On Saturday's CNN Newsroom, weekend anchor Fredricka Whitfield conspicuously made a point of including President Donald Trump in a brief she delivered about the legal problems of two former congressional Republicans.
Informing viewers that former New York Congressman Chris Collins was recently sentenced over an insider trading case, Whitfield made sure to remind viewers that Collins was the first member of Congress to endorse Trump for President.
Even though the early endorsement of Trump had nothing to do with the Collins case, the CNN anchor recounted:
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: The very first U.S. lawmaker to endorse President Trump is sentenced to 26 months behind bars. Former Congressman Chris Collins set to go to prison in March after pleading guilty to federal charges in an insider trading case. The New York Republican admitted to sharing non-public information with his son relating to a drug company they were invested in.
She added: "The court saying Collins betrayed his duty before slapping him with a $200,000 fine and a year of supervised probation. Collins resigned in September before pleading guilty."
Whitfield then brought up the recent resignation of former California Congressman Duncan Hunter, noting that he also endorsed Trump early on: "And President Trump's second backer in Congress, Duncan Hunter of California, just resigned on Monday. He has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to misuse campaign funds."
While the CNN anchor working Trump into the two stories was probably meant to hint that corrupt politicians are more likely to want to support President Trump politically, one could also speculate over whether their political views might have attracted attention and led investigators to look more closely at them to explain such a coincidence.
