For three years, the U.S. media were all in on allegations that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election (which Trump won in a landslide, crushing Hillary Clinton 304-227 in the Electoral College).
Then the whole house of cards collapsed after special counsel Robert Mueller released his report — after a two-year investigation — that showed … nothing.
The media, long intent on derailing Trump, simply moved on to a new alleged scandal.
But one longtime journalist isn’t giving the press a free pass.
“As for the journalism involved in the pursuit of that story, the collusion narrative that we lived with for so very long before it was blown up in the Mueller report, it was the worst journalistic fiasco of my more than 50-some years of journalism,” Brit Hume said on Fox News‘s “The Story” with Martha MacCallum on Tuesday. “It was a disaster.”
Hume began his career in journalism in 1970, then worked for 23 years with ABC News before becoming anchor and managing editor of “Special Report” on Fox News. During his time with ABC, Hume served as chief White House correspondent from 1989 to 1996, so he knows a thing or two about covering the President of the United States.
In his interview on Fox, the veteran journalist noted that New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet admitted last year that the Times had “built our newsroom to cover one story” — the Mueller investigation.
“It ended up going nowhere. It was a terrible journalistic misjudgment and it was rooted in their view, in my opinion, of Donald Trump that when this charge arose, they thought so little of him and that he was such a terrible person that it had to be true,” Hume said.
“The Washington Post and The New York Times pursued it relentlessly: Their coverage did not reflect any real doubt that it may not turn out to be true at any time, and in the end it all blew up,” he said.
The media went all in on the alleged blockbuster. “ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts produced a combined 2,284 minutes of ‘collusion’ coverage,” Newsbusters reported in March 2019. “That’s an average of roughly three minutes a night, every night, for an astonishing 791 days.”
The MSM also became hysterical. “The noose is tightening,” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said. “Does the public understand just how much trouble the president is in? If not, that is a failing of the press,” CNN’s Brian Stelter said. “There is tons of proof of potential collusion,” CNN’s Chris Cuomo said.
In the end, poof, the story disappeared.
Trump was investigated for 675 days by Mueller and a team of 19 lawyers. Despite 2,800 subpoenas and 500 witness interviews, the counsel’s office found no evidence “that any U.S. person or Trump campaign official or associate” conspired or “knowingly coordinated” with Russians during the 2016 campaign.
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