Appearing on FNC’s Special Report With Bret Baier Tuesday evening, Real Clear Politics President Tom Bevan slammed the leftist media for an “absolutely glaring” double standard when it came to the stunning non-coverage of the Durham investigation findings versus how the same press spent years “running with far less” when it came to the phony Russian collusion narrative against Trump.
“Well, it depends on what you were looking at or what you were reading, how to interpret the results of the latest finding by John Durham in the investigation into the Trump Russia probe,” anchor Bret Baier noted as he introduced a panel discussion segment near the end of the show. Teeing up a montage of liberal media figures desperately trying to dismiss the story, he added: “However, the revelations did not sit well with some in the mainstream media. Some downplayed them, others just ignored them.”
The following series of soundbites ran:
KATELYN POLANTZ [CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER, NEW DAY]: This new wrinkle, it really is just a wrinkle, and it’s very vague. We’re still trying to get a sense of what the facts are here.
EVAN PEREZ [CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT, INSIDE POLITICS]: It does show the actual spying that Trump and others are saying it does.
TOM WINTER [MSNBC MORNING JOE]: If you’re gonna call it Watergate, it’s that the security guard at the Watergate, while being paid to do security to see just who was coming in. It doesn’t mean they were going through their briefcases, it doesn’t mean it was going through the files that they were bringing in.
JOE SCARBOROUGH [MSNBC MORNING JOE]: If what they did had been illegal, we would have had a charge.
Minutes later, Bevan hammered journalists from liberal outlets: “The media double standard here is absolutely glaring. As you mentioned, Bret, no time spent on any of the networks.” He called out how “The New York Times, The Washington Post didn’t even cover it until today, when they each spent about 1,500 words defending it, downplaying it, explaining why it wasn’t a big deal.”
He then pointed to the sharp contrast with the constant breathless reporting on supposed Russian collusion by Trump that turned out to be a fraud:
After we just spent years and years of the media running with far less. I mean, if this was any sort of filing regarding Donald Trump, it is all we would be hearing about from the media, day in and day out. And so that to me is the troubling issue here. The media has again revealed itself as putting their thumb on the scale for one side and not the other.
In response, Baier observed: “You know, it’s interesting to hear Democrats say...people care about more important things. But rewind the tape, you know, a few years to the early part of the Trump presidency, and it was all about the Russia investigation.”
Here is a transcript of the February 15 exchange:
6:52 PM ET
(...)
BRET BAIER: Well, it depends on what you were looking at or what you were reading, how to interpret the results of the latest finding by John Durham in the investigation into the Trump Russia probe. It is still coming out, we are still learning more. However, the revelations did not sit well with some in the mainstream media. Some downplayed them, others just ignored them.
KATELYN POLANTZ [CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER, NEW DAY]: This new wrinkle, it really is just a wrinkle, and it’s very vague. We’re still trying to get a sense of what the facts are here.
EVAN PEREZ [CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT, INSIDE POLITICS]: It does show the actual spying that Trump and others are saying it does.
TOM WINTER [MSNBC MORNING JOE]: If you’re gonna call it Watergate, it’s that the security guard at the Watergate, while being paid to do security to see just who was coming in. It doesn’t mean they were going through their briefcases, it doesn’t mean it was going through the files that they were bringing in.
JOE SCARBOROUGH [MSNBC MORNING JOE]: If what they did had been illegal, we would have had a charge.
(...)
TOM BEVAN [REAL CLEAR POLITICS]: The media double standard here is absolutely glaring. As you mentioned, Bret, no time spent on any of the networks. The New York Times, The Washington Post didn’t even cover it until today, when they each spent about 1,500 words defending it, downplaying it, explaining why it wasn’t a big deal. After we just spent years and years of the media running with far less. I mean, if this was any sort of filing regarding Donald Trump, it is all we would be hearing about from the media, day in and day out. And so that to me is the troubling issue here. The media has again revealed itself as putting their thumb on the scale for one side and not the other.
BAIER: Tom, how does this poll? You know, it’s interesting to hear Democrats say – and we had Congressman [Adam] Smith [D-WA] on last night saying, you know, people care about more important things. But rewind the tape, you know, a few years to the early part of the Trump presidency, and it was all about the Russia investigation.
(...)
