The PBS Friday night journalist roundtable show Washington Week sounded like State-Run TV as guest host Laura Barron-Lopez touted the “revealing and damning” Trump indictment by Biden’s Justice Department. It was the only topic for the half-hour. She methodically repeated the White House spin as her own take:
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, GUEST HOST: And the Justice Department has been extremely careful to show how independent they are. This is a special counsel investigation, which even adds other level of independence from the Justice Department. The Justice Department is saying, we`re not talking to the White House about this. What has President Biden said so far?
Keep in mind that one way Biden can prevent public comment on the Justice Department is by avoiding the press, and the press can avoid the entire question of the Department’s independence by treating the idea as blatantly obvious, beyond question as LBL does here. Ed O’Keefe of CBS answered her bland inquiry with more Biden PR:
O’KEEFE: Oh, as little as he can. He was asked about it just hours before the former president announced the indictment, saying, 'What would you say to those who are concerned that the Justice Department is being used for political means?' And he pointed out that throughout his presidency, he has never once, publicly or otherwise, criticized or weighed in on a potential charge of somebody involved in Justice Department matters, and arguing sort of indirectly that that's exactly what Donald Trump used to do.
He had politicized the department. He had fired various personnel for making decisions that he didn't disagree with -- or that he didn't agree with, and Biden has done the opposite. We know that in this case, they learned about it through media reports, that the president was not given a heads-up. Nobody at the White House was. Nobody ever is. Whenever there's some new Trump legal matter, we always go back and ask, 'Did you guys get a heads-up?' They always say, 'No, we learned about it from you guys.' And they have gone to great lengths over the course of this administration to keep senior Justice Department officials literally and figuratively out of the White House and to keep the communication between them above board as much as possible and focused on loftier political goals that have nothing to do with the legal work that they continue to do.”
President Obama also had a habit of claiming "we learned it from you guys" on scandal matters. Everyone should factor in a very different media under Trump, constantly suggesting every Trump attorney general was extremely partisan and in Trump's back pocket. They protect and repeat Biden. They savaged Trump. So media behavior affects White House behavior.
O’Keefe then blandly mentioned Biden’s “own son” (without using the name Hunter Biden) is under investigation, making it “more awkward” if Biden ever talked to Garland about such things, “which he simply has not done.” Notice how blindly these supposedly cynical reporters accept everything Team Biden says at face value.
PS: Journalists have tenderly noted in public Biden's frustration with Garland. On April 2, 2022, The New York Times reported Garland was too independent, or too “deliberative,” enough “to frustrate Democratic allies of the White House and, at times, President Biden himself.” They signaled Biden confided to his inner circle that Trump “was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, according to two people familiar with his comments. And while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.”
This PBS roundtable of Biden repeaters was brought to you in part by Consumer Cellular...and by Republican taxpayers.
