New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters arrived on the scene of Monday’s Morning Joe to continue propagating the mainstream media narrative denying that James Comey has made contradictory statements regarding alleged interference by the Trump administration in the Russia investigation. Despite the then-FBI Director testifying before Congress in May that he had not experienced any political attempt to squash the inquiry, Peters argued it was "fake news" to point out that fact.
The liberal journalist feared that such stories were being "weaponized" by the right. He smugly declared later that, “there is such a willingness on the right to discredit and excuse away any type of criticism of Donald Trump...that they will latch on to almost anything.”
The full interview between Peters and the Morning Joe hosts went as follows:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Jeremy Peters, your latest piece for The New York Times is entitled "A Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theorist, a False Tweet and a Runaway Story." Tell us about what you're reporting on.
JEREMY PETERS: Well, one of the more interesting developments in the Comey/Russia investigation denial on the right is this weaponization of fake news. And this is something that we may kind of tend to brush off to the side and say, oh, it's just a bunch of crazy people on Facebook sharing these stories, but actually it's a much broader and more important and effective phenomenon than you realize because where you have in this one instance here is this guy by the name of Jack Posobiec who, probably, many of us have never even heard of, but with this one fake tweet about what Comey said in the hearing, Jack Posobiec set off this chain reaction in the fake news disinformation ecosystem that basically led to a story that would appear on Fox News and be read aloud by Rush Limbaugh that said Comey exonerates Donald Trump.
Now, Comey had done no such thing. He was responding to this question in his testimony back in May about whether or not the attorney general or the justice department had ever asked him to stop an investigation. Comey said no. So these right-wing bloggers and pro-Trump activists and they're not shy, by the way, about being po-Trump and that's what's interesting here is that they are working on his behalf to undermine the main street media story line, the truth about these stories involving Trump and the investigation.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, why do some of these radio hosts follow these people down the rabbit trail? The rat hole?
PETERS: Because it's what they want to believe. That's what's so, I think, so strange and unsettling about all of this Joe, is that there is such a willingness on the right to discredit and excuse away any type of criticism of Donald Trump or any kind of culpability that he or his associates may have in this Russia investigation that they will latch on to almost anything. You were asking earlier about will conservatives ever come around and say something is amiss here. This guy has really gone off the tracks. Well, not when they’re clinging to information like this, fake, discredited stories. And that's what you're seeing, is it's a huge disinformation campaign.
Really? Conservatives are the one conducting a disinformation campaign right now while clinging to fake, discredited stories? Which paper was it again that James Comey was referring to when he said, “The challenge — and I’m not picking on reporters — about writing stories about classified information is that people talking about it often don’t really know what is going on.” Just some food for thought.
