When her Trumper guest acknowledged that Donald Trump’s alleged knowledge and approval of his campaign’s meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer was not a good look for Dear Leader, host Laura Ingraham quickly interrupted to change the subject to Hillary Clinton.
In her discussion about the news, broken by CNN in the previous hour, Ingraham got right to attacking CNN. She claimed the network had ignored “the important nugget” in its own “breathless” coverage of Michael Cohen’s claim about his former client; “To be clear, these sources said Cohen does not have evidence, such as audio recordings, to corroborate his claim, but he is willing to attest to his account.”
Ingraham seems to be correct that Cohen’s word, alone, will not prove useful to prosecutors. But combined with other evidence it could be quite damning, according to law professor Jed Shugerman. Nobody mentioned that during this segment.
The fact that Ingraham’s only guests to discuss this development were two Trumpers, Kimberley Strassel and Andrew McCarthy, each seemingly committed to undermining the Russia investigation, instead of some of the more neutral legal analysts she has previously hosted, speaks volumes.
McCarthy claimed that nothing will come out of Cohen’s claim. But he did acknowledge that it looked bad for Trump. That seemed to cause Ingraham to panic. Notice how McCarthy quickly took the hint. He made the disturbing claim that there’s nothing wrong with campaigns “turning to foreign governments for dirt.”
MCCARTHY: I’d be surprised if this links up to anything that’s serious in the way of collusion, like an espionage conspiracy, but look, the Trump Tower meeting is bad. It’s not collusion in the sense that they were, that they opened the investigation over but nobody’s, no one’s going to look good at this. -
INGRAHAM (interrupting): But Andy, Andy, Andy, hold on. Andy. As we talk about this, I think we forget Hillary Clinton paid for dirt that was assembled by the Russians in the form of the Steele dossier. So she actually went further than meeting with someone, her people paid for it. They got dirt and then it ended up making it all the way through the U.S. government. So it’s like a big deal.
MCCARTHY: Look Laura. No, I don’t think that it’s bad if campaigns are turning to foreign governments for dirt. It’s not collusion. It’s not something that’s impeachable. It’s icky. But that’s what this is.
Ingraham is a lawyer so she almost certainly knows full well the potentially harmful ramifications of Cohen’s allegation.
If Ingraham really thought the CNN report was a nothingburger, she would have been willing to explore it in a calmer fashion, with actual legal analysis and without sounding desperate to change the subject to Clinton.
Watch Ingraham’s inadvertent acknowledgment that the news was bad for Trump below, from the July 26, 2018 The Ingraham Angle.
Comrade Putin really is getting a very good return on his investment on his Deer Leeder. DEER LEEDER surrenders while apologizing on how bad USA is. Putin defeats USA without firing a shot in Helsinki. Cult45ers cheer Comrade Putin’s Puppet’s perfidy!!
The USA legal system is building solid cases for obstruction of justice, criminal conspiracy, high crimes, and misdemeanors. Cult45ers side with Comrade Putin’s Puppet AGAINST the rule of law, law and order, and the USA people.
‘We The People’ must stand up every day to save USA!