The three broadcast networks didn’t much care for the big story on Monday, when the House Intelligence Committee cleared President Trump of allegations of collusion with Russia before the 2016 presidential election.
“We have found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians,” Republicans said in a statement as they released findings from a 14-month investigation.
During the nightly news broadcast, NBC ignored the findings altogether, while ABC and CBS gave them short shrift.
CBS “Evening News” devoted just 30 seconds the House committee’s findings. “Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee said there was no collusion or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election,” anchor Jeff Glor said. “They also say that while Russia tried to interfere with the elections, they do not agree with U.S. intelligence that the Russians were trying to help Donald Trump.”
ABC’s “World News Tonight” went even short, giving just 27 seconds to the findings. Chief White House Correspondent Jon Karl was nonplussed in his report.
“These are the Republicans that control that committee,” he said. “The finding is hardly surprising. … And given how partisan that committee is, it’s not going to have any impact on the overall debate over Russia.”
Meanwhile, NBC’s “Nightly News” didn’t say a word about the findings — although the once-great news network did find time for a story on billionaire Warren Buffett’s $1 million March Madness bracket challenge.
The GOP findinds weren’t all good news for Trump and his campaign. GOP Rep. Mike Conaway, who headed up the the committee’s investigation, said, “We found perhaps bad judgment, inappropriate meetings, inappropriate judgment in taking meetings.”
Still, he said there was no collusion.
“Only Tom Clancy or Vince Flynn or someone else like that could take this series of inadvertent contacts with each other, or meetings, whatever, and weave that into a some sort of fictional page-turner spy thriller,” Conaway said. “But we’re not dealing with fiction, we’re dealing with facts. And we found no evidence of any collusion, of anything that people were actually doing, other than taking a meeting they shouldn’t have taken or inadvertently being in the same building.”