Fox News can’t avoid the big news that Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, has been indicted. But the “news” network is nonetheless helping Trump distance himself from Manafort and promote the false impression that the indictment has nothing to do with the Trump campaign.
It’s true that today’s indictments (Manafort’s associate, Rick Gates, was also charged) are not related to any work on the Trump campaign. But they certainly raise questions about Trump’s association with Manafort. From the New York Times (all emphases below are mine):
The 12 criminal charges against Mr. Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates did not bear directly on Mr. Trump, but the 31-page indictment essentially alleged that the president’s onetime top lieutenant was secretly a highly paid agent for pro-Russian foreign interests.
[…]
While the indictment of Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates did not touch directly on collusion, it made clear that the two were paid tens of millions of dollars over years leading up to the campaign by Ukrainian political leaders allied with Russia and that their efforts to defraud continued through their time with the campaign until early this year.
Furthermore, the Times notes, despite being dismissed from the campaign in August 2016, Manafort remained in contact with the White House even after the inauguration.
Nicholas Kristof wrote in a different article in today’s today's Times:
[Manafort’s] reputation in the political world was less about his political brilliance than about his ties to Russia and Ukraine (including some of the most corrupt people there) and his general shadiness. It’s said that Jared Kushner was among those advocating to hire Manafort, so the obvious question is: Why?
Maybe there simply wasn’t adequate vetting, even though news organizations quickly found problems that led to Manafort’s firing. But the inclination to hire someone so close to Moscow does raise questions about the Trump inner circle’s predilection to hire someone linked to Russia and Ukraine.
Meanwhile, in a separate development, it was also revealed today that a foreign policy advisor to the campaign, George Papadopoulos, plead guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with a professor tied to the Kremlin.
But on the FoxNews.com homepage, which provides something of an overview of Fox’s reportage, the emphasis is all about distancing Trump from Manafort.
In the first screen grab from FoxNews.com, below, the headline deceptively validates Trump’s claim that the Manafort indictment is only related to activity from over a decade ago. The subtitle reads, “The president fired back on Monday in an attempt to distance his White House from the Manafort and Gates indictments, noting their crimes were committed 'years' before they worked on the campaign.” (I apologize for the fuzziness of the image.)
In fact, the indictment states that it’s related to activity “from approximately 2006 through at least 2016.”
You can see that the first screen grab was taken during the Outnumbered show which airs between 12-1 ET. The second grab, below, came later, during the White House press briefing. Fox was still deceptively promoting Trump’s false claim that the crimes were committed long before the campaign. But now, Fox added the Trump talking point about a “‘Crooked Hillary’ investigation.”
So far, from what I’ve seen on TV, Fox has not hit on a consistent message about the indictments. And that is reflected in the most recent screen grab, taken at 2:40 PM ET:
The real question is how Fox's prime time shows, all pro-Trump opinion shows, will cover this. Stay tuned!
Donald Trump caricature by DonkeyHotey.
Tucker Carlson already spent the first half of his show repeatedly trying to make the discussion about Tony Podesta, including an insinuation that Podesta is issuing “threats” to him about his slanderous coverage of the Podestas. (I note that Podesta had his lawyer draft a Cease & Desist letter, and did not file the multimillion dollar SLAPP suits filed by Carlson’s friends Eric Bolling and Bill O’Reilly). One of Tucker’s explosive exclusives was his interview with discredited Hard Right congressman Dana Rohrbacher, in which the congressman frantically lied about the contents of the Manafort indictment today. Rohrbacher repeatedly said that the indictment only covers activity from years before he was involved with the campaign – and as noted, that’s a bald faced lie.
Sean Hannity is spending much of his show in a rabid, hysterical tantrum at the “unfairness” of Paul Manafort and insisting he is the only person in the world watching out for justice. He all but demanded his audience riot in the streets over how awful it is that the Clintons haven’t been indicted and frog marched yet.
Generations from now, children will be taught about The Day of the Great Unwinding.