For nearly two years, CNN eagerly offered itself up as a platform for House Democrat Adam Schiff and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to claim there was “significant evidence” of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. But after the May 7 release of transcripts in which numerous top-level Obama officials admitted they’d seen no evidence of collusion, CNN should be embarrassed by their cozy relationship with Schiff and others who strung the liberal cable network along for 22 months.
Clapper himself was among the officials interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee. On July 17, 2017, the former DNI admitted under oath: “I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle in the election.”
That remark stands in stark contrast to Clapper’s comments on the February 8, 2019 edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, where he was asked whether he thought the President might be working on behalf of Russia instead of the U.S. Then, the former DNI sounded a far more sinister note: “Well, it’s a reasonable question.”
Clapper wasn’t the only former Obama official to abruptly stop pointing fingers at Trump once he was under oath. As NewsBusters previously pointed out, former Obama Defense official Evelyn Farkas went from accusing Trump of collusion on MSNBC to admitting to the House panel: “I knew nothing.”
Former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice also couldn’t recall any evidence of collusion when she was interviewed by the House committee in September, 2017: “I don’t recall intelligence that I would consider evidence to that effect, that I saw prior — of conspiracy, prior to my departure.”
Neither could former Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch a month later: “I don’t recall anything being briefed up to me, and it’s just my recollection, at this point, is not.”
Former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes pled ignorance during his interview with the committee in October, 2017. When asked if he’d seen anything “concrete” indicating coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia other than just his “educated opinion,” Rhodes demurred: “I would not have that information.”
The interview with fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe revealed that at the time the FBI began spying on George Papadopoulos in his capacity as a Trump campaign official, they did not believe he was even in contact with the Russian government: “Papadopoulos’ comment didn’t particularly indicate that he was the person that had had—that was interacting with the Russians.”
Schiff, as the ranking Democrat on the committee, knew about all of these officials’ testimony as he went on CNN to assert “you can see evidence in plain sight on the issue of collusion.” And as the following video shows, “Facts First” CNN eagerly accepted all of it:
