a time when one had to be either for or against Trump,” Dershowitz said. “Today, everyone has to pick a team—Trump or anti-Trump—and picking the side of the Constitution and civil liberties just doesn’t do it.” Instead of a constitutional scholar, CNN viewers were subjected to more than a hundred appearances by the ethics-challenged lawyer Michael Avenatti, who crowed, “I guarantee Trump will not serve out his term.”113
Dershowitz learned that the directive to keep him off CNN had come straight from the top. “The brass didn’t want their viewers’ minds to be confused by the law or the facts,” he said. “Trump was guilty; that’s all they needed to know.”114 Why? CNN president Jeff Zucker had looked at his failing network’s bottom line and realized that the Trump-Russia fantasy was ratings gold.
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