The constant stream of controversies relating to Donald Trump and the FBI’s investigation into his aides’ links to Russia have not only caused problems for the president.

The reports of Trump’s alleged misconduct have also been seriously problematic for his traditional defenders in the rightwing media.

On Monday evening the Washington Post reported that Trump had shared classified intelligence with Russia’s foreign minister and US ambassador. Within hours numerous news organizations had confirmed the story for themselves.

It was the top story on most news websites (including this one) on Tuesday, and dominated cable news.

But rightwing sites told a different story.

Fox News, Breitbart and Drudge chose to lead with a highly contentious story about Seth Rich, a DNC staffer who was killed in July, allegedly having had contact with WikiLeaks before his death. (For months conspiracy theorists have been claiming – with scant evidence – that Rich leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks, and that that potentially contributed to his death.)

However dubious the tale, it represented a specific tactic by all three – to put an alternative story in front of their readers, thus playing down the relevance of the latest Russian revelations.

When the New York Times reported that Trump had asked then-FBI chief James Comey to drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Tuesday evening, it presented a similar problem.

But this time, rather than ignore the story, the Fox News channel lined up pundits and partisan show hosts to dismiss it. Jesse Watters, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity variously dismissed the Comey revelations as “a boring scandal” and an example of “hyperventilating” by the media.

Hannity devoted much of his 10pm show to the Rich-WikiLeaks story, despite NBC and CNN having debunked the story on Tuesday afternoon.

But, as Buzzfeed reported, there was an awkward juxtaposition between what Fox News’ pundits were saying and what the network’s reporters were saying.

Chief political anchor Bret Baier told his audience that no Republicans had been willing to appear on Fox News to discuss the revelations, while chief White House correspondent John Roberts did not shirk from the Comey reports, noting that the White House’s response is “saying what [Trump] didn’t say, but we do not know what he did say”.

Fox News’ chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge went a step further, saying a source had confirmed the Comey memo.

On Wednesday Fox News’ website seemed similarly torn. The top story in the morning was that Vladimir Putin had accused Trump’s critics of “political schizophrenia”, and that the Russian president was prepared to hand over records which would disprove claims Trump had shared classified information.

But by the afternoon Fox News was leading on what it called “cracks in the wall”.

“Comey ‘memo’ has Republicans increasingly leery of Trump drama,” the top story read. It was a report on how Republicans are increasingly “voicing concerns about how the daily drama” at the White House is “impacting the GOP agenda on Capitol Hill”.



Breitbart, formerly run by Trump adviser Steve Bannon, toed a more loyal line, but was creative in its method.



The story leading Breitbart’s website on Wednesday morning was, unusually for the rightwing website, based on remarks by Bernie Sanders. “We Learned Trump Asked Comey to Stop Flynn Investigation, Which Is the Definition of Obstruction of Justice”, the headline read.

It seemed an attempt to discredit the Trump-Comey story by tying it to people who, in the minds of Breitbart readers, are fringe and untrustworthy.

And it appeared to have worked. The most liked of the 4,000 plus comments on the story was by a reader called Rubicon.

“CNN, Bernie & MSM ... are the definition of propaganda for fake news!” Rubicon said.

In the Breitbart world, Trump can do no wrong.