Corporate media mostly sidestepping Russiagate revelations for torrent of Trump-Epstein coverage

CNN and MSNBC covered President Donald Trump’s alleged ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein more than four times as often as they covered revelations from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard regarding the “Russiagate” scandal since July 18, a Daily Caller News Foundation review found.

Gabbard released documents and a memo July 18 detailing what she called a “years-long coup” against Trump begun during the Obama administration after he defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. In the week since then, while CNN and MSNBC have mentioned the terms “Russia,” “Gabbard” and “Obama” a combined total of 1,848 times, many of those segments either platformed critics of Gabbard’s decision to release the documents or to defend claims that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in 2016, according to a keyword search of footage archived by Grabien News as of 10:00 a.m. EDT Friday.

By contrast, Epstein was mentioned 8,101 times by CNN and MSNBC in that same timeframe following a July 17 Wall Street Journal report about a “bawdy” birthday greeting Trump allegedly sent the disgraced financier for his 50th birthday. Trump announced he’d filed suit against The Wall Street Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, on July 18 over the article.

In one case, during Wednesday’s episode of “Anderson Cooper 360,” guest host John Berman brought on former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to claim that Gabbard was engaging in “a massive distraction technique” intended to draw attention away from the controversy over the Epstein files.

WATCH:

“This is not information. This is propaganda. This entire thing is, as you said, a massive distraction technique,” McCabe claimed. “When the conspiracy theory about legions of powerful Democrats who are in league with Jeffrey Epstein is now not working for them, they go back to the greatest hit of all time, which is what the Russians did in 2016 and how, you know, what — our investigation to try to preserve the integrity of a U.S. presidential election is somehow a personal insult to Donald Trump.”

“Tulsi Gabbard is simply an opportunist in this play, right? She — her star is falling. Her analysis was thrown out the window on Iran,” McCabe added. “She embarrassed herself with that — that somewhat bizarre video about nuclear weapons in Japan. And so she’s using this as an opportunity to get herself back into favor with the White House. That’s my personal assessment.”

Gabbard spoke at a White House press briefing Wednesday, where she announced she had sent the Justice Department a criminal referral involving former President Barack Obama.

CNN cut away from the White House press briefing Wednesday, with reporter Jeff Zeleny later complaining on-air that the network should not be covering Gabbard’s revelations.

In another Wednesday appearance on CNN, McCabe told “CNN News Central” co-host Brianna Keilar and guest co-host Jim Sciutto that Gabbard’s criminal referral of former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey was “ridiculous.”

Special counsel John Durham released a report May 15, 2023, on the origins of the FBI investigation of allegations that Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia that found that the FBI “did not and could not corroborate” the claims from the now-discredited Steele Dossier, which was used to obtain warrants to monitor communications by Carter Page and other associates of Trump.

In some of its mentions regarding Epstein, MSNBC hinted that Trump was up to something nefarious. Norm Eisen said Thursday Trump was seeking to have Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche meet with Ghislaine Maxwell to keep “what Donald Trump may or may not have done” under wraps during an appearance on “The Beat with Ari Melber.”

On Wednesday, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace led off the day’s episode of “Deadline: White House” with discussions about a Wall Street Journal report that claimed Trump had been advised his name turned up in the Epstein files. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung called the WSJ report “fake news.”

MSNBC and CNN did not respond to requests for comment from the DCNF.

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