An awkward moment from ABC News&#8217; coverage of the Senate impeachment trial Thursday has gone viral and sparked all kinds of commentary online.
ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos —who once served as a senior advisor to the only other living impeached president not named Donald Trump — was caught on camera Thursday making a “slit-the-throat” gesture urging the crew to stop showing White House Attorney Jay Sekulow as he countered a reporter’s supposition that allies of President Trump have “made statements to the effect of ‘abuse of power is an impeachable offense.’”
Asked about “four of the president’s allies, some players in this trial, Lindsey Graham, Alan Dershowitz, even the Attorney General,” whom the reporter said had made such statements, Sekulow said:
<blockquote>You know, we’ve got something very different from what you’re hearing up here; you’re hearing video clips of testimony. We’ve got lawyers who are going to put forward, when our side of the case goes, that represent multiple schools of thought on what is and what is not an impeachable offense. But they have one thing in common: that the actions alleged and the actions of the president do not reach that level, no matter which school of thought you’re on. And we’re not afraid to put out both of those schools of thought because our position is you still have to meet basic fundamental constitutional obligations, and they haven’t. Next?</blockquote>
The camera then cut to Stephanopoulos, who made the slit-the-throat motion before he realized he was live. Realizing that his throat-slashing &#8220;cut&#8221; gesture was caught on air, Stephanopoulos winced and offered a meek grin before rapidly moving on to a panel discussion on the latest developments in the trial.
“And that is Jay Sekulow right there,&#8221; says Stephanopoulos, still slightly grinning, &#8220;and let&#8217;s bring in our panel&#8230;&#8221;
The video has circulated online, where it&#8217;s garnered a wide range of reactions, some amused while others have taken a more serious angle on Stephanopoulos&#8217; eagerness to get Trump&#8217;s lawyer off the screen.
RNC Rapid Response Director Steve Guest summed up a lot of the conservative response in his takeaway: &#8220;This is what media bias looks like featuring ABC&#8217;s [Stephanopoulos].&#8221;
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This is what media bias looks like featuring ABC&#39;s <a href="https://twitter.com/GStephanopoulos?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GStephanopoulos</a>. <a href="https://t.co/uogaxec9Lj">pic.twitter.com/uogaxec9Lj</a>
&mdash; Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1220761295630278656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Among the key points of contention in the first few days of the trial is the Democrats&#8217; demand for the Senate to hear more witnesses, most notably former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, whom the White House has protected from testifying through executive privilege.
In order to subpoena Bolton with the intent of using the courts to force his testimony, which could take weeks or even months, Democrats need to peel away four Republican senators. One of the major targets is Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has consistently been one of the more &#8220;independent&#8221; of the Senate Republicans. But as <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/479678-gop-warns-of-drawn-out-executive-privilege-battle-over-bolton-testimony">The Hill</a> reported Friday, the Democrats&#8217; efforts to convince Murkowski and others to side with them is not going well.
“It’s kind of like the House made a decision that they didn’t want to slow things down by having to go through the courts,” Murkowski said of the Democratic impeachment managers&#8217; demands. “And yet now they’re basically saying you guys need to go through the courts. We didn’t but we need you to. That’s kind of where we are.”
Other Republicans have expressed similar views, maintaining that if the Democrats wanted to get the court involved and are willing to take time to do so, they should have done it in the House, which is tasked with making the case for impeachment, not the Senate, which is supposed to rule on the evidence presented by the House rather than &#8220;fishing&#8221; for more.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-jim-jordan-eviscerates-adam-schiffs-credibility-in-under-a-minute">WATCH: Jim Jordan Eviscerates Adam Schiff’s Credibility In Under A Minute</a>

George Stephanopoulos

WATCH: ABC Anchor Caught Making ‘Throat-Slit’ Gesture Cutting Off Trump Lawyer, Realizes He’s Live; Clip Goes Viral

ABC News

Bill Clinton

Donald Trump

Impeachment

Media Bias

<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dont-president-repelijah-cummings/story?id=64460872&amp;cid=social_twitter_abcn">Speaking</a> on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) told former Bill Clinton White House spokesman and current ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos there was “no doubt” that President Trump is a racist. Cummings wasn’t done; he added that many of his constituents in Maryland were “scared” of Trump.
Stephanopoulos started the ball rolling by commenting, “The race card has long been part of the Trump playbook, how much farther will he go, at what cost to the country?” He added that Trump had “unleashed, raw, racist politics. It’s a tactic Trump has deployed so many times before, the reaction predictable too.” He introduced Cummings by saying, “Trump’s racial battle lines are drawn, the question now, how will all of us, Republicans, Democrats, the press and the public respond?&#8221;
Referencing the “go back” chants targeting Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) at a Trump rally last week, Stephanopoulos said to Cummings, “I know you said the events this week reminded you of 1962, you’re 12 years old, trying to integrate a pool in Baltimore.”
Cummings responded:
<blockquote>That’s right, George. We were trying to integrate a Olympic-size pool near my house and we had been constrained to a wading pool in the black community and we tried to integrate it and as we did march towards that pool over a course of six days, I was beaten and all kinds of rocks and bottles thrown at me.
And the interesting thing is that I heard the same kind of chant, go home, you don’t belong here. And they called us the N word over and over and over again. And George, I got to tell you that I’m not the only person of color who have – who has had those kind of experiences.
And what it does when Trump does these things, when the president does these things, it brings up the same feelings that I had over 50 some years ago and it’s very, very painful. It’s extremely divisive and I just don’t think that this is becoming of the president of the United States of America, the leader of the entire world.</blockquote>
Cummings defended the “squad” of Reps. Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), saying, “These are folks and women who love their country … I’m going to tell you, these are some of the most brilliant young people that I have met and I am honored to — to — to serve with them.&#8221;
He continued by speaking of Trump featuring the “squad” as representative of the Democratic party:
<blockquote>I know that what it is doing to is for the people who want to see our democracy intact, those people despise these kind of words and hate them. And for every person that was making &#8212; saying those kinds of chants and feel the way that the president feels, there are probably two or three for every one of them who feel just the opposite. George, no matter where I go, what I’m hearing over and over again is &#8212; from my constituents is please save our democracy, please save our country. And you know something else they say, George? They say I’m scared. And I have not &#8212; I’ve never in my total of 37 years in public service ever heard a constituent say that they were scared of their leader.</blockquote>
Stephanopoulos asked, “Do you believe President Trump is racist?”
Cummings answered:
<blockquote>I believe he is &#8212; yes, no doubt about it. And &#8212; and I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I got to tell you, George &#8212; let me tell you, I get &#8212; when I think about what he said to these young ladies who are merely trying to bring excellence to government and trying to make sure that generations yet unborn have an opportunity to experience a true democracy, when I hear those things it takes me back, like I said. And &#8212; and &#8212; and I can still remember bleeding from my forehead when people were throwing bottles &#8212; and these were adults, throwing bottles and saying go home [racial slur].</blockquote>
Video below:
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WATCH: Lead Democrat Says There’s ‘No Doubt’ Trump Is A Racist

Elijah Cummings

Racism

On Monday, The Daily Wire&#8217;s Michael Knowles broke down a &#8220;very telling&#8221; moment during an exchange between President Donald Trump and George Stephanopoulos when the president stopped the interview because someone coughed in the background. Video and partial transcript below.
This clip from Donald Trump&#8217;s interview with George Stephanopoulos, which just leaked out, was some of the extra footage. It shows an interaction that is actually very telling about Donald Trump. Donald Trump is talking to Stephanopoulos. He&#8217;s giving an answer and his former budget director, now his chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, coughs in the background. Trump stops the footage, stops the cameras, and says we&#8217;ve got to reset because he was coughing.
Donald Trump: At some point, I hope they get it.
George Stephanopoulos: You&#8217;re going to turn it over?
Donald Trump: No, at some point I might. But at some point, I hope they get it because it&#8217;s a fantastic financial statement. It&#8217;s a fantastic financial statement. Let&#8217;s do that over &#8212; he&#8217;s coughing in the middle of my answer.
George Stephanopoulos: Yeah, ok.
Donald Trump: I don&#8217;t like that. You know.
George Stephanopoulos: Your chief of staff&#8230;
Donald Trump: If you&#8217;re going to cough, please leave the room. You just can&#8217;t do that. Okay. You want to do that a little differently then? So, at some point &#8212; So at some point I look forward to, frankly, I want I&#8217;d like to have people see my financial statement. Because it&#8217;s phenomenal. No, it&#8217;s not up to me. It&#8217;s up to lawyers it&#8217;s up to everything else. But they&#8217;re asking for things that they should never be asking for. That they&#8217;ve never asked another president for. They want to go through every deal that I&#8217;ve ever done. What they&#8217;re doing is a disgrace. They&#8217;ve tried to do&#8212;step, step, step. They want to keep it going as long as possible to try and demean and hurt as much as possible so they can possibly win the presidential election.
Knowles: This is a very telling exchange. I hope it puts to rest one of the stupidest takes on Donald Trump, which is that he&#8217;s this completely undisciplined wacko lunatic who doesn&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going on and he shoots from the hip and he&#8217;s only just belching various emotions all the times. No, this guy knows how to work a camera. This is a pretty calculated guy. How do I know that?
Because he&#8217;s giving this answer that he wants to give to Stephanopoulos, and he hears a cough in the room. Trump&#8217;s a show biz guy and he&#8217;s had 15 seasons of a hit network show. He knows that that sound is going to ruin that clip and they&#8217;re not going to be able to use it. So, he says, alright stop, you can&#8217;t cough on set. What are you doing? Get out of here if you&#8217;re going to cough on set. He says ok, let&#8217;s reset it. Maybe we&#8217;ll do it a little differently. He&#8217;s talking like a guy either who&#8217;s in a movie or at least who&#8217;s doing a nonfiction TV show. They&#8217;re like reset and then the guys reset and then the camera guy screws up and he moves. Trump catches that again and he reset.
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He resets and then Trump gives the message that he wants to the American people. He gives it as though it&#8217;s right off the cuff. He gives it like he&#8217;s in a reality TV show and look and this and that &#8211; it&#8217;s not like he&#8217;s giving this perfectly scripted monologue, but he is letting you know, you the American people. The people who watch ABC News. Just a lot more people than watch cable news or Fox News. He&#8217;s telling them what he wants them to hear.
This is a disciplined guy. This is a guy with situational awareness. This is a guy who knows how to communicate. No accidents here. People are still going to pretend that he&#8217;s this total buffoon who just accidentally has succeeded at the highest levels of everything he&#8217;s ever tried. But this was more revealing than the Billy Bush tape which was a guy engaging in locker room talk when he thought he was off camera. This is much more telling about how Trump&#8217;s brain works and how he views politics in the Oval Office and imagery and how he views mass communication.
<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-michael-knowles-show/id1266577963?mt=2">Listen to &#8220;The Michael Knowles Show&#8221; on iTunes.</a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/show/michael-knowles-show">Subscribe to watch &#8220;The Michael Knowles Show&#8221; on-demand.</a>

KNOWLES: Leaked ABC Clip Of Trump Is ‘Very Telling’

Conservatism

Democratic Party

Michael Knowles

Republican Party

Trump Administration

When you talk as much as President Trump does, you&#8217;re bound to say a pretty dumb thing at one point or another.
That&#8217;s just what Trump did on Wednesday in an Oval Office interview with ABC News&#8217; George Stephanopoulos, saying he would not necessarily contact the FBI if he was offered dirt on his opponent from a foreign government.
When Stephanopoulos referenced FBI Director Christopher Wray&#8217;s directive that those who receive incriminating information on a presidential candidate from a foreign power call the bureau, Trump said: &#8220;The FBI director is wrong.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s not an interference. They have information. I think I&#8217;d take it. If I thought there was something wrong, I&#8217;d go maybe to the FBI, if I thought there was something wrong,&#8221; the president said.
Trump continued: &#8220;I think I&#8217;d want to hear it &#8230; I think you might want to listen, there isn&#8217;t anything wrong with listening,&#8221; he said, arguing he would view it as a type of &#8220;opposition research&#8221; that candidates dig up on opponents.
&#8220;If somebody called from a country &#8212; Norway &#8212; &#8216;we have information on your opponent&#8217; &#8212; oh, I think I&#8217;d want to hear it.&#8221;
The mainstream media went nuts. &#8220;Trump throws open 2020 election to foreign spies,&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/13/politics/donald-trump-spy-election-2020-foreign-government/index.html">CNN</a> wrote in an &#8220;analysis.&#8221;
&#8220;President Donald Trump just made a staggering offer to every foreign spy agency and American enemy: Have at the 2020 election &#8212; especially if you have dirt that can help him win. Even in a presidency that long ago burned through all conceivable superlatives, Trump&#8217;s statement was a stunner,&#8221; wrote former reporter Stephen Collinson.
Rep. Jerrold Nalder, the New York Democrat who heads the House Judiciary Committee and has been pushing impeachment, said: &#8220;It is shocking to hear the President say outright that he is willing to put himself indebt to a foreign power&#8230; not to mention the foreign interference in an American election part.&#8221;
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It is shocking to hear the President say outright that he is willing to put himself indebt to a foreign power&#8230; not to mention the foreign interference in an American election part. <a href="https://t.co/xlQoELsTif">https://t.co/xlQoELsTif</a>
&#8212; (((Rep. Nadler))) (@RepJerryNadler) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepJerryNadler/status/1138951112537624577?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand&#8207;, a New York Democrat running for president in 2020, said: &#8220;It&#8217;s time for Congress to begin impeachment hearings.&#8221;
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It&#8217;s time for Congress to begin impeachment hearings. <a href="https://t.co/yYG6oqHfCm">https://t.co/yYG6oqHfCm</a>
&#8212; Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenGillibrand/status/1138950459924930560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Trump realized he had some explaining to do, so he took to Twitter.
&#8220;I meet and talk to &#8216;foreign governments&#8217; every day. I just met with the Queen of England (U.K.), the Prince of Wales, the P.M. of the United Kingdom, the P.M. of Ireland, the President of France and the President of Poland. We talked about &#8220;Everything!&#8221; Should I immediately [&#8230;] call the FBI about these calls and meetings? How ridiculous! I would never be trusted again. With that being said, my full answer is rarely played by the Fake News Media. They purposely leave out the part that matters,&#8221; Trump wrote.
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I meet and talk to &#8220;foreign governments&#8221; every day. I just met with the Queen of England (U.K.), the Prince of Wales, the P.M. of the United Kingdom, the P.M. of Ireland, the President of France and the President of Poland. We talked about &#8220;Everything!&#8221; Should I immediately&#8230;.
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1139161442437992448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&#8230;.call the FBI about these calls and meetings? How ridiculous! I would never be trusted again. With that being said, my full answer is rarely played by the Fake News Media. They purposely leave out the part that matters.
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1139161443734106112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The president did say in the interview that &#8220;I think maybe you do both&#8221; &#8212; listen to the information and go to the FBI. Watch for yourself:
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EXCLUSIVE: Pres. Trump tells <a href="https://twitter.com/GStephanopoulos?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GStephanopoulos</a> he wouldn&#8217;t necessarily alert the FBI if approached by foreign figures with information on his 2020 opponent: &#8220;It&#8217;s not an interference. They have information. I think I&#8217;d take it.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/yWRxMOaFqW">https://t.co/yWRxMOaFqW</a> <a href="https://t.co/qwLw53s5yc">pic.twitter.com/qwLw53s5yc</a>
&#8212; ABC News (@ABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1138936855573999616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Trump posted three more tweets on the subject.
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When Senator <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkWarnerVA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MarkWarnerVA</a> spoke at length, and in great detail, about extremely negative information on me, with a talented entertainer purporting to be a Russian Operative, did he immediately call the FBI? NO, in fact he didn&#8217;t even tell the Senate Intelligence Committee of&#8230;.
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1139164968862015488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&#8230;.which he is a member. When <a href="https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepAdamSchiff</a> took calls from another person, also very successfully purporting to be a Russian Operative, did he call the FBI, or even think to call the FBI? NO! The fact is that the phony Witch Hunt is a giant scam where Democrats,&#8230;
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1139164973286985730?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&#8230;.and other really bad people, SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN! They even had an &#8220;insurance policy&#8221; just in case Crooked Hillary Clinton and the Democrats lost their race for the Presidency! This is the biggest &amp; worst political scandal in the history of the United States of America. Sad!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1139164977271595010?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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By the way, Trump doubled up on the dumb, at first writing &#8220;prince of Whales&#8221; in a since-deleted tweet.
Needless to say, both &#8220;#ImpeachTrumpNow&#8221; and &#8220;#Prince of Whales&#8221; are trending on Twitter.

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Trump Hammered For Saying He’d Accept Intel On 2020 Opponent From Foreign Gov’t

Russia

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump&#8217;s former &#8220;fixer&#8221; who has since flipped on him and admitted to a series of lies as part of a plea deal for a reduced sentence, is in the process of transitioning from a much-maligned figure in the press to an important voice of opposition to the media-scorned president.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday, Cohen responded to a series of tweets issued by Trump Thursday refuting Cohen&#8217;s claims against him regarding the &#8220;hush money&#8221; payments directed to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playmate Karen McDougal.
&#8220;I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law,&#8221; said Trump in a series of posts Thursday. &#8220;He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called &#8216;advice of counsel,&#8217; and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid. Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if they even apply, because this was not campaign finance. Cohen was guilty on many charges unrelated to me, but he plead to two campaign charges which were not criminal and of which he probably was not guilty even on a civil basis. Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did-including the fact that his family was temporarily let off the hook. As a lawyer, Michael has great liability to me!&#8221;
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I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called &#8220;advice of counsel,&#8221; and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid. Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly&#8230;&#8230;
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1073205176872435713?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 13, 2018</a></blockquote>
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&#8230;.stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if they even apply, because this was not campaign finance. Cohen was guilty on many charges unrelated to me, but he plead to two campaign charges which were not criminal and of which he probably was not&#8230;
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1073207272069890049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 13, 2018</a></blockquote>
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&#8230;.guilty even on a civil basis. Those charges were just agreed to by him in order to embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence, which he did-including the fact that his family was temporarily let off the hook. As a lawyer, Michael has great liability to me!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1073210823936495617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 13, 2018</a></blockquote>
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In response, Cohen told ABC&#8217;s George Stephanopoulos, a former Bill Clinton aide, that Trump &#8220;of course&#8221; knew that what he told him to do to keep Daniels and McDougal quiet was &#8220;wrong.&#8221;
&#8220;I knew what I was doing was wrong. I stood up before the world and I accepted the responsibility for my actions,&#8221; Cohen said (partial transcript via <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-lawyer-michael-cohen-trump-knew-wrong-make/story?id=59815550">ABC</a>), referencing his tearful plea in his sentencing hearing Wednesday. Asked if Trump likewise knew it was &#8220;wrong,&#8221; Cohen said, &#8220;Of course.&#8221;
The former fixer also underscored that the purpose of the transactions was to &#8220;help him and his campaign,&#8221; which goes to the legal crux of the issue: potential campaign finance violations. Trump &#8220;was very concerned about how this would affect the election,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;[N]othing at the Trump organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump. He directed me to make the payments, he directed me to become involved in these matters,&#8221; said Cohen. &#8220;He knows the truth. I know the truth. Others know the truth. And here is the truth: People of the United States of America, people of the world, don&#8217;t believe what he is saying. The man doesn&#8217;t tell the truth. And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds.&#8221;
The evidence, Cohen said, is on his side, as the special counsel&#8217;s statement about the credibility of his claims suggests. &#8220;There&#8217;s a substantial amount of information that they possessed that corroborates the fact that I am telling the truth,&#8221; he said.
As he did in his plea Wednesday, Cohen suggested that his great error was being too &#8220;loyal&#8221; to Trump. &#8220;I gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty,&#8221; said Cohen, who was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for a variety of crimes, including multiple fraud charges and campaign finance violations.
As for Trump&#8217;s assertion that Cohen is playing a role in an attempt to &#8220;embarrass the president&#8221; and was willing to lie again to try to reduce his sentencing, Cohen insisted, &#8220;It is absolutely not true. Under no circumstances do I want to embarrass the president. He knows the truth. I know the truth.&#8221;
In addition to Cohen&#8217;s plea claims, prosecutors have revealed that they have reached a non-prosecution agreement with American Media Inc, parent company of the National Inquirer, that has reportedly provided evidence indicating that the tabloid paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to stories in order to squash them to protect then-candidate Trump.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39360/dershowitz-cohen-doesnt-understand-difference-paul-bois">Dershowitz: Cohen Doesn&#8217;t Understand The Difference Between Wrong And Illegal</a>
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Cohen Responds To Trump Refuting His ‘Hush Money’ Claims In First Interview Since Sentencing

Michael Cohen

Robert Mueller

Stormy Daniels

Robert Mueller has successfully pressured another Donald Trump associate to agree to a plea deal. On Thursday, ABC reported that Michael Cohen, Trump&#8217;s former &#8220;fixer&#8221; who &#8220;flipped&#8221; on the president after the FBI <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29225/breaking-fbi-raids-office-trump-lawyer-michael-ben-shapiro">raided</a> his home and office in April, is expected to plead guilty to making false statements to Congress in return for some &#8220;valuable&#8221; testimony.
ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos tweeted out the breaking news Thursday morning and underscored that, along with the guilty plea, Cohen is expected to provide &#8220;dozens of hours of testimony potentially damaging to Pres Trump,&#8221; which the special counsel &#8220;values.&#8221;
&#8220;Michael Cohen, Pres Trump&#8217;s former personal attorney, reaches new plea deal with Mueller this morning,&#8221; wrote Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton advisor. &#8220;Expected to enter guilty plea for false statements to Congress coupled with dozens of hours of testimony potentially damaging to Pres Trump&#8211;Special Counsel values testimony.&#8221;
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Michael Cohen, Pres Trump&#8217;s former personal attorney, reaches new plea deal with Mueller this morning. Expected to enter guilty plea for false statements to Congress coupled with dozens of hours of testimony potentially damaging to Pres Trump&#8211;Special Counsel values testimony.
&#8212; GeorgeStephanopoulos (@GStephanopoulos) <a href="https://twitter.com/GStephanopoulos/status/1068143172524609538?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 29, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/michael-cohen-expected-plead-guilty-lying-congress-collusion/story?id=59491450">ABC</a> reports that Cohen appeared in federal court in Manhattan Thursday and &#8220;entered a guilty plea for misstatements to Congress in closed-door testimony last year about his contacts with Russians during the presidential campaign.&#8221;
Promising to &#8220;put family and country first,&#8221; Cohen has agreed to fully cooperate with prosecutors. ABC provides more details:
<blockquote>
Cohen&#8217;s earlier plea deal with federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York implicated President Trump in campaign finance felonies. Since then, Cohen has spent more than 70 hours in interviews with Mueller&#8217;s team. The questioning has focused on contacts with Russians by Trump associates during the campaign, Trump&#8217;s business ties to Russia, obstruction of justice and talk of possible pardons, sources familiar with the discussions have told ABC News.
</blockquote>
On April 9, after receiving a referral from Mueller, the FBI raided the office, home and hotel room of Cohen. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/us/politics/fbi-raids-office-of-trumps-longtime-lawyer-michael-cohen.html?mtrref=t.co">New York Times</a> reported at the time:
<blockquote>
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Mr. Cohen&#8217;s lawyer, who called the search &#8220;completely inappropriate and unnecessary.&#8221; The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller&#8217;s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York. &#8220;Today the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients,&#8221; said Stephen Ryan, his lawyer. &#8220;I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is, in part, a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Trump responded to the raid by condemning it as &#8220;a real disgrace&#8221; and &#8220;an attack on our country.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
JUST IN: President Trump says the FBI raid of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, is a &#8220;real disgrace, it&#8217;s an attack on our country,&#8221; and calls the investigation a &#8220;total witch hunt&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/GVE8O0k8xi">https://t.co/GVE8O0k8xi</a> <a href="https://t.co/vH8oYTnAtO">pic.twitter.com/vH8oYTnAtO</a>
&#8212; CNN International (@cnni) <a href="https://twitter.com/cnni/status/983475588777168896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
While Trump strongly condemned the targeting of Cohen, the relationship between the two quickly devolved. By August, Cohen&#8217;s celebrity lawyer Lanny Davis was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/34853/cohens-lawyer-hes-willing-tell-mueller-about-james-barrett">teasing</a> Cohen&#8217;s alleged &#8220;knowledge&#8221; about &#8220;certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel,&#8221; and stating that his client &#8220;is more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows&#8221; if Mueller gives him a good deal.
Among the things Cohen has &#8220;knowledge&#8221; about, Davis suggested, was information about &#8220;a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system.&#8221;
&#8220;Not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election, which the Trump Tower meeting was all about, but also knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on,&#8221; said Davis.

Trump’s Former ‘Fixer’ Reaches Plea Deal With Mueller. ABC: Testimony ‘Damaging’ To Trump

On Thursday, former Bill Clinton communications director and co-host of &#8220;Good Morning America,&#8221; George Stephanopoulos, interviewed Tom Brokaw accuser Linda Vester. 
Stephanopoulos wasted no time in lecturing Vester. &#8220;Tom Brokaw is pretty angry,&#8221; he told her. He then questioned Vester&#8217;s memory of the alleged incident, asking, &#8220;Are you absolutely convinced that everything you remember about that incident, those incidents with Tom Brokaw are what happened?&#8221; 
&#8220;George, my memory of those incidents is crystal clear,&#8221; Vester retorted. &#8220;The notes that I took immediately afterward are crystal clear.&#8221;
Stephanopoulos also grilled Vester on her behavior at the time.
&#8220;Why not at the time say something to others at NBC in management,&#8221; he asked. 
&#8220;Let me paint a picture of what it was like inside NBC News when this happened,&#8221; she replied. &#8220;I was a young reporter, just getting started. Tom Brokaw was the most powerful at the network. So the idea that I could go forward to management and say that I had been assaulted by the most powerful man at the network and a major moneymaker, well, that just get heard.&#8221;
She added, &#8220;There was HR, but HR was not considered a place where you could go with a complaint about sexual harassment. It was considered a place where you went if your paycheck went to the wrong address, and so for many reasons I felt it was unsafe to go to NBC, and I never felt safe at NBC News again.&#8221;
Vester also called out NBC News for their decision to conduct an investigation into Brokaw&#8217;s alleged behavior internally. 
&#8220;[A]as soon as NBC News or NBC Universal hires outside counsel to do a proper, thorough investigation, I will be glad to sit down,&#8221; she said.
&#8220;You don&#8217;t trust them to investigate this themselves?&#8221; Stephanopoulos asked.
&#8220;Well, I mean I think it&#8217;s common sense,&#8221; Vester answered. &#8220;You can&#8217;t investigate yourself. You just can&#8217;t. There&#8217;s an internal bias. That&#8217;s how it works, so you have to have outside counsel.&#8221;
You can watch the video below:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dCh50y71uoU" width="854"></iframe></div>
<a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/scott-whitlock/2018/05/10/stephanopoulos-brokaw-accuser-you-angered-colleague-i-admired">H/T Newsbusters</a>

George Stephanopoulos Berates Tom Brokaw Accuser: ‘He Is Pretty Angry’

Media

MeToo

Sexism

Sexual Abuse

It&#8217;s a little thing &#8212; a tiny thing, really.
But former FBI director James Comey has staked his entire reputation on his veracity. He&#8217;s on a nationwide tour &#8212; all over the airwaves, from &#8220;The View&#8221; to Jake Tapper&#8217;s CNN show &#8220;The Lead&#8221; to &#8220;Late Night with Stephen Colbert&#8221; &#8212; to tell America that he has a monopoly on truth and that his word is golden.
Of course, much of Comey&#8217;s narrative is beginning to unravel &#8212; the release of the memos he leaked did much damage to his story (see Ben Shapiro&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29672/6-things-you-need-know-about-released-comey-memos-ben-shapiro">piece here</a>). But the memos do shed light on one of Comey&#8217;s weirder claims: That he never saw President Trump laugh &#8212; ever.
In his big interview with ABC&#8217;s George Stephanopoulos, Comey said Trump was humorless.
<blockquote>
STEPHANOPOULOS: You notice something else &#8212; during that dinner. You say the President didn&#8217;t laugh.
COMEY: Yeah, not at all. And I was struck by it. So struck by it, it stayed with me, that I&#8217;ve never seen him laugh. Not in public, not in private. And at a dinner with someone &#8212; I mean, I&#8217;m not a comedian but I occasionally say something that&#8217;s funny that people chuckle with each other.
But I never saw anything that resembled a laugh. And I could over-interpret that, I could be &#8212; also, we&#8217;re missing something that &#8212; that maybe he&#8217;s &#8212; he&#8217;s breaking up in stitches with other people other than the FBI director, but I also tried &#8212; after I got fired, I thought &#8212; that stayed with me. And so I went and tried to find examples of videos where he&#8217;s laughing and I could only find that really wasn&#8217;t a genuine laugh.
</blockquote>
In his book, Comey writes, &#8220;I don&#8217;t recall seeing him laugh, ever. Not during small talk before meetings. Not in a conversation. Not even here, during an ostensibly relaxed dinner. &#8230; I suspect his apparent inability to do so is rooted in deep insecurity, his inability to be vulnerable or to risk himself by appreciating the humor of others, which, on reflection, is really very sad in a leader, and a little scary in a president.&#8221;
Hmm. Weird claims &#8212; especially in light of Comey&#8217;s now-released memos.
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At one point in the memos, as Comey is recounting the contents of a scurrilous dossier that contains allegations about Trump and prostitutes and &#8220;golden showers,&#8221; Comey wrote that during a meeting with the president:
<blockquote>
I said, the Russians allegedly had tapes involving him and prostitutes at the Presidential Suite at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow from about 2013. He interjected, &#8220;there were no prostitutes, there were never prostitutes.&#8221; He then said something about him being the kind of guy who didn&#8217;t need to &#8220;go there&#8221; and laughed (which I understood to be communicating that he didn&#8217;t need to pay for sex).
</blockquote>
Huh. So he did laugh &#8212; and Comey did see him laugh (even noted it in his memo).
Again, it&#8217;s a little thing. The memos are unraveling far bigger things in Comey&#8217;s narrative.
But the former FBI director, who is on a personal quest to bring down the president of the United States for firing him from a job for which he was clearly unqualified, is seeking to paint himself as irreproachable.
So little things matter &#8212; a lot.

Comey Lied: He DID See Trump Laugh

James Comey

You&#8217;ve misunderstood him (you idiots). James Comey has not been trying to work in unsubtle low blows at the man who unceremoniously fired him as part of his revenge book tour &#8212; he&#8217;s just trying to do what his editor told him to do.
Amid growing backlash against him, including from the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-book.html">The New York Times</a> and the FBI, whose name many fear he is further eroding, the fired former FBI director defended his petty digs at Trump over his hand size, perfectly coiffed hair, tan lines around his eyes, and radiant orange skin. He&#8217;s not trying to poke fun at Trump; he&#8217;s just trying to be a good writer.
&#8220;I&#8221;m not making fun of the president. I&#8217;m trying to be an author, which I&#8217;ve never been before in my life,&#8221; Comey told a sympathetic <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/04/17/602917030/transcript-james-comeys-full-interview-with-steve-inskeep-and-carrie-johnson">NPR Morning Edition</a> host Steve Inskeep. &#8220;While I&#8217;m typing, I can hear my editor&#8217;s voice ringing in my head, &#8216;bring the reader with you. Show them inside your head. Bring them with you.'&#8221;
&#8220;&#8216;Describe the president&#8217;s hands?'&#8221; said Inskeep. &#8220;Can you hear the editor saying that?&#8221;
&#8220;No, but that was on my mind,&#8221; Comey replied. &#8220;And by the way, not that this matters, but I found his hands to be above average in size, and so I&#8217;m not making fun of the man, I&#8217;m trying to tell the reader what&#8217;s in my head.&#8221;
And here&#8217;s Comey talking to ABC&#8217;s George Stephanopoulos, insisting that of course he&#8217;s not trying to sneak in petty attacks on Trump, and those who think so just haven&#8217;t read his book. &#8220;I&#8217;m trying to be an author and bring the readers with me into a room,&#8221; he said, adding, &#8220;I&#8217;m not trying to make fun of the president, I&#8217;m not trying to make fun of anybody.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote data-lang="en">
On <a href="https://twitter.com/GMA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GMA</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/Comey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Comey</a> says those who have criticized him for passages with personal details on Pres. Trump haven&#8217;t read the book.
&#8220;I&#8217;m trying to be an author and bring the readers with me into a room&#8230;I&#8217;m not trying to make fun of president, I&#8217;m not trying to make fun of anybody.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/GNbqD3thnM">pic.twitter.com/GNbqD3thnM</a>
&#8212; ABC News (@ABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ABC/status/986209089599389696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29463/comey-and-stephanopoulos-talk-about-trumps-hand-james-barrett">very important details</a> that Comey has highlighted about Trump, which Stephanopoulos and co. encouraged him to do just days before pressing him on the backlash, include:
<ul>
<li>Trump &#8220;looked shorter to me than he did on television&#8221;;</li>
<li>Trump had &#8220;impressively coiffed hair, it looks to be all his&#8221;;</li>
<li>Trump&#8217;s &#8220;tie was too long, as it always is&#8221;;</li>
<li>Trump &#8220;looked slightly orange up close with small white, half moons under his eyes, which I assume are from tanning goggles&#8221;;</li>
<li>Trump&#8217;s hands seem to be &#8220;average-sized.&#8221;</li>
</ul>
He&#8217;s also spoken at length about the notorious &#8220;golden showers&#8221; allegation in the &#8220;still unverified&#8221; Steele dossier, about which Comey said &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29384/watch-comey-talks-abc-about-trump-and-prostitutes-james-barrett">it&#8217;s possible</a>&#8221; it could be true. Comey has also surprised viewers a bit by dismissing the idea of impeaching Trump because it would &#8220;<a href="https://hotair.com/archives/2018/04/16/comey-come-impeachment-let-america-off-hook/">let the American people off the hook</a>,&#8221; while declaring Trump to be &#8220;<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/29461/comey-says-trump-lies-constantly-morally-unfit-be-joseph-curl">morally unfit to be president</a>.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29384/watch-comey-talks-abc-about-trump-and-prostitutes-james-barrett">WATCH: Comey Talks To ABC About Trump And &#8216;Prostitutes Peeing On Each Other In Moscow&#8217;</a>
H/T <a href="https://hotair.com/archives/2018/04/17/comey-im-not-trying-make-fun-trump-talking-peculiar-coiffure-zesty-orange-hue/">Allahpundit</a>

Comey Responds To Backlash Against Him For Petty Attacks On Trump

After a week&#8217;s worth of hype, former FBI Director James Comey&#8217;s epic hour-long interview with George Stephanopoulos finally aired in full Sunday night and the result was mostly the reiteration of statements Comey made in his new tell-all book that he was there to promote. As expected, the fired FBI director spent a lot of time trashing the man who axed him, addressing both important concerns and petty issues. At one point, prodded on by Stephanopoulos, Comey strayed from his &#8220;gravitas&#8221; script and went there: Trump&#8217;s hand size, orange skin, and perfectly coiffed hair.
The less than dignified exchange began with Comey, who is a towering 6&#8217;8&#8243;, telling Stephanopoulos that Trump is shorter than he thought he&#8217;d be.
&#8220;My impression was he looked exactly like he did on television, except he looked shorter to me than he did on television, but otherwise exactly the same,&#8221; <a href="https://hotair.com/archives/2018/04/16/comey-come-impeachment-let-america-off-hook/">said</a> Comey. &#8220;And the reason I say that is most people look slightly different in person. I don&#8217;t know whether that&#8217;s bad or good, but he looked the way I&#8217;d seen him look on television.&#8221;
Stephanopoulos wanted to know more about Trump&#8217;s appearance. &#8220;Which was?&#8221; he asked.
&#8220;He had &#8212; impressively coiffed hair, it looks to be all his,&#8221; said Comey. &#8220;I confess, I stared at it pretty closely and my reaction was, &#8216;It must take a heck of a lot of time in the morning, but it&#8217;s impressively coifed.&#8217; &#8230; His tie was too long, as it always is. He looked slightly orange up close with small white, half moons under his eyes, which I assume are from tanning goggles. And otherwise looked &#8230; as I thought he looked on television.&#8221;
Stephanopoulos then asked the question that his audience was certainly dying to know, and Stormy Daniels says she &#8216;s experienced up close and personal: &#8220;You even clocked the size of his hands?&#8221;
Comey said yes, but stressed that he only gives these kinds of details because he&#8217;s just &#8220;trying to be honest.&#8221;
&#8220;Yeah. I&#8211; I say that in my book &#8217;cause I&#8217;m trying to be honest, &#8217;cause that&#8217;s the truth there had been all this controversy and mocking about hand size, I can&#8217;t remember the details,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But as I shook his hand I made a note to check the size and it seemed like he had average-sized hands.&#8221;
As for the actual newsworthy moments, Comey disappointed Trump critics by saying that he doesn&#8217;t like the idea of impeaching him because it would &#8220;<a href="https://hotair.com/archives/2018/04/16/comey-come-impeachment-let-america-off-hook/">let the American people off the hook</a>,&#8221; and declaring Trump unfit for the presidency not because of mental unfitness but <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29461/comey-says-trump-lies-constantly-morally-unfit-be-joseph-curl">moral unfitness</a>. &#8220;He strikes me as a person of above average intelligence who&#8217;s tracking conversations and knows what&#8217;s going on. I don&#8217;t think he&#8217;s medically unfit to be president,&#8221; said Comey. &#8220;I think he&#8217;s morally unfit to be president.&#8221;
Comey also said that he suspects that part of the reason he reopened the investigation into Hillary Clinton was actually to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29444/bombshell-comey-admits-he-reopened-hillary-ryan-saavedra">legitimize her presidency</a>. &#8220;I was operating in a world where Hillary Clinton was going to beat Donald Trump,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And so I&#8217;m sure that it was a factor. That she&#8217;s going to be elected president and if I hide this from the American people, she&#8217;ll be illegitimate the moment she&#8217;s elected, the moment this comes out.&#8221;
H/T <a href="https://hotair.com/archives/2018/04/16/comey-come-impeachment-let-america-off-hook/">Ed Morissey</a>

Comey And Stephanopoulos Talk About Trump’s Hand Size And Other Stupid Stuff

Hillary Clinton

In a recorded interview set to air on Sunday, former FBI Director James Comey admitted to ABC News&#8217; George Stephanopoulos that he never told President Donald Trump who financed the dossier compiled by Fusion GPS because it &#8220;wasn&#8217;t necessary for my goal.&#8221;
&#8220;Did you tell him that the Steele dossier had been financed by his political opponents?&#8221; Stephanopoulos asked.
Comey replied, &#8220;No. I didn&#8217;t &#8212; I didn&#8217;t think I used the term &#8216;Steele dossier.&#8217; I just talked to him about additional material.&#8221;
Stephanopoulos responded by asking, &#8220;But did he have a right to know that?&#8221;
&#8220;That it had been financed by his political opponents? I don&#8217;t know the answer to that,&#8221; Comey responded. &#8220;It wasn&#8217;t necessary for my goal, which was to alert him that we had this information.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed video fluid-video">
<blockquote data-lang="en">
Comey admits he didn&#8217;t tell Trump the &#8220;dossier&#8221; was a DNC funded document, saying it &#8220;wasn&#8217;t necessary for my goal.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/HqIN1yc3Ad">pic.twitter.com/HqIN1yc3Ad</a>
&#8212; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/984884847360409601?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 13, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Trump fired Comey from the FBI on March 9, 2017, and news that the anti-Trump dossier was funded by the DNC and Hillary Clinton&#8217;s presidential campaign did not come to light until October 24, 2017, when <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-campaign-dnc-paid-for-research-that-led-to-russia-dossier/2017/10/24/226fabf0-b8e4-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html">The Washington Post</a> broke the story.

WATCH: Comey Says It Wasn’t His ‘Goal’ To Give Trump All The Facts On Dossier

Former FBI Director James Comey&#8217;s new tell-all book and scandalous <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29384/watch-comey-talks-abc-about-trump-and-prostitutes-james-barrett">interview</a> with ABC News is creating a stir, though much of it is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29380/here-are-all-nothingburgers-comeys-new-book-hank-berrien">much ado about nothing</a>. However, one moment from his &#8220;dirty&#8221; interview with George Stephanopoulos is rather stunning: Comey admits that when he briefed Trump on the dossier, he did not inform him that it was funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.
The startling admission, which Stephanopoulos doesn&#8217;t pause on for long, comes just before Comey goes into more detail about telling Trump about the salacious &#8220;golden showers&#8221; episode from the notorious oppo research dossier.
&#8220;Was there any choice there?&#8221; asked Stephanopoulos about Comey&#8217;s decision to inform Trump about the dossier&#8217;s unproven, scandalous claims. &#8220;Why, if this was salacious and this particular part of the dossier unverified &#8212; still unverified, by the way?&#8221;
&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Comey. &#8220;When I got fired it was unverified.&#8221;
&#8220;Did you tell him that the Steele dossier had been financed by his political opponents?&#8221; asked the anchor.
&#8220;No,&#8221; said Comey. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think I used the term Steele dossier. I just talked about &#8216;additional material.'&#8221;
&#8220;But did he have a right to know that?&#8221; asked Stephanopoulos.
&#8220;That it had been financed by his political opponents?&#8221; replied Comey, squirming a little. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know the answer to that. It wasn&#8217;t necessary for my goal, which was to alert him that we had this information.&#8221;
Comey went on to suggest that it is &#8220;possible&#8221; that the &#8220;still unverified&#8221; dossier&#8217;s claims are true. Video below via ABC:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allowfullscreen height="360" width="640"></iframe></div>
Trump responded to the interview Friday morning by slamming Comey as a &#8220;LEAKER &amp; LIAR&#8221; and declaring that he should be &#8220;prosecuted&#8221; for leaking classified information to the press.
&#8220;James Comey is a proven LEAKER &amp; LIAR,&#8221; he wrote in a series of tweets. &#8220;Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI. His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case, and the events surrounding it, will go down as one of the worst &#8216;botch jobs&#8217; of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29398/flashback-comey-reveals-he-leaked-memos-containing-james-barrett">FLASHBACK: Comey Reveals He Leaked Memos Containing Classified Info</a>

WATCH: Comey Makes Stunning Admission About Trump And Dossier

Following the release of excerpts of former FBI Director James Comey&#8217;s interview with ABC in which he suggests &#8220;it&#8217;s possible&#8221; that the salacious and &#8220;still unverified&#8221; Russian prostitutes allegation in the notorious Democrat-funded Steele dossier is true, President Trump took to Twitter to unload on &#8220;slimeball&#8221; Comey, whom he says &#8220;should be prosecuted&#8221; for his leaking of classified information.
&#8220;James Comey is a proven LEAKER &amp; LIAR,&#8221; Trump wrote in a series of tweets. &#8220;Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI. His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case, and the events surrounding it, will go down as one of the worst &#8216;botch jobs&#8217; of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
James Comey is a proven LEAKER &amp; LIAR. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and&#8230;..
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/984763579210633216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 13, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
&#8230;.untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI. His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case, and the events surrounding it, will go down as one of the worst &#8220;botch jobs&#8221; of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/984767560494313472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 13, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Trump&#8217;s reference to Comey&#8217;s leaking of classified information refers to memos the former FBI director gave to one of his friends in the media. Those documents were deemed to be government material and to have contained classified information, making Comey&#8217;s distribution of them a violation of the law. <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/341225-comeys-private-memos-on-trump-conversations-contained-classified">The Hill</a> reported the story in July 2017 (formatting adjusted):
<blockquote>
More than half of the memos former FBI Director James Comey wrote as personal recollections of his conversations with President Trump about the Russia investigation have been determined to contain classified information, according to interviews with officials familiar with the documents. This revelation raises the possibility that Comey broke his own agency&#8217;s rules and ignored the same security protocol that he publicly criticized Hillary Clinton over in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election.&#8203; &#8230;
FBI policy forbids any agent from releasing classified information or any information from ongoing investigations or sensitive operations without prior written permission, and it mandates that all records created during official duties are considered to be government property. &#8220;Unauthorized disclosure, misuse, or negligent handling of information contained in the files, electronic or paper, of the FBI or which I may acquire as an employee of the FBI could impair national security, place human life in jeopardy, result in the denial of due process, prevent the FBI from effectively discharging its responsibilities, or violate federal law,&#8221; states the agreement all FBI agents sign.
</blockquote>
Trump&#8217;s explosive tweets came in response to Comey&#8217;s statements to ABC&#8217;s George Stephanopoulos in an interview that will be aired in full on Sunday. In teaser excerpts released Friday morning, Comey describes two meetings in which he discussed the scandalous contents of the Democrat-funded dossier with Trump. During the interview, Comey suggests that even though Trump at one point asked him to investigate the dossier to prove it wasn&#8217;t true, he believes it&#8217;s &#8220;possible&#8221; that the most over-the-top of all the claims in it is true.&#8203;
&#8220;I started to tell him about the allegation was that he had been involved with prostitutes in a hotel in Moscow in 2013 during the visit for the Miss Universe pageant and that the Russians had filmed the episode, and he interrupted very defensively and started talking about it, you know, &#8216;Do I look like a guy who needs hookers?'&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29384/watch-comey-talks-abc-about-trump-and-prostitutes-james-barrett">said Comey</a>. &#8220;And I assumed he was asking that rhetorically. I didn&#8217;t answer that, and I just moved on and explained, &#8216;Sir, I&#8217;m not saying that we credit this, I&#8217;m not saying we believe it. We just thought it very important that you know.&#8217; I said &#8230; &#8216;I&#8217;m not saying that I believe the allegations, I&#8217;m not saying that I credit it.&#8217; I never said, &#8216;I don&#8217;t believe it,&#8217; because I couldn&#8217;t say one way or another.'&#8221;
&#8220;And then he says something that distracted me because he said, you know, &#8216;If there&#8217;s even a 1 percent chance my wife thinks that&#8217;s true, that&#8217;s terrible,'&#8221; Comey said. &#8220;And I remember thinking, &#8216;How could your wife think there&#8217;s a 1 percent chance you were with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow?&#8217; I&#8217;m a flawed human being, but there is literally zero chance that my wife would think that was true. So, what kind of marriage to what kind of man does your wife think [that] there&#8217;s only a 99 percent chance you didn&#8217;t do that?&#8221;
Asked by Stephanopoulos if he believed Trump&#8217;s denials, Comey said &#8220;it&#8217;s possible&#8221; that the wild golden showers story is true. &#8220;I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don&#8217;t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s possible, but I don&#8217;t know.&#8221;&#8203;
In the interview, Comey also admitted that he didn&#8217;t bother telling Trump that the dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton Campaign as part of their opposition research against him.
Here&#8217;s the teaser of the interview released by ABC:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allowfullscreen height="360" width="640"></iframe></div>

Trump UNLOADS On ‘Slimeball’ Comey: ‘Should Be Prosecuted’

Former FBI director James Comey is making the rounds to promote his new book, &#8220;A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership,&#8221; which is stuffed with a whole lot of gravitas-wrapped <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29380/here-are-all-nothingburgers-comeys-new-book-hank-berrien">nothingburgers</a>. Though he&#8217;s generally portrayed as a man deeply concerned with decorum and dignity, in an <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/comey-trump-asked-disprove-salacious-prostitute-allegations-dossier/story?id=54433989">interview with ABC</a> to promote the book, Comey proved that he&#8217;s willing to go low to take down the man who unceremoniously axed him last year.
In a truly &#8220;see it to believe it&#8221; moment, Comey and ABC chief anchor George Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton administration staffer, discussed in very serious terms Comey informing Trump about the most salacious and patently absurd claim in the notorious, &#8220;still unverified&#8221; dossier. Though he revealed that Trump asked him to prove that the wild claim that during a trip to Moscow in 2013 he hired Russian prostitutes to pee on a bed that Obama had slept in previously was as untrue as it sounds, Comey suggested that it is &#8220;possible&#8221; that it&#8217;s true.
Comey told Stephanopoulos that soon after Trump was inaugurated, he met with Trump and told him about the contents of the dossier. They later met again during a private dinner to discuss potential follow-up action.
Asked if he revealed to Trump that the dossier was compiled as an opposition research effort financed by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign, Comey said no, explaining that &#8220;it wasn&#8217;t necessary for my goal&#8221; of informing Trump about its contents.
Comey described the conversation as &#8220;very weird&#8221; and says he felt like he was &#8220;floating above myself, looking down, saying, &#8216;you&#8217;re sitting here, briefing the incoming president of the United States about prostitutes in Moscow.'&#8221;
&#8220;I started to tell him about the allegation was that he had been involved with prostitutes in a hotel in Moscow in 2013 during the visit for the Miss Universe pageant and that the Russians had filmed the episode, and he interrupted very defensively and started talking about it, you know, &#8216;Do I look like a guy who needs hookers?'&#8221; said Comey.
&#8220;And I assumed he was asking that rhetorically,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t answer that, and I just moved on and explained, &#8216;Sir, I&#8217;m not saying that we credit this, I&#8217;m not saying we believe it. We just thought it very important that you know.&#8217; I said &#8230; &#8216;I&#8217;m not saying that I believe the allegations, I&#8217;m not saying that I credit it.&#8217; I never said, &#8216;I don&#8217;t believe it,&#8217; because I couldn&#8217;t say one way or another.&#8221;
&#8220;And then he says something that distracted me because he said, you know, &#8216;If there&#8217;s even a 1 percent chance my wife thinks that&#8217;s true, that&#8217;s terrible,'&#8221; Comey said. &#8220;And I remember thinking, &#8216;How could your wife think there&#8217;s a 1 percent chance you were with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow?&#8217; I&#8217;m a flawed human being, but there is literally zero chance that my wife would think that was true. So, what kind of marriage to what kind of man does your wife think [that] there&#8217;s only a 99 percent chance you didn&#8217;t do that?&#8221;
Comey said Trump later told him, &#8220;I may order you to investigate that&#8221; &#8212; which would be a terrible idea it were &#8220;possible&#8221; that it were true, as Comey suggests &#8212; but the soon-to-be-fired FBI director warned against it, saying he told him, &#8220;Sir, that&#8217;s up to you. But you&#8217;d want to be careful about that, because it might create a narrative that we&#8217;re investigating you personally, and second, it&#8217;s very difficult to prove something didn&#8217;t happen.&#8221;&#8203;
In response to Stephanopoulos asking him if he believed Trump&#8217;s denials, Comey worked in his &#8220;it&#8217;s possible&#8221; comment. &#8220;I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don&#8217;t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s possible, but I don&#8217;t know.&#8221;&#8203;
About the larger issue of Russian meddling, Comey told ABC that Team Trump seemed primarily concerned about how it might be used to undermine his victory and focusing on &#8220;PR and spin&#8221; rather than trying to prevent it from happening again.
The full interview will air Sunday. Here&#8217;s the teaser clip presented by a &#8220;stunned&#8221; Stephanopoulos and company at ABC:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allowfullscreen height="360" width="640"></iframe></div>
UPDATE: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/29391/trump-unloads-slimeball-comey-should-be-prosecuted-james-barrett">Trump UNLOADS On &#8216;Slimeball&#8217; Comey: &#8216;Should Be Prosecuted&#8217;</a>
Partial transcript via <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/comey-trump-asked-disprove-salacious-prostitute-allegations-dossier/story?id=54433989">ABC News</a>.

WATCH: Comey Talks To ABC About Trump And ‘Prostitutes Peeing On Each Other In Moscow’

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on Sunday that Democrats have currently positioned themselves in an unreasonable corner, making it impossible to come to any sort of deal on immigration. If they want to move forward, he said, they must be willing to compromise on some key Republican demands.
Cotton joined ABC New&#8217;s George Stephanopoulos on &#8220;This Week&#8221; to discuss any possible deal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The senator said that any sort of deal would have to include funding for President Donald Trump&#8217;s proposed border wall as well as an end to chain migration and lottery diversity.
&#8220;The president has said all along that while President Obama acted unlawfully by giving legal status without an act of Congress, that he wants to solve this problem with a compromised piece of legislation,&#8221; Cotton said. &#8220;We have been working on this for four months. In addition to having some funding for the border wall and border security, we are also going to have to take steps to stop unskilled and low skilled immigration coming into the country. Like ending chain migration, ending the diversity lottery.&#8221;
Cotton hammered the Democrats when Stephanopoulos pointed out how Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin (IL) said that the Republicans requesting $18 billion for the border wall was a &#8220;nonstarter.&#8221;
&#8220;Well, George, as you rightly said, those are Democratic demands,&#8221; Cotton continued. &#8220;Not as they&#8217;re often portrayed, that Republicans only make demands, whereas Democrats negotiate. And Senator Durbin&#8217;s DREAM Act would cost $26 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office. Senator Durbin should reconsider who is making unreasonable, costly demands if he is criticizing the president for requesting $18 billion to secure our southern border that creates such a huge magnet for illegal immigration and crime and drugs.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed video fluid-video">
<blockquote data-lang="en">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/TomCottonAR?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TomCottonAR</a> on immigration: &#8220;I hope the Democrats will come off their reasonable negotiating position and be willing to compromise.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/ozfjrDRHKS">pic.twitter.com/ozfjrDRHKS</a>
&#8212; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/950301929212530689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>

WATCH: Tom Cotton Reveals What Democrats Must Do To Get Immigration Deal

Tom Cotton

&#8220;The system is rigged against [&#8216;working people&#8217;],&#8221; said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) in a Sunday-aired interview with news media ally George Stephanopoulos for ABC&#8217;s <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-23-17-jay-sekulow-sarah-huckabee/story?id=48791003">This Week</a>.

Schumer pushed for increasing centralized state-driven economic planning: increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, a federal government takeover of &#8220;child care,&#8221; and promises to &#8220;go after drug companies.&#8221; 

Invited to push for a communist health care system by Stephanopoulos with the euphemism &#8220;single-payer health care,&#8221; Schumer refused to offer a direct answer.

Schumer attempted to co-opt President Donald Trump&#8217;s platform, alleging that Trump&#8217;s presidential campaign was of a Democrat flavor:

<blockquote>
Donald Trump campaigned sort of on this message. He was a populist. He campaigned against the establishment. As soon as he got into office, he embraced the Koch brother hard right and abandoned his plans to clean up Wall Street, to drain the swamp, to be tough on trade. We are going fill that gap in a way that&#8217;s really going to resonate with the American people.
</blockquote>
Democrats were insufficiently left-wing, said Schumer, promising to move further left over time:
<blockquote>
Week after week, month after month, we&#8217;re going to roll out specific pieces here, that are quite different than the Democratic Party you heard in the past. We were too cautious. We were too namby-pamby.
</blockquote>
The left-right political paradigm was now obsolete, said Schumer, framing it as an archaic social fault line:

<blockquote>
[The Democrats&#8217; agenda] is not going to be left or right. It is going to be totally focused on working people who realize, believe correctly, that the system is rigged against them, and not helping them with all the changes. Rapid changes, economic and social. And people ask, well, are you going appeal to the Obama coalition? You know, young people, LGBT, people of color? Or the Trump people &#8212; Democrats who voted for Trump, blue collar voters? This will appeal to both.
</blockquote>
At no point did Schumer propose any reductions in state power.

Stephanopoulos did not ask Schumer to provide any specifics or details regarding his nebulous left-wing economic proposals.

Stephanopoulos presents himself as an objective and non-partisan news media personality. ABC similarly presents itself as an objective and non-partisan news media outlet.

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

Schumer: ‘The System Is Rigged!’

Charles Schumer

Communism

Health Care

Leftism

&#8220;Russia &#8212; according to 17 intelligence agencies &#8212; interfered in our campaign,&#8221; said ABC&#8217;s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, repeating the false claim of universal agreement across 17 federal intelligence agencies regarding alleged Russian state interference in last year&#8217;s presidential election.

Stephanopoulos presented former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper&#8217;s statements as definitive facts predicated on consensus across the federal government&#8217;s intelligence apparatus:

<blockquote>
And then, on the broader question, the underlying issue of our relationship with Russia and the fact that Russia, according to our 17 intelligence agencies, interfered in our campaign, James Comey was unequivocal on that point.
</blockquote>
Stephanopoulos made the false claim in an interview with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) for <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-11-17-preet-bharara-jay-sekulow/story?id=47957684">This Week</a>.
Originally pushed by Hillary Clinton during her third presidential debate with Donald Trump, the false claim has since become ubiquitous, forwarded primarily by Democrats and their news media allies.

The false claim is based on a misrepresentation of a <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf">declassified intelligence report</a> published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence of the role of the director of national intelligence (DNI), whose role is to consolidate intelligence from across the federal intelligence apparatus and advise the president. Left-wing and Democrat-aligned news media outlets have framed the DNI as a director of and spokesperson for a non-existent consensus across &#8220;the intelligence community.&#8221;

PolitFact &#8212; which <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/nov/01/principles-politifact-punditfact-and-truth-o-meter/">presents itself</a> as a politically objective and non-partisan &#8220;fact-checking website&#8221; &#8212; grades the false claim as &#8220;true:&#8221;

<img alt height="298" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/politifact_hillary_clinton_lie.jpg" width="780" />

<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?427577-1/white-house-warned-general-flynn-compromised">Testifying</a> before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism in May, former DNI Clapper directly responded to the aforementioned false claim, claiming that his assessment of &#8220;Russian efforts to &#8230; influence the outcome of the presidential election&#8221; was based on intelligence from three intelligence agencies: the CIA, FBI, and NSA.

Stephanopoulos presents himself as a politically objective and non-partisan news figure. ABC News similarly presents itself as a politically objective and non-partisan news media outlet.

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eiOQxx3sZXs?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

politifact_hillary_clinton_lie

Stephanopoulos Parrots ’17 Intelligence Agencies’ Lie

Fake News

James Clapper

Mike Lee

National Security Agency (NSA)

This Week

&#8220;Fake news&#8221; and &#8220;conspiracy theories&#8221; regarding Russia may damage the credibility of Democrats and the broader Left, argued Vox&#8217;s Zack Beauchamp in a <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/19/15561842/trump-russia-louise-mensch">Friday-published article</a>.

Describing the online ecosystem focusing on &#8220;fake news&#8221; and &#8220;conspiracy theories&#8221; as the &#8220;Russiasphere,&#8221; Beauchamp touched on a narrative pushed by Democrats and their allies which frames President Donald Trump as an agent of foreign influence either compromised by or otherwise beholden to the Russian state.

Beauchamp described left-wing news media figure Louise Mensch as &#8220;right-wing&#8221; while highlighting her centrality to the &#8220;Russiasphere.&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/search?l=&amp;q=russia%20OR%20putin%20OR%20kompromat%20OR%20kremlin%20OR%20moscow%20from%3Alouisemensch&amp;src=typd&amp;lang=en">According to Mesnch</a>, the Russian state has compromised Attorney General Jeff Sessions, national security adviser Sebastian Gorka, presidential adviser Jared Kushner, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, White House communications staffer Boris Epshteyn, and various other administration officials and Republican politicians.

<img alt height="631" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/louise_mensch_1.jpg" width="407" />
<img alt height="346" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/louise_mensch_2.jpg" width="618" />
<img alt height="909" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/louise_mensch_3.jpg" width="618" />
<img alt height="455" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/louise_mensch_4.jpg" width="778" />
<img alt height="417" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/louise_mensch_5.jpg" width="780" />

The &#8220;Russiasphere&#8221; is dominated by various Democrats, party operatives, and allied news media and satellite figures, notes Beauchamp. He identifies Harvard University law professor Laurence Tribe, GQ&#8217;s Keith Olbermann, CNN alumnus Donna Brazile, MSNBC&#8217;s Rick Wilson, former Obama staffers Ned Price and Eric Schultz, and others as purveyors of and traffickers in &#8220;fake news&#8221; and &#8220;conspiracy theories&#8221; framing Trump as an agent of political subversion directed by the Kremlin.

Political and news media observers will note the ubiquity of this narrative, from The New York Times publishing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/opinion/what-to-ask-about-russian-hacking.html">an op-ed of Mensch&#8217;s</a> in March to <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/16634/times-latest-cover-may-not-surprise-you-robert-kraychik">TIME&#8216;s latest magazine cover</a> depicting a White House being transformed into St. Basil&#8217;s Cathedral in Red Square:

<img alt height="1040" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/time_magazine_st._basils_cathedral.jpg" width="780" />

CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper used innuendo-laden graphics and chyrons to cast Trump as a co-conspiracist with the Russian state in last week&#8217;s State of the Union:

<img alt height="434" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/jake_tapper_donald_trump_russia_kremlin_propaganda_graphic_chyron_3.jpg" width="780" />
<img alt height="436" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/jake_tapper_donald_trump_russia_kremlin_propaganda_graphic_chyron_2.jpg" width="780" />

<img alt height="435" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/jake_tapper_donald_trump_russia_kremlin_propaganda_graphic_chyron_1.jpg" width="780" />

John Schindler, a former NSA employee who now writes for Observer, told Beauchamp there&#8217;s &#8220;good evidence that the Kremlin was planning a secret operation to put Trump in the White House back in 2014.&#8221; The &#8220;mainstream media,&#8221; he added, &#8221; [was] slow to ask obvious questions about Trump in 2016, and [is] playing catch-up now.&#8221; He is identified by Beauchamp as a &#8220;Russiasphere&#8221; personality complicit in the advancement of &#8220;fake news&#8221; and &#8220;conspiracy theories&#8221; regarding Russia.

Beauchamp likens perceptions of Obama as a Muslim and &#8220;birtherism&#8221; as examples of widespread right-wing subscription to self-damaging false narratives. Holocaust denialism and the 9/11 Truth movement are also listed as examples of credibility-destroying narratives.

&#8220;Unfounded speculation and paranoia that infect the Russiasphere risk pushing liberals into the same black hole of conspiracy-mongering and fact-free insinuation that conservatives fell into during the Obama years. The fear is that this pollutes the party itself, derailing and discrediting the legitimate investigation into Russia investigation. It also risks degrading the Democratic Party &#8212; helping elevate shameless hucksters who know nothing about policy but are willing to spread misinformation in the service of gaining power.&#8221;

Beauchamp <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2017/3/22/15031052/trump-russia-campaign-coordination-cnn">himself</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2017/3/21/14983550/fbi-russia-trump-hearing-partisanship">has</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2017/2/15/14620560/trump-flynn-russia-campaign">furthered</a> these narratives, suggesting that Trump coordinated political moves with Russian President Vladimir Putin during 2016&#8217;s presidential election season, claiming, &#8220;[There are] legitimate reasons to believe that Trump&#8217;s campaign worked with Russian hackers to undermine Hillary Clinton.&#8221;

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

louise_mensch_1

Vox Fears: Russia ‘Fake News/Conspiracy Theories’ Hurt The Left

Jake Tapper

Kremlin

TIME&#8216;s latest cover advances the left-wing and Democrat narrative of President Donald Trump as a Russian state agent of political subterfuge, depicting the White House being transformed into St. Basil&#8217;s Cathedral in Moscow&#8217;s Red Square.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Oh boy. The new cover of <a href="https://twitter.com/TIME">@TIME</a> went there. <a href="https://t.co/NDWyQEahk0">pic.twitter.com/NDWyQEahk0</a>
&#8212; Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) <a href="https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/865169282216468482">May 18, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
Toeing the narrative line in which 2016&#8217;s presidential election is framed as compromised via &#8220;election hacking&#8221; executed by the Russian state at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin, TIME does little to differentiate itself from CNN, The New York Times, or BuzzFeed.
CNN&#8217;s State of the Union, hosted by Jake Tapper, used similar images in advancing the this narrative. View graphics used last Sunday during Tapper&#8217;s introductory monlogue below.

<img alt height="435" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/jake_tapper_donald_trump_russia_kremlin_propaganda_graphic_chyron_1-1.jpg" width="780" />
<img alt height="436" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/jake_tapper_donald_trump_russia_kremlin_propaganda_graphic_chyron_2-1.jpg" width="780" />
<img alt height="434" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/jake_tapper_donald_trump_russia_kremlin_propaganda_graphic_chyron_3-1.jpg" width="780" />

ABC&#8217;s Good Morning America similarly advanced the narrative with graphics during co-host George Stephanopoulos&#8217;s introductory monologue on Monday. 
<img alt height="437" src="https://www.dailywire.com/sites/default/files/styles/wysiwyg/public/uploads/2017/05/abc_donald_trump_kremlin_russia_propaganda_chyron_graphic.jpg?itok=jQu6yrs3" width="780" />

TIME, CNN, and ABC all present themselves as politically objective and non-partisan news media outlets.

H/T Doug P. at <a href="http://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2017/05/18/seriously-time-magazines-white-house-remodel-sends-heads-to-desks/">Twitchy</a>.

jake_tapper_donald_trump_russia_kremlin_propaganda_graphic_chyron_1

TIME’s Latest Cover May Not Surprise You

State of the Union

Time Magazine

Vladimir Putin

Left-wing and Democrat-aligned news media outlets are framing alleged White House improprieties as resembling the 1970&#8217;s Watergate scandal. Subsidiary and complementary narratives include framing President Donald Trump&#8217;s conduct &#8212; particularly his termination of James Comey from the FBI&#8217;s directorship &#8212; as &#8220;Nixonian,&#8221; accusing him of obstructing justice, and casting 2016&#8217;s presidential election as having been compromised by &#8220;election hacking&#8221; or generalized interference directed by the Russian state.
Above is a montage of television news media figures repeating keywords such as &#8220;Nixon&#8221; and &#8220;Watergate&#8221; in order to shape a basis for impeachment in the minds of Americans, drawing on the impeachment and resignation of former President Richard Nixon.
View a montage of news media figures at CNN and MSNBC priming Democrat guests to make the case for impeaching Trump <a href="https://news.grabien.com/story-montage-media-cant-stop-asking-democratic-guests-if-theyre-r">here</a>, via Grabien.
Allegations of the Obama administration&#8217;s surveillance of Trump and his political teams have been either ignored or dismissed by news media outlets as CNN. MSNBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
The aforementioned news media outlets, as well as ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNBC all present themselves as politically objective and non-partisan.

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-Rt51aegQLE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

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