CNN has accused the Trump administration of possibly permitting a hit on a U.S. ambassador.
On this morning's New Day, CNN commentator Joe Lockhart (former Clinton press secretary) spouted the conspiracy theory that it was "possible, possible" that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo allowed "a Benghazi" against Marie Yovanovitch, who at the time was the US ambassador to Ukraine. Nothing ever happened to her.
It's an odd charge when CNN never thought "Benghazi" was much of a scandal...until now.
Lockhart was responding to a recent report that associates of Rudy Giuliani had been monitoring Yovanovitch's activities.
Far from challenging Lockhart on his inflammatory allegation, co-host John Berman meekly suggested in response that Pompeo "should certainly be pressed on it."
And note how co-host Alisyn Camerota teed up Lockhart to attack Pompeo, introducing the discussion by saying, "Joe, it just gets worse. It just gets worse."
Here's the transcript.
CNN
New Day
1/15/19
6:25 am ETALISYN CAMEROTA: Joe, it just gets worse. It just gets worse! Every week there is more evidence that comes out about this shadow [air quotes] diplomacy or whatever operation Rudy Giuliani was doing over in Ukraine. And this is particularly disturbing, these text messages that Kara Scannell just laid out. Let me just read some, because no wonder Marie Yovanovitch didn’t feel safe. When she testified that she — people were making threats. She started to feel unsafe. And when somebody told her to get on the plane now, she didn’t really ask questions. She got on a plane right then because she was so,
. . .
JOE LOCKHART: It’s unconscionable that Mike Pompeo allowed all this to go on. You have to believe that at some point, when he was read into all of this stuff, and he allowed--if you — I’m not saying that I know what these texts mean. You can read it one of two ways. Which is, they’re watching, or they’re planning to do harm! And after Mike Pompeo, you know, from the mountain top screamed about Benghazi and protecting our diplomats, it’s possible, possible that he was allowing a Benghazi in Ukraine and knew about it and perpetrated by Americans!
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