The struggling CNN spent all prime time ignoring John Durham’s investigation that tore into the FBI for launching a baseless probe into Donald Trump’s allegations of collusion with Russia.
The network’s two highest-profile late-night shows — Primetime and Anderson Cooper 360 — each failed to mention the special counsel’s investigation in two hours of programming.
CNN was among the liberal media obsessed with the Trump-Russia collusion allegations when they first emerged, with the since-fired former anchor Don Lemon saying the infamous Steele dossier had been partly substantiated.
Cooper led his show tonight discussing the war in Ukraine.
He also referred to Alzheimer’s disease and an intruder breaking into the Washington DC home of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
Later, Primetime host Sara Snider discussed President Biden cutting short a foreign trip and interviewed former Trump adviser Steve Cortes.
Struggling CNN spent all prime time ignoring John Durham’s investigation that debunked heavily covered and deemed baseless claims that Russia was interfering in the 2016 presidential election
The network’s two highest-profile nighttime shows — Primetime and Anderson Cooper 360 — failed to mention the special counsel’s investigation in two hours of programming.
Trump’s behavior on January 6 was discussed in passing – but there was no mention of Monday’s report criticizing the FBI for launching an investigation into the 45th president’s dealings with Russia on the thinnest of pretexts. No evidence of collusion has ever been found.
It comes just after CNN’s primetime lineup was beaten by Newsmax on Friday, according to The daily beast.
The network averaged 335,000 viewers on Friday night — two days after scoring a victory after airing Trump’s town hall — during prime time between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Newsmax, in the same timeslot, drew 357,000 viewers.
Monday’s news saw the network still at a very low 485,000, though at least they beat Newsmax’s 420,000 in prime time.
CNN’s declines come despite Fox News dropping to second place and viewers hemorrhaging following the firing of Tucker Carlson. MSNBC defeated right-wing Fox prime time Monday night.
The investigation contains fresh embarrassment for The Gray Lady and The Washington Post, both of which won Pulitzers for their reporting on the saga.
And the left-leaning networks and newspapers that swallowed the fabricated stories linking Trump to the Kremlin and Steele’s salacious record are now facing renewed fury.
Durham highlights a December 2017 Times report, which claimed that in May 2016 George Papadopoulos, a junior foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump, “made a startling revelation” to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain.
Namely: “Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton” and “Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton”.
The network, which saw strong but still below-expectation ratings for its controversial town hall with former President Donald Trump, two days later was beaten by Fox News, MSNBC and even Newsmax in the ratings.
New York Times and Washington Post staffers (left to right: Maggie Haberman, Jo Becker, Matt Apuzzo, Rosalind Helderman, Tom Hamburger, Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous, Greg Miller and Mark Mazzetti) accept the 2018 Pulitzer Prize from national reporting by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger
Former NYT editor Dean Baquet came under fire in a scathing review of the paper’s coverage of the Trump-Russia saga by the Columbia Journalism Review.
A report by special counsel John Durham discredits a dossier by an ex-British spy that has been gobbled up by the media, including the NYT and the Washington Post
Yet the Australian diplomat in question – Alexander Downer – told the Durham inquiry that “Papadopoulos made no mention of the Clinton emails, the dirt or any specific Russian government approaches to the Trump campaign. “.
In fact, Durham found Papadopoulos’ information so unsurprising that officers immediately dismissed it.
But the NYT report was key to triggering the FBI’s investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia, which the Durham report said should never have been launched.
It has fueled calls for the Pulitzers to return, after the awards board rejected calls for them to be rescinded last year.
Ted Cruz, Trump’s former rival, tweeted on Monday: “Accountability now – starting with WaPo and the New York Times returning their Pulitzer Prizes for breathlessly propagating those ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ lies.”
Durham’s inquest comes on the heels of an excoriating report from the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), which took aim at The Times for its coverage of the Trump-Russia saga.
The CJR, the in-house publication of America’s most prestigious school of journalism, has spent 18 months digging into media reports about Trump’s alleged ties to Russia.
The report contained criticism of the media as a whole, but author Jeff Gerth reserved particular contempt for the Times.
The investigative reporter presented his findings saying he believed the newspaper had damaged his credibility outside of his “own bubble”.
Renowned journalist Bob Woodward told him that coverage of the Russia investigation “wasn’t handled well”.
