Maybe, as the meme says, Donald Trump really is "living rent-free in the heads of the media and liberals everywhere."
On Sunday's This Week show on ABC, show host Martha Raddatz read the presumptive GOP nominee's tweet wondering how the FBI could possibly not "recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton." Raddatz, while reading the full tweet, said, "against crooked Hillary Clinton." "Crooked" is Trump's favorite adjective to describe Mrs. Clinton, strangely not used in this instance, and which the press tries to avoid like the plague. Home video posted online from the show demonstrates that Raddatz indeed said "crooked." But the word "crooked" was deleted from an ABC affiliate's video retrieved Tuesday morning from Grabien.com, and is also no longer included in the official show video at ABC's web site.
Raddatz was speaking with Washington Post reporter Dan Balz, who criticized President Barack Obama for "having made a political decision to embrace her (Mrs. Clinton) fully at a time when the outcome of the investigation is still not known publicly."
Well, Dan, that's because he knew what the outcome would be. The outcome, announced Monday morning, was that there will no criminal indictment of Mrs. Clinton over her use of private servers (plural) and non-State Department email addresses, even though FBI Director Jim Comey admitted that she committed acts defined in the law as criminal.
It's at that point that Raddatz turned to Republican reaction, and went to the Trump tweet.
Here is the relevant home video excerpt captured Sunday (HT Gateway Pundit and Ann Althouse):
Here is what viewers now see and hear at the video obtained earlier today from Grabien.com, which indicates that it obtained the video from WJXX (ABC 25 Jacksonville):
Here, in sequence, are the original and scrubbed versions of Raddatz reading the tweet:
Here is Trump's original July 2 tweet:
Here is what Raddatz read:
ABC's official posted video of the full interview with Balz, as seen at the 2:50 mark below, has also purged the word "crooked" from what Raddatz said:
Here — for now — is the relevant portion of ABC's show transcript as of just before 2 p.m. Tuesday:
The reaction of Scott Adams:
As you know, Trump has branded Clinton as “crooked.” And that branding has stuck. If you doubt it, watch ABC’s Martha Raddatz literally imagine the word “crooked” in a Trump tweet she is reading about Clinton.
We appreciate the candid evaluation of Mrs. Clinton Raddatz inserted into her reading of Donald Trump's tweet. (That's sarcasm, folks.)
We don't appreciate ABC revising the historical record of what its reporter said to cover its leftist-loving, Donald Trump-despising keister.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
