Fox News didn’t take long to inject partisan, anti-Democratic talking points into its coverage of Jeff Sessions’ testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee today.
Attorney General Sessions’ testimony concluded at about 5:08 PM ET. About ten minutes later, Trumper Laura Ingraham made her partisan move during the panel discussion that followed.
Ingraham was inspired to change the subject after Yahoo’s Washington correspondent, Olivier Knox, opined that there was “a lot of room” for another round of questioning Sessions by Democrats. As examples, Knox cited Sessions saying he wasn’t sure why Donald Trump fired James Comey and having “struggled a little bit to explain” having denied having met with Russian officials in his confirmation hearings.
Doubts raised about Sessions and Russia? Anchor Bret Baier quickly noted that Sessions had said he knew of no collusion between Trump or his associates and Russia.
Panelist Michael Crowley, a Politico correspondent, readily agreed. But he also pointed out that there’s a “second track here,” which is the Trump White House’s response to the Russia inquiry. “That’s the thing we didn’t hear much about,” Crowley noted.
Instead of agreeing, Baier again changed the subject, this time by saying that two of the panelists had been at one of the occasions where Sessions allegedly spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Then Ingraham broke in to suggest that Sessions had been more forthcoming than one of Fox’s all-purpose villains, Obama's National Security Adviser Susan Rice. But first, Ingraham defended Sessions' Russian encounters.
INGRAHAM: When I hear people talk about “having discussions with,” like, “Did you have a discussion with” – when someone says “Hi,” is that a discussion?
Personally, I think that is a valid point. But instead of staying on it and getting anyone's answer, Ingraham quickly moved on to go after Rice (and deflect from Sessions).
INGRAHAM: I think you’ve got to go back to the other question here, the desire for Sessions to come to Congress. There are other people who refuse to testify before Congress. Susan Rice is one of them. Now why is she not testifying? Is she gonna claim some confidentiality because you know the Republicans would ask, “Did you have any conversations with Barack Obama or any other senior staff about unmasking names, identifies,” what would she cite? Would she cite executive privilege? If she didn’t, would she cite confidentiality or separation of powers? I imagine she would and I imagine the Democrats would have no problem with it.
This has absolutely nothing to do with Sessions’ testimony. But with no Democratic advocates on a Fox News panel (the other guest was conservative Byron York), Ingraham could rest easy knowing that nobody would call her out what she was up to.
Watch how Fox ensured that pro-Trump talking points would get worked into its post-Sessions coverage while it froze out pro-Democratic commentary below, from the June 13, 2017 Special Report.
Originally published at Newshounds.us
