As The New York Times goes into damage control mode following their erroneous Justice Kavanagh hit piece, former NYT editor Jill Abramson appeared on Fox’s Outnumbered Overtime on Wednesday in an attempt to excuse the paper for leaving key exculpatory evidence out of the initial article.



The latest shoddy reporting on the part of The Times has left their once-reputable publication reeling. Abramson did not help matters with the laughable assertion that the basic premise of the story has not been discredited:

JILL ABRAMSON: I think my move would have been the moves that The Times has made. I mean, no one has challenged the basic accuracy of the story that they published or of what's in the book. It's true that a material fact was left out and The Times ran an editor's note explaining that which is what you do when you leave something out. But, it was no conspiracy to, you know, leave out that fact. It was, you know, unfortunately cut from the piece as I understand it.

Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner pressed as to how one could exclude the leading evidence in a serious allegation against anyone, much less a Supreme Court Justice; “How can you challenge if the alleged victim and the one victim that they talked about -- who actually didn't witness anything. But he did talk to Senators and the FBI about what he thinks he saw, but people may have been too drunk to remember. The alleged victim didn't remember any assault..”

Abramson was no doubt experiencing difficulty in her crusade to defend The Times: “Well, it's friends of the victim who say she doesn't remember it. She's chosen not to talk to the press.”

Faulkner was unrelenting in her search for answers as she continued: “Why does this even end up in the New York Times?” To which Abramson responded, “Because it's -- it's important. This is the third example of, you know, sexual impropriety by Brett Kavanaugh.”

Abramson stood her shaky ground as she unequivocally stated towards the end of the interview; “No, there's no evidence that it was fiction.” As for the victim not being quoted in the piece nor recalling the incident ever happening she had this to say: “Doesn't make the story itself fiction, it just doesn't. It doesn't make the story inaccurate.”

Of course that standard is the exact opposite of how journalism is supposed to work. You have to prove your reporting is true, not demand the accused prove that it's "fiction."

Perhaps the most telling moment of the interview came when Faulkner asked Abramson what is to be done next. Abramson began:

What should happen next I think is that the investigation that never happened should happen. You know, a cloud hangs over the U.S. Supreme Court not only with Justice Kavanaugh but with Justice Thomas, who I've written about and I think that's unhealthy for our democracy to have these allegations hanging in the background. Someone should chase down these stories. In the case of Justice Thomas I did that with Jane Mayer.

No underlying bias, huh?

As Fox’s Greg Gutfeld put it; it is the same concept as writing a glowing review of the Titanic, while omitting the fact that it sank.

Transcript below: