On his MSNBC show Tuesday afternoon, MTP Daily host Chuck Todd acknowledged the bombshell news from the John Durham investigation but promptly attempted to dismiss evidence of the Hillary Clinton campaign spying on Donald Trump as just something being promoted by “the right-wing echo chamber.” He later sneered: “Sometimes facts get in the way of a good meme.”
After briefly reminding viewers – or more likely telling many of them for the first time – that Durham “is the former U.S. Attorney that has been a holdover from the Barr Justice Department to the Garland Justice Department to finish up sort of his probe of how the Russian probe was conducted,” Todd whined: “A filing was made regarding a – I guess a perjury charge....and this filing has obviously taken off on the right-wing echo chamber to say something that it is not.”
Correspondent Tom Winter immediately tried to downplay the potentially massive scandal: “Well, there’s an analogy that’s being thrown around that this is a modern-day Watergate and that’s an analogy that’s not based on fact....Durham doesn’t allege that at all.”
Winter then attempted to claim that the 2016 Clinton campaign’s spying on the Trump campaign and presidency were really no big deal:
What he essentially says is that somebody who was acting as a gatekeeper, think an external security guard company who would be working at the Watergate, somebody who would be checking people coming in and out, would simply be noting who was coming in and out. And then, while they were doing that job, they were also getting paid or also perhaps potentially, according to Durham, providing some of that information to a third party, in this case, an tech executive who passed that information along to an individual who’d done business with the Clinton campaign.
Amazingly, neither he nor Todd thought that kind of surveillance by one’s political opponents was in any way disturbing or unusual.
Instead, Winter tried to reassure everyone by touting how there was not yet any evidence of wiretapping: “Nowhere in this filing, and you can be assured that there would be vans and busloads of people arrested, does it suggest that the President’s communications or anybody in the White House’s communications were intercepted or read.”
Apparently MSNBC thinks anything just short of that is fine.
Todd sarcastically chimed in: “Well, we will see. Sometimes facts get in the way of a good meme. And that can be problematic on social media.”
Appearing on Morning Joe earlier in the day, Winter participated in a panel discussion in which co-host Joe Scarborough mocked “stupid” people daring to cover the story.
This attempt to squash the Durham news after barely reporting it in the first place was brought to viewers by Progressive. You can fight back by letting this advertiser know what you think of it sponsoring such content.
Here is a full transcript of the February 15 segment that only amounted to less than two minutes:
1:33 PM ET (1:33:51 - 1:35:43, 1 min 52 sec)
(...)
CHUCK TODD: Let me move to the updates of the Durham probe. Durham is the former U.S. Attorney that has been a holdover from the Barr Justice Department to the Garland Justice Department to finish up sort of his probe of how the Russian probe was conducted, is probably the best way to describe that.
TOM WINTER: Right.
TODD: A filing was made regarding a – I guess a perjury charge that they have that they’re going – and this filing has obviously taken off on the right-wing echo chamber to say something that it is not. Tell us what it is and tell us what it isn’t.WINTER: Right. Well, there’s an analogy that’s being thrown around that this is a modern-day Watergate and that’s an analogy that’s not based on fact. So when you look at what Durham says, and I’m merely representing what Durham says, the analogy that some have said that this involves Watergate and spying and people breaking into things, Durham doesn’t allege that at all.
What he essentially says is that somebody who was acting as a gatekeeper, think an external security guard company who would be working at the Watergate, somebody who would be checking people coming in and out, would simply be noting who was coming in and out. And then, while they were doing that job, they were also getting paid or also perhaps potentially, according to Durham, providing some of that information to a third party, in this case, an tech executive who passed that information along to an individual who’d done business with the Clinton campaign.
Nowhere in this filing, and you can be assured that there would be vans and busloads of people arrested, does it suggest that the President’s communications or anybody in the White House’s communications were intercepted or read. And I think that’s an important distinction as we continue to follow this, Chuck.
TODD: Well, we will see. Sometimes facts get in the way of a good meme. And that can be problematic on social media. Tom Winter with the facts.
(...)
