On Wednesday's CNN Tonight, during a discussion of sexual harassment accusations against GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, host Don Lemon at one point cited a dubious fact check by PolitiFact -- which sometimes engages in dodgy analysis at the expense of conservatives in spite of being touted as an unbiased group.
When right-leaning CNN political commentator and Trump supporter Corey Lewandowski brought up the audio recordings of Hillary Clinton as a young attorney laughing about successfully helping a child rapist avoid justice --whom she knew to be guilty -- in part because of mistakes made by the prosecution, Lemon jumped in to cite PolitiFact as he claimed that the accusation "has been rated completely false," and at one point even seemed to suggest that the audiotape proving Clinton laughed was "doctored." Lemon began:
I'm glad you brought that up because the accusation from Donald Trump and from the surrogates by PolitiFact has been rated completely false. She never laughed at the young lady. She was a court-appointed attorney, and she was basically a legal aide. The PolitiFact and all the fact checks show that your claim -- meaning a surrogate, not you specifically -- and Donald Trump is false. And if you want to, you can look at it."
Lemon and Lewandowski spent the next minute and a half arguing back and forth, with liberal CNN commentator Maria Cardona jumping in a few times to side with Lemon.
But the PolitiFact analysis cited by the CNN host is blatantly misleading as it singles out a statement by Trump that Clinton was heard laughing "at" the girl who was the victim in the case, and tries to argue that Clinton was merely laughing about the flaws in the case which helped the perpetrator evade the punishment he could have received, and rated Trump's claim as "false."
The PolitiFact article buries the two critical portions of the recording where Clinton sounded amused and laughed about a guilty man managing to evade justice as the fact checking group earlier in the article spends time recalling irrelevant laughter by the interviewer, journalist Roy Reed, which is not at issue.
When the group does address the two critical pieces of Clinton's laughter near the end of the article, it dismisses it as not being laughter "at" the victim per se, even though this would not be an unreasonable characterization by Clinton critics since she was laughing about the victim's attacker evading punishment, which implicitly still amounts to being amused at the victim's expense.
Lost in the analysis is that most normal people would be horrified that such a violent criminal evaded justice and would not be amused about having a hand in helping him avoid the punishment he deserved.
Last May, CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 notably aired a report which included the critical audio of Clinton laughing.
PolitiFact also only notes that Clinton "aggressively defended the man and did file motions questioning the victim's credibility" near the article's end right before rendering its "false" ruling on Trump's statement.
Below is a complete transcript of the relevant portion of the Wednesday, October 12, CNN Tonight:
10:24 p.m. ET
COREY LEWANDOWSKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Maria says Mr. Trump's work over 40 years and the women that he's employed has no ramifications, well, then, let's look at Hillary Clinton's job as a defense attorney where she defended a rapist and accused a 12-year-old girl of seeking an older man out to have sex-
MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That has nothing to do with any of this.DON LEMON: I'm glad you brought that up because the accusation from Donald Trump and from the surrogates by PolitiFact has been rated completely false.
CARDONA: Yes, absolutely-
LEMON: She never laughed at the young lady. She was a court-appointed attorney, and she was basically a legal aide. The PolitiFact and all the fact checks show that your claim -- meaning a surrogate, not you specifically -- and Donald Trump is false. And if you want to, you can look at it.
LEWANDOWSKI: Don, the audiotape clearly has her laughing on two occasions.
LEMON: They also mention the audiotape, and they say the audiotape is false as well.
CARDONA: They go through the audiotape, Corey.
LEWANDOWSKI: So the audiotape isn't accurate?
LEMON: Yeah, it's a false accusation.
LEWANDOWSKI: It's a doctored audiotape? Is that what we're saying?
CARDONA: It's a false accusation in terms of what it was she was laughing at.
LEMON: Yeah, it's a false accusation, Corey. It's not the truth.
LEWANDOWSKI: No. What she's laughing at is the fact that -
LEMON: It's not even clear that it's her on the audiotape.
LEWANDOWSKI: It's absolutely her on the audiotape. There's no equivocation about what she said.
LEMON: I would tell our viewers to go listen to it, but I have to tell you that-
LEWANDOWSKI: That's like saying it's not Donald Trump on the Howard Stern tape. He hasn't authorized that.
LEMON: If anyone would fact check the Howard Stern tape, I'm sure that they would find that it would be true. Donald Trump has not disputed it.
LEWANDOWSKI: Hillary Clinton has not disputed that that's her on the audiotape.
LEMON: Every fact check has said that this is not (inaudible) true.
LEWANDOWSKI: So are you saying that that is not Hillary Clinton on that audiotape?
LEMON: It's saying she's not lying -- she's not laughing, rather --- and she did not- (inaudible)
CARDONA: That she's not laughing at the accuser.
LEMON: Your accusations are false.
CARDONA: That's not what is happening.
LEWANDOWSKI: She's absolutely laughing.
CARDONA: That is not true, Corey.
LEWANDOWSKI: She's laughing about the fact that the defendant that she represented beat a lie detector.
LEMON: Corey, I'm just saying to you, the facts are the facts.
LEWANDOWSKI: The facts are she laughed (inaudible)-
LEMON: Facts can't be interpreted. Facts are facts.
LEWANDOWSKI: (inaudible) -absolutely true.
CARDONA: That is not true. Anyway, none of that-
LEMON: I've got to let you go. Thank you very much.
