Fox’s Howard Kurtz Blasts Media For Being ‘Absolutely Determined’ to ‘Ignore’ Durham News
Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum had Fox’s media reporter Howard Kurtz on her show The Story Monday to discuss media coverage of the latest news from John Durham’s investigation into the FBI probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election
MacCallum started the segment off by saying:
One of the big questions is the coverage of this story and the lack of evidence of coverage for this Durham filing that came out over the weekend that we’re seeing out there. Let me play to remind people the way that a lot of the media has portrayed this Trump-Russia collusion story from way back. Watch.
She then ran a mash-up of various MSNBC and CNN hosts dismissing Special Counsel Durham, who was appointed in 2019 by then-Attorney General Bill Barr to look into the origins of the Trump collusion accusations.
“So now there’s news and developments in this story, Howie, are they being covered?” Asked MacCallum.
“It’s absolutely stunning that virtually all the major newspapers and the other networks are absolutely determined to ignore this story,” Kurtz said.
He continued, calling out what he sees as a double standard in covering the Jan. 6 committee and Durham:
They cover every throat-clearing by the January 6 committee and all the coverage of Russian gate that you just gave us a taste of, but this is an actual federal prosecutor delivering actual evidence in a court filing, not some anonymously sourced story. Yet these other places are just magically declaring it to be non-news. Doesn’t — well, it’s overblown or it’s unproven. Doesn’t get a mention. I thought by today they would come back with some semblance of coverage.
“You wonder if the momentum builds overtime for them to not ignore it,” MacCallum said, before introducing a clip in which Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes challenged then-President Donald Trump for saying Clinton “spied on my campaign.” Stahl insisted that the accusation was unverified.
Kurtz continued by saying, “There’s some things we don’t know. How much did the Hillary Clinton campaign know about this former lawyer under indictment? No comment at all from camp Hillary on any of this.” Kurtz was referring to Michael Sussmann, the Democratic lawyer, charged by Durham in 2021 for lying to the FBI. Durham alleges that Sussmann, who worked for the Clinton campaign, gathered data in an attempt to try and convince the FBI that Trump had illegal connections to Russia.
“So for him to make these charges in court papers is an absolutely significant piece of news, especially given the backdrop,” Kurtz continued. “Now, whether it’s worse than Watergate as the former president says, Watergate was a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy, we shall see. But I don’t understand how any news organization can just wave this away because it doesn’t fit the narrative that Trump was making up the idea he was improperly surveilled or spied upon.”
CNN did cover Durham on Monday, after Kurtz’s comments, both on The Lead with Jake Tapper and online.
CNN published an article titled, “Special counsel Durham alleges Clinton campaign lawyer used data to raise suspicions about Trump.” Tapper’s report mirrored the online article written by Katelyn Polantz and Evan Perez. Perez joined Tapper to explain the latest news from Durham.
As of Monday evening, MSNBC had made no mention of Durham, according to a SnapStream search of the channel.
Fox News, which has been covering the story relentlessly, published an article online summing up the latest Durham news titled, “Clinton campaign paid to ‘infiltrate’ Trump Tower, White House servers to link Trump to Russia: Durham.”
While the two articles clearly offer a different tone regarding the implications of the latest Durham news, former acting director of intelligence under Trump, John Ratcliffe, offered an important clarification regarding whether or not Clinton “spied” on Trump.
Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer asked Ratcliff whether or not the term “infiltrate” meant that there was “hacking” of Trump servers. Ratcliff said, “no.” He added that the access behind the data gathered on Trump was from “lawful access into government servers.”
Interesting exchange here.
Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer wonders if the Durham filing’s mention of “infiltrate” means there was “hacking” of computers, only for John Ratcliffe to admit that this was actually “lawful access into government servers” by the tech company involved. pic.twitter.com/LKwEiEjTJc
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) February 14, 2022
Watch the full clips above from Fox News and CNN
