Hours before former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate on the FBI Investigation into Russia, ABC was already predicting how the hearing was going to play out. On Thursday’s Good Morning America, ABC set up Comey as a man who could be trusted, no question, conveniently forgetting how much he was criticized by both sides for his handling of the Russia investigation and Hillary Clinton’s email investigation.
By contrast, anchor George Stephanopoulos urged, President Trump couldn’t be trusted.
After multiple reports on the upcoming Comey hearing, Stephanopoulos spoke with analyst Matthew Dowd. The first question he asked Dowd presumed Trump’s guilt and lack of credibility:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Matt Dowd, the president faces this hearing coming into a very very tough political position. His approval numbers continue to fall. He is not trusted on this issue.
Dowd followed up by touting Trump’s low approval ratings compared to past Republican presidents who were under investigation.
Well, the difference between Donald Trump today and where Richard Nixon was when the start of Watergate and where Ronald Reagan was in the start of Iran Contra, both those presidents were 60% plus approval ratings. Donald Trump is in the mid 30s.
Dowd then dismissed the fact that there’s no proof that the Trump Administration colluded with Russia, saying that their “fingerprints” were enough proof. The ABC analyst then compared Comey to the fictional character Sergeant Joe Friday from Dragnet whose famous catchphrase, “Just the facts, Maam,” set his reputation as an untainted, by-the-book type of guy.
Yeah, I think we're about to see. I mean, as Dan said, there may not be a smoking gun in this but there's fingerprints, shell casings and powder burns, and Sergeant Friday is about to testify today and present just the facts.
The media has been salivating for this moment all week, spending hours and hours reporting on what could potentially happen. ABC, like the other two networks, set up this testimony as another Watergate, before playing a roundup of other famous testimonies before Congress. Of course, NBC completely bypassed Bill Clinton’s infamous Monica Lewinsky testimony, while the other two networks focused heavily on Republican controversies only.
This biased segment from ABC was brought to you by Prudential, Macy’s and McDonalds.
