Fox’s Trish Regan spent more than five minutes smearing former FBI Director James Comey for the “crime” of making Glorious Leader Donald Trump look like a Mafia boss during testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday.
Fox News’ own Judge Andrew Napolitano said he was “concerned” for his “friend” Trump yesterday because Comey’s testimony was “far stronger, more credible and more damning” than Napolitano had expected.
But Fox Business host Regan apparently thought the more she slimed Comey the better Trump looked.
The guest roster, alone, was skanky and completely imbalanced. The “fair and balanced” lineup comprised frequent Fox guest (and obvious conservative) Lee Carter, right-winger Hans von Spakovsky and one progressive, Chris Hahn. Even worse, the panel also included fake “Democratic strategist” Harlan Hill, whom we previously outed as a Trump operative. But he was once again deceptively introduced on Fox as a Democrat.
Predictably, Regan was completely uninterested in how Comey’s testimony might have presented a prosecutable case of obstruction of justice. Instead, she seemed bound and determined to present Comey as the unscrupulous one.
After Von Spakovsky said Comey is “potentially in big trouble” for “leaking” a memo about his encounter with Trump (the prosecution of which would probably mean more trouble for Trump than Comey), Regan excitedly added her own condemnation:
REGAN: I don’t know if it is illegal or not but I’ll tell you one thing: it certainly seems a bit sleazy. It certainly seems as though we have a director of the FBI that knows exactly how the whole swamp thing works and has connections within the media and is getting his side, Harlan Hill, of the story out!
Surprise! Hill took Trump’s side and raised the smear level.
HILL: In one moment yesterday, he [Comey] destroyed this vision that he has tried to portray in Washington, that he’s a Boy Scout. That he’s a good doer. He is, as we’ve determined, the source of many of these leaks, and by his own admission.
That’s as much of a falsehood as Hill’s Democratic label. Comey admitted to releasing one memo, which was about the pressure he felt from Trump not to investigate former national security Michael Flynn. But, not surprisingly, Regan did not correct the record.
So Hill went on to baselessly suggest that Comey is some kind of traitor.
HILL: If he’s willing to admit that he’s leaked things to undermine the president, then what isn’t he willing to admit? That’s the question. Because we know, and President Trump has articulated, both in Twitter and in private and public conversations, that there is a real problem that is undermining his administration when it comes to these leakers. And it goes to the very top. And I suspect that Comey, if they’re to dig into this, is the source of many more of these leaks.
Hill obviously has no evidence of such a thing. But instead of pointing that out, Regan helped validate the baseless charge: “Do you wonder, maybe that was one of the reasons that he was, in fact, fired?” she “asked.”
Regan went on to suggest we should excuse Trump’s Mafia-style request for Comey’s “loyalty” and to blame Comey for getting so upset he made it public.
REGAN: Keep in mind that this is a president who – you know – kind of says things off the cuff in ways that we’re not entirely used to. For that reason, however, I think the American public’s willing to give him a little bit more rope than they are, say, James Comey who, frankly, should know better.
Hahn only had the opportunity to speak briefly but he delivered some real truth:
HAHN: I’m an attorney as well and I’ve worked on both sides of the criminal courts and for a judge. And let me just say, it’s often the tactic of somebody who is guilty to diminish the credibility of the person accusing him. What Jim Comey put out there was not privileged information. As soon as the president talked about that conversation, that conversation was public. And Jim Comey was correcting the record by sending out his contemporaneous notes.
Regan interrupted, saying there was a problem with Hahn’s microphone (though I heard him perfectly). Instead of responding to Hahn, she prodded Carter to attack Comey. “You can call up a reporter and do a sit-down interview and do this in the proper, full disclosure way and then there’s the James Comey way!" Regan sniped. "I just think it’s kind of a really, sort of scumbag thing to do!"
Carter agreed and upped the ante. She accused Comey of undermining the credibility of the FBI and called that “really, really frightening.”
Fake Democrat/real Trumper Hill jumped in to ridiculously justify Trump’s request for Comey’s loyalty, saying it meant, “’You’re not going to go behind my back and leak privileged conversations’ which Comey by his own admission has done." Hill added, "This expectation of loyalty is not something new. Every president asks that of his team.”
And Hill knows this, how? He seems never to have worked in a presidential administration.
Yet Trump is the third president Comey has served under and he specifically testified he had never been asked such a thing before by anyone.
Again, Regan did not challenge a word of Hill’s bogus claim.
But in all this demonization nobody disputed the truthfulness of Comey's testimony.
My written transcript can’t do justice to Regan’s giddy tone that must be heard for the full effect.
Watch it below, from the June 9, 2017 The Intelligence Report with Trish Regan on Fox Business Network. The first video below is of better quality. The second video includes the introduction of Hill as a “Democratic strategist” as well as more of this discussion.
Regan image via screen grab.
Trump will stand on a pedestal claiming he’s putting America first and to focus on what the minority of voters elected him to do. Fox will be leading the cheers when he does. You know it’s coming.
Did you know, for example, The Donald lying about the existence of tapes is a great, glorious, and wonderful thing? Yep. The brilliant negotiator Trump forced Comey to tell the truth on admitting he isn’t under investigation. Not that the curvy couch Trump sycophants can explain why Comey said all those other awful ‘lies’ about their bff.
GOPTV™ has always gone to great lengths to whitewash Republicans but Trump is such an extreme case it’s forcing Fox in to equally crazy propaganda. Very hard to watch.
Another real ‘tell’ for Fox is their employees’ willingness to promote real, actual lies. We all have leanings and these can make a difference in the way we interpret things, but the right (almost exclusively) consciously endorses outright lies and ridiculous distortions. I think, nay, I’m certain, that even with our instinctive idealogical leanings, we can be confident that we will be seen as being on the right side of history.