After Thursday's network evening newscasts ignored a report from the Government Accountability Office that the exchange of five terrorists from Guantanamo Bay for Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was illegal, NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America remained silent on the Obama administration scandal on Friday. Only CBS This Morning made any mention of the violation of federal law, providing a mere 24-second news brief on the topic. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Meanwhile, both Today and GMA did find time to produce full reports on a contestant on VH1's Dating Naked reality show suing the cable network for showing her naked on the program.
GMA skipping the illegality of the Bergdahl exchange was particularly embarrassing given that ABC did include the story in the news crawl at the bottom of the screen during the morning show.
On CBS This Morning, fill-in co-host Jeff Glor reported:
The Pentagon broke the law in getting Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl back, according to a new report this morning. The Government Accountability Office says Defense officials didn't give Congress enough notice of the swap of Taliban members for the U.S. prisoner of war. It also says the DoD used nearly a million dollars in unapproved money to make that transfer. Republicans say the report is proof that President Obama knowingly violated the law.
While CBS at least noted the GAO finding, the morning show provided more time – 40 seconds – to showing a time lapse video of President Obama aging while in office.
