Correction, Please!
Left-wing Journalists Remake Comey Testimony to Make Trump Look Bad
Item: Reporting on former FBI Director James Comey’s June 8 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the New York Times ran an article that same day insinuating that after Comey’s testimony, charges of obstruction of justice against President Trump are in the offing. Under the headline “Comey Says Trump Tried to Derail Inquiry,” Matt Apuzzo and Emmarie Huettman wrote, “In testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, [Comey] provided an unflattering back story to his abrupt dismissal and raised the question of whether Mr. Trump had tried to obstruct justice.”
Item: In a separate article for June 8 entitled “For Trump, the ‘Cloud’ Just Grew That Much Darker,” Peter Baker wrote in the New York Times, “Mr. Comey also revealed that he had turned over memos of his conversations with Mr. Trump to that newly appointed special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, suggesting that investigators may now be looking into whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice by dismissing the F.B.I. director.” The article — slanted even by the standards one expects from the Times — includes the analysis by the reporter that “Mr. Comey’s testimony on Thursday was almost certainly the most damning j’accuse moment by a senior law enforcement official against a president in a generation.”
Item: In an article entitled “Comey’s testimony changed everything — and not in Trump’s favor,” the Washington Post reported on June 8 that President Trump is — because of Comey’s testimony — in very real danger of impeachment. The article by Jennifer Rubin is part of the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” series the Post has been running. Peppered with references to the near inevitability of impeachment, the article paints a picture of two points in time, “Before Comey and After Comey,” and says, “Before Comey, impeachment talk was not a real concern for Republicans. While they may still insist there is nothing to see here, Comey’s testimony turned impeachment into a serious topic of discussion.” Following up on that line, the article also asserts, “Before Comey, it was possible (although not likely) that Trump could have righted his ship, moving beyond the Russia scandal,” adding, “After Comey, it is impossible to imagine that the ‘cloud’ Trump so badly wanted to dissipate will vanish before the end of his term — which might well end before January 2021.” Based on Comey’s testimony — and the commentary of “a friend of Comey’s who spoke to him during the events at issue,” the article insists, “We have a legitimate question as to the president’s fitness for office.”
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