Blatant Media Bias from The WaPo & CNN in Reporting Comey's Memos Had Classified Information

I now bring  you two blatant examples of media bias regarding the news that just came out about James Comey's personal memos containing classified information.  The first comes from the Washington Post and the second comes from CNN.  We all know the media loves covering anonymously sourced stories if they are negative towards the President.  CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NBC News recycle each others' anonymously sourced stories all the time, even though they sometimes turn out to be false.  However, this shows the disparity in how they cover an anonymously sourced story if it is negative towards the President vs. if it is positive.

First, the backstory:


The Hill reported that 4 out of 7 of James Comey's infamous memos which he wrote documenting his conversations with President Trump contain classified information.  This is big news because James Comey said these were not government documents or classified but were rather personal documents of his recollections of the conversations with President Trump.  Comey took the memos when he left the FBI as he said they were his own personal memos, and he kept them in his possession.  Comey strategically used the memos to get a special prosecutor to look into President Trump by leaking one of them to his friend who in turn went ahead and leaked them to the press.   Comey, who later testified under oath before the Senate in June, turned the memos over to Mueller.  Mueller is conducting the probe into whether or not Trump and/or his campaign colluded with the Russians in order to hack the emails of the DNC and Podesta and leak them to WikiLeaks to help him win the election.  Congress, however, has now seen the memos:

But when the seven memos Comey wrote regarding his nine conversations with Trump about Russia earlier this year were shown to Congress in recent days, the FBI claimed all were, in fact, deemed to be government documents.


While the Comey memos have been previously reported, this is the first time there has been a number connected to the amount of memos the ex-FBI chief wrote.


Four of the memos had markings making clear they contained information classified at the secret or confidential level, according to officials directly familiar with the matter.


A spokesman for the FBI on Sunday declined to comment.


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.


“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,” states the agreement all FBI agents sign.


It adds that “all information acquired by me in connection with my official duties with the FBI and all official material to which I have access remain the property of the United States of America” and that an agent “will not reveal, by any means, any information or material from or related to FBI files or any other information acquired by virtue of my official employment to any unauthorized recipient without prior official written authorization by the FBI.”


http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/341225-comeys-private-memos-on-trump-conversations-contained-classified

The Washington Post


The Washington Post wrote a story with the headline, "Trump accuses Comey of illegally leaking classified information."  This immediately made me slightly nervous.  Trump accused Comey based on the report in The Hill which was also later shared on Fox News.  He didn't make it up.  However, I was concerned they wouldn't mention that he was quoting that report until later in the article - burying it so people who only read headlines or a couple paragraphs would think he made it up and attack him as unstable.  The Washington Post went beyond my initial nerves and were more biased than even I anticipated they would be:

President Trump accused former FBI Director James B. Comey of illegally leaking classified information to the media, part of an angry, early morning tweet storm on Monday as the president faces new allegations about his 2016 campaign's contact with the Russians.


The first paragraph immediately sets the stage that he is unhinged and angry - no mention of the serious information he is referring to.

“James Comey leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media,” Trump wrote, referring to the FBI director he fired in May. “That is so illegal!”


He did, and it is if the memo leaked was classified - we know it was labeled "government documents" when Mueller got the memos.

Testifying before Congress last month, Comey revealed that a tweet by the president — incorrectly suggesting he may have had taped his conversations with Comey — prompted the former FBI director to ask a close friend to leak to the news media private memos he had kept recounting his interactions with Trump.


WHOA!  Trump NEVER INCORRECTLY suggested he may have tapes.  He said Comey "better hope" there are no tapes before he leaks to the press.  He never said one way or the other.  The media spent a month imploring him whether or not there were tapes.  He would have been incorrect had he said he had tapes and didn't, but he never did.  He then said that he himself didn't have tapes, but said, "With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea whether there are tapes or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and not have, any such recordings."  Anyway, the possibility of tapes being out there may have saved Trump because Comey had to back up his story that he told him he wasn't under investigation.

Back to the article, though. We are headed to the fourth paragraph, is the Washington Post going to mention The Hill article or it's substance?

The president also used Twitter to push out several a “Fox & Friends” clips Monday morning, including one accusing Comey of having his friend leak top secret information, and another accusing the media of not representing half of the country.


The Fox & Friends clip was reporting the substance of The Hill article that 4 out of 7 of Comey's memos contained classified information, and he leaked a memo to his friend to get a special prosecutor.  Now might be time to report on the The Hill article Trump was referring to so the readers know....

However, as we can see, the writer then describes a video of an analyst on Fox & Friends saying the media doesn't represent half the country.  Based on my reading of this article, FACT CHECK - TRUE.  One last shot, though, that perhaps the writer will include the report from The Hill or at least mention The Hill in this article....

And later in the morning, he retweeted a missive by Fox News host Sean Hannity, which attacked Hillary Clinton, seeming to refer to her private email server as secretary of state and saying, “HRC mishandles and destroys classified info-NO PROBLEM!”


NOPE!  No mention of The Hill article Trump was referring to.  However, Hannity's Tweet is relevant.  Not cherry picked, it says:

HRC mishandles and destroys classified info-NO PROBLEM! Pay/play on Uranium one NO PROBLEM! Lynch BC tarmac: it's a "matter" NO PROBLEM"


If the writer of this was honest and put it into context, you can see that this is a tie in to James Comey taking with him memos that contain classified information and should have been left with the FBI.  Hannity is saying that Comey let Hillary off for mishandling and destroying classified info, let Hillary off for pay to play, and called the email investigation a "matter" on the orders of Lynch.  Hannity is saying that Comey has a history of letting Hillary off or compromising and is questioning how he handled his job and classified info.

Trump's frustrated, frenzied tweets — at times, he basically seemed to be live-tweeting “Fox & Friends” — came amid reports in the New York Times this weekend that the president's oldest son, Donald Trump Jr. — as well as his son-in-law Jared Kushner and former campaign manager Paul J. Manafort — met with a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties during the 2016 campaign, after being promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton.


First, I did not find the Tweets "frustrated" or "frenzied."  The writer editorialized this way because the narrative they want to push is that he's angry, unstable, should be impeached, etc.  Trump Tweeted a few news clips from Fox and Friends - not angry or frenzied.

Second, still no mention of The Hill article.  Guess which video the writer failed to talk about, though?  Ohhhhh...only the one with Jason Chaffetz talking about, you guessed it, Comey.  Chaffetz said:

Chaffetz - "After that was revealed, I actually was able to get on the phone with Director Comey, and he's a very jovial, open person on the phone, but when I asked him about the disposition of those emails - where are these documents - he got silent - he wouldn't talk about it; he wouldn't tell me where they were.  And it really raised a lot of eyebrows as I went back and talked to the staff and other members and said, 'Look, he's not going to give these up easily, we're going to have to go fight...'"


Host - "They belong to the FBI?


Chaffetz - "Well, they're federal records, and The Oversight Committee had jurisdiction over federal records and so... But then, all of a sudden you had this special prosecutor, and it became very convoluted.  But if this is true, no official can just give these documents out.  And in the case of James Comey, what he testified to is that he gave them to a friend to give to the media.  You can't do that - it's against the law.


No mention of this, but of course, Ashley then pivots into the Washington Post's pet issue - Russia.  Don Jr. was told there was damning info on Hillary's campaign.  According to his statement, the info suggested HILLARY was colluding with the Russians.  It turns out the woman just wanted to talk about adoption.  The media is saying if he met with a Russian once over getting damning info on Hillary, it just might be a sign that Trump ordered Russia to hack Hillary's emails.  That's all they want to talk about.  Russia.

Ashley then pivots off into talking about Trump's other two Tweets on healthcare and Ivanka sitting in for a few minutes at the G20 when he left the room.
 
ZERO MENTION of the article Trump was referring to.  I went to the comments section to get a look to see if Ashley Parker's (the writer) failure to tell the full tale got the angry, liberal reaction she no doubt wanted:

Kendra Hower

he is psychotic and needs to be removed now, the more things that show what a crook and liar he and his cronies are the more psychotic he becomes. can't wait for the blow up. he can join nixon as an impeached president


(Hundreds of Likes)

Yep.  Sure enough.  By the way, Nixon was never impeached.

Steve Shirar ·

Deflect, deflect, deflect, standard Trump playbook. Doesn't matter if any of the tweets are true as long as his supporters are focused on topics other than Russia.


Steve is a text book example.  Trump made it up because this guy trusts the Washington Post as most liberals do.  Then he says Russia must be the focus as the MSM says.

This next person, Simon, would like to know more.  It's a shame Ashley Parker of the Washington Post was too biased to write a fair article.

Simon DeRuyter ·

What exactly was classified that was leaked? Comey's handwritten notes were classified information? Or is everything the president says automatically just classified?


Simon DeRuyter ·

Did Trump begin the meeting by saying, "This conversation is classified"?


Many, many comments full of anger and vitriol who have no idea of The Hill article.  Anway, some try to defend Trump without knowing of The Hill article, but one man knows:

Doug Stroot ·

It's too bad this story is sorely lacking on any type of information regarding the Comey leaks. Seems like they could only muster a few sentences on Comey before they couldn't resist to go back to bashing Trump.


The Hill broke the story this morning, they are saying more than half the memos Comey released contained classified information, and at least 4 of them had classified markings on them.


Poor Doug - a comment buried too far for many to see it.  Sad!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-accuses-comey-of-illegally-leaking-classified-information/ar-BBE84yz?li=AA5a8k&ocid=spartanntp

CNN


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9xfHC0ACX4

Kellyanne was brought on CNN to discuss Don Jr. meeting with a Russian lawyer who claimed she had negative info on Clinton.  The interview went on for over a half hour, and Kellyanne was pointing out the obsession on CNN with Russia.  Kellyanne noted that CNN talks more about Russia than America.

Kellyanne then pivoted to bring up the article in The Hill about Comey's memos being classified.  Chris Cuomo, who was hoping to not discuss that story I'm sure, noted that it has anonymous sources, and that the White House doesn't accept stories with anonymous sources when they are negative, calling them "fake news."  

Let's go with the premise of Chris for a moment.  Even if that is so, CNN DOES accept anonymously sourced stories...if they are negative towards the President.  They accept and quote the Washington Post and the New York Times, this despite them being wrong on multiple occasions.  Therefore, if CNN is willing to accept anonymous sources when they are negative to the President, why won't they accept them when they are helpful for the President?

Later in the show, Kellyanne asked him why they don't spend more time covering important issues to Americans.  Cuomo pulled out Trump's tweets for the day and says he doesn't care about those issues because there weren't Tweets on them and Trump drives the cycle.  Of course, that's ridiculous.  When he does Tweet on those things, they get minimal coverage.  He often uses his Twitter to respond to the latest things the media are focusing/attacking him on.  Chris derisively mocked Trump as a hypocrite for tweeting about the Comey story from The Hill and tweeting out videos from Fox & Friends - just like the reporter for the Washington Post mocked him.  Of course, one of those videos from Fox & Friends was the very video about Chaffetz talking about how he struggled to obtain the memos from Comey that the Washington Post also ignored.  

Chris continued to insist that they cover everything on CNN, not just Russia.  Bull!  A disproportionate amount of time has been dedicated to Russia.  When they do cover the other things, they often do from a liberal slant such as healthcare, immigration, climate change, etc.  You can read comments by liberals online who say that Trump has done nothing so far.  When asked for what he has done, they get quiet when conservatives can produce a list.  The problem is they don't know what he has done because stations like CNN don't cover it or cover it minimally.  That said, I think Kellyanne used her platform on the show to talk about things Trump has done with respect to the economy, jobs, veterans, infrastructure, drugs, etc.

To end the interview, they get into an argument over CNN's bias as Chris Cuomo said they are objective.  Kellyanne said they need to treat Trump more fairly and called out their "snarky looks," "furrowed brows," and "the rolling of the eyes" from people on the panels on CNN - which she called out as stacked and biased.  She says they have made a "business decision" to be negative.  Cuomo fired back that the White House has made a decision to be "antagonistic" towards the media and lump all of the media together.

Uh..Breaking News - The media lumps themselves together.  CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, NYT, and the WaPo are all liberal corporations pushing the same agenda.  There is little distinguishable between them..  This is obvious when all of the media do things like disproportionately cover the President negatively.  We've seen the Harvard study.  They all "coincidentally" used the same word - "dark" - to cover his convention speech.  The journalists for these outlets are all on Twitter retweeting each other's anti-Trump stories and snarking on the President.   Their bias could not be more obvious.  They decide what to cover, how to cover it, what angle to cover it from, what not to cover at all, and when we should be sufficiently outraged.  These things they cover are often things that are negative towards the President like Russia leaks while ignoring or minimizing reporting such as this about Comey, the damaging info about NSA and FBI surveillance reported by CIRCA, and the info that McCabe may have had it out for Flynn because Flynn backed a woman saying she was being treated unfairly at the FBI.  They cover taxes, healthcare, immigration, etc. from an angle that is clearly liberal.

Obama intel agency secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

https://www.circa.com/story/2017/05/23/politics/obama-intel-agency-secretly-conducted-illegal-searches-on-americans-for-years

Declassified memos show FBI illegally shared spy data on Americans with private parties

https://www.circa.com/story/2017/05/25/politics/declassified-memos-show-fbi-illegally-shared-spy-data-on-americans-with-private-parties

Did the FBI retaliate against Michael Flynn by launching a Russia probe?

https://www.circa.com/story/2017/06/27/nation/did-the-fbi-retaliate-against-michael-flynn-by-launching-russia-probe

Chris Cuomo then accused the White House of rallying followers to attack CNN and their journalists.  Oh really?  First of all, CNN's coverage is 93% negative.  They focus a massive amount of their time on the Russia story.  We now know, thanks to Project Veritas, that a producer has said they focus on it for ratings, they have no big proof, the President is right to call it a "witchhunt", and they cover Trump differently from Obama because it appeals to their more liberal audience.  One of their commentators called the Russia story a "nothingburger."  Then we have the other producer which says 90% of the people on the morning show staff of Chris Cuomo's New Day hate the President, says they cover Russia for ratings, and the producer also attacked Kellyanne Conway's looks.  The anti-Trump rhetoric on CNN, NBC, the WaPo, NYT, etc. is so bad that Trump supporters are called Nazis (thanks to many WaPo and NYTs editorials/pieces calling Trump Hitler) and attacked in the street.  There have been hundreds of attacks on Trump supporters, and the media refuses to cover.  The media won't even cover Antifa.  Chris Cuomo not only said CNN is objective - meaning their anti-Trump bias should be accepted as reality but also that they correct their mistakes.  Bull!  I have lists here of lies and bias, some of these lies have never been corrected:

http://dtforpres.blogspot.com/2016/11/cnn-lies-multiple-times-to-help-hillary.html

A list from Twitter:



https://twitter.com/i/moments/876646515325980673
https://twitter.com/i/moments/876655943517384709
https://twitter.com/i/moments/876891388725645312

To conclude, another day, more proof of media bias.  These outlets will never change, so we have to keep exposing them.

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