CNN on Tuesday freaked out over the Trump White House hiring Joseph diGenova, repeatedly dismissing the lawyer as a “conspiracy theorist.” In contrast, CNN in 2013 hired Van Jones as a host, a man who resigned from the Obama White House amidst connections to the 9/11 truther movement.
On CNN Newsroom, reporter Abby Phillip alarmingly explained to viewers:
This addition of a new lawyer, Joseph diGenova, is someone who is known in Washington circles as being a pretty strident presence. On television, he appears on cable often. He also controversially is someone who has put forward this conspiracy theory that the President somewhat subscribes to which is that the FBI and senior officials at the DOJ are essentially trying to frame the President with this Russia investigation.
Co-host Christine Romans alerted: “President Trump shaking up his legal team by adding an attorney who is pushing conspiracy theories that the Justice Department framed the President.”
CNN legal analyst Paul Callan called the hiring a “shocking development,” describing diGenova as a “a bomb thrower who says there’s a deep state conspiracy out to get Trump.”
All this worry from CNN came in just the 9am hour.
In 2009, Van Jones was Barack Obama’s green jobs czar. Fox News revealed that Jones had allegedly signed a 9/11 truther petition in 2004. The Weekly Standard reported on further connections stretching back to 2002. In September of 2009, Jones resigned as a result of the controversy.
Yet, in 2013, CNN hired Jones. Maybe the network isn’t in the best position to freak out about conspiracy theories. (In a related note, MSNBC for years employed 9/11 truther Toure.)
A partial transcript is below. Click "expand" to read more.
CNN Newsroom
3/20/18
9:22
ABBY PHILLIP: This addition of new lawyer, Joseph diGenova is someone who is known in Washington circles as being a pretty strident presence. On television, he appears on cable often. He also controversially is someone who has put forward this conspiracy theory that the President somewhat subscribes to which is that the FBI and senior officials at the DOJ are essentially trying to frame the president with this Russia investigation. All this makes him a fairly controversial figure but also someone who seems to be much more aggressive presence in the Trump legal team.
...
9:23
PAUL CALLAN (CNN legal analyst): I think it’s really a shocking development because on the one hand, you have his current — the president's current lawyers cooperating with Mueller, maybe scoping out allowing the President to give testimony. But if you put diGenova on this team. This guy is a bomb thrower who says there’s a deep state conspiracy out to get Trump, that the FBI is part of that conspiracy, the Department of Justice is part of that conspiracy.
9:26
CALLAN: To throw somebody in the front who is a lawyer, whose position is it's a deep state conspiracy to frame the president while you are trying to frame the President, while you ate trying to cooperate — remember, Dowd and Ty Cobb are trying to present the public image that the president has nothing to hide, he's being totally cooperative with the investigators. That's a mixed message.
9:48
CHRISTINE ROMANS: President Trump shaking up his legal team by adding an attorney who is pushing conspiracy theories that the Justice Department framed the president.
