Rod Thomson

The media is framing the damning House intelligence memo on FBI and Department of Justice actions to undermine candidate and then President Trump on the familiar look-the-other-way grounds of just so much more partisanship. It’s all Republican partisanship to the media.

The story leads were universally along the lines of “Disputed Gop-Nunes memo released with Trump’s approval” and “Partisan fury as GOP releases Nunes memo over FBI objections” and “House Republicans Release Secret Memo Accusing Russia Investigators of Bias.”

This is a familiar playbook to someone such as myself who was in the mainstream media for 25 year. And it is something that Democrats can so confidently rely on the media doing that they use it to cover every scandal in their party. Just start throwing up alternative storylines and focus on Republican partisanship. Since the media is almost entirely Democrats, the bait is easily taken.

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This is precisely how the media turned President Bill Clinton’s sexual predatory behavior and perjury under oath in 1998 into nothing more than partisanship. Rather than consistently saying what the accusations were against Clinton, story after story helpfully avoided what Clinton did in favor of framing it as a bunch of Republican partisan attacks.

This is also what the media did with the weaponization of the Obama IRS against conservative and Tea Party groups in the year leading up to his 2012 re-election. Rather than straight reporting based on the obvious evidence, the media cast it as Republicans making accusations. The media sat on their hands on the truly scandalous actions of IRS leaders — none of whom ever saw justice.

The same coverage came about on the Fast and Furious gun-running operation to Mexican gangs by the Obama administration. It is a constant pattern.

Compare the media’s handling of those scandals and any number of others with how they breathlessly report every anonymous — and obviously partisan — attack on President Trump, seldom deviating into the concept of partisan politics despite the clear and present agenda of Democrats and liberals.

So here is a taste of the major mainstream media coverage. Your local newspaper and television station will likely be in a similar vein. (Here is the full memo. If you want to read what the media should be covering, here’s a great, short take on the memo by John Hinderaker’s at Powerline.)

CNN

HEADLINE: Disputed GOP-Nunes memo released with Trump’s approval

House Republicans, with the approval of President Donald Trump, on Friday released a disputed GOP intelligence memo that alleges FBI abuses of its surveillance authority.

The highly controversial memo from the GOP and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes alleges that then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told the committee that no surveillance warrant would have been sought for a Trump campaign aide without a disputed opposition research dossier on Trump and Russia.

The memo is the most explicit Republican effort yet to discredit the FBI’s investigation into Trump and Russia, alleging that the investigation was infused with an anti-Trump bias under the Obama administration and supported with political opposition research.

CBS

HEADLINE: GOP memo released, after Trump declassifies it

The controversial four-page memo created by Republican staffers on the House Intelligence Committee alleging abuse of surveillance authority by the Justice Department and FBI has been released Friday after being declassified by the president. The memo is unredacted.

Politico

HEADLINE: Partisan fury as GOP releases Nunes memo over FBI objections

Republicans on Capitol Hill, backed by an angry President Donald Trump, defied pleas from the FBI and Democrats Friday and released a previously classified memo alleging misconduct by senior FBI officials investigating Trump’s presidential campaign.

The memo’s emergence marks a dramatic new stage in the political war around the federal investigations into Kremlin interference in the 2016 election. Republicans say the memo exposes anti-Trump bias among top law enforcement officials who helped launch a federal probe into whether the Kremlin infiltrated Trump’s campaign team. Democrats and former law enforcement and intelligence officials counter that the GOP is playing partisan politics with secret intelligence and distorting facts of the Trump-Russia investigation.

Washington Post

HEADLINE: Release of disputed GOP memo on FBI surveillance unleashes waves of recrimination

A GOP memo declassified on Friday charges senior law enforcement officials with manipulating a foreign intelligence court in order to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser — contested accusations that intensified an ongoing battle between the White House and Republican lawmakers on one side, and the FBI and the Justice Department on the other.

Democrats warned President Trump not to try to use the memo’s contents as a justification for firing Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein or other officials overseeing an ongoing probe into possible coordination between Trump associates and agents of the Russian government during the 2016 campaign.

New York Times

HEADLINE: House Republicans Release Secret Memo Accusing Russia Investigators of Bias

House Republicans released a disputed memo on Friday compiled by congressional aides that accused the F.B.I. and Justice Department of abusing their surveillance powers to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

The memo, which has prompted a political firestorm, also criticizes information used by law enforcement officials in their application for a warrant to wiretap Mr. Page, and names the senior F.B.I. and Justice Department officials who approved the highly classified warrant.

But the memo falls well short of providing the material promised by some Republicans: namely, that the evidence it contained would cast doubt on the origins of the Russia investigation and possibly undermine the inquiry, which has been taken over by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

ABC

HEADLINE: GOP memo alleges the FBI and DOJ abused government surveillance powers in its Russia investigation

Over strong objections from the intelligence community and law enforcement, President Donald Trump has declassified a controversial GOP memo alleging political bias and abuses of government surveillance powers at the FBI and Justice Department.

NBC News

(Probably the most fair among the mainstream media. Granted, a low bar.)

HEADLINE: GOP-Nunes memo released alleging FBI cover-up

The House Intelligence Committee on Friday made public a Republican memo that raises questions about the FBI surveillance of one of Donald Trump’s campaign aides, acting after the president declassified the entire document, which he says shows the law enforcement agency was biased against him.

The disclosure came despite the opposition of the FBI, which feared it would reveal investigative methods, and the Justice Department.

The three-and-a-half-page memo was prepared by the intelligence committee’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and is a critique of the FBI’s application for surveillance authority that was presented to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court.

Rod Thomson is an author, TV talking head and former journalist, and is Founder of The Revolutionary Act.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever, and a lot of sources are not trustworthy. Whatfinger.com is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time from good sources.