President Donald Trump is an avid viewer of Fox News and its morning program “Fox & Friends,” which is seen as offering more favorable coverage of the administration than other news outlets. His early morning tweets often reference coverage on the program.
The way each network covered the story – or avoided it – is a sign of how the media landscape has become ever more politicized in the Trump era. That is particularly true of Fox News.
.. Fox News aired 25 minutes of indictment coverage in the first hour after news of the charges broke around 8 a.m. – just as attention would have surged. CNN and MSNBC, in contrast, aired at least an hour of nearly uninterrupted and ad-free coverage.
.. In its morning coverage, Fox played down the indictment news in two ways. First, it cut away in the first few minutes to discuss a dossier, which was partly funded by the Democratic Party, that had leaked during the presidential campaign and included unverified allegations about Mr. Trump. They aired an interview that had already been shown half an hour earlier with the Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway in which she called for an investigation into the Hillary Clinton campaign.
.. Reporting on the indictment continued, with only the occasional ad break, for the next hour on CNN and MSNBC, while Fox reported on North Korea and allegations of sexual misconduct against the actor Kevin Spacey – news that had gained steam after Mr. Spacey issued a widely criticized apology the previous evening.
.. To right-leaning media observers, the coverage by the other networks might seem equally troubling: does the Manafort indictment deserve an hour or more of uninterrupted airtime?
Trump Can Pardon Manafort. He Shouldn’t.
But the very absence of a link to Mr. Manafort’s performance as Trump campaign chairman underscores the fact that Mr. Mueller has not brought the charges out of political bias.
.. Only a single man, Hamilton argued, could act vigorously in times of crisis. “In seasons of insurrection or rebellion, there are often critical moments, when a well-timed offer of pardon to the insurgents or rebels may restore the tranquillity of the commonwealth,” he wrote.
.. Indeed, a pardon here would grasp defeat from the jaws of victory because the charges against Mr. Manafort show no connection at all between Russia and the 2016 campaign.
.. If Mr. Mueller is acting improperly, the remedy is to fire him, not to preemptively forgive everyone involved in the crime. A blanket pardon would prompt congressional moves toward impeachment, which is the Constitution’s sole mechanism for disciplining, in Hamilton’s words, “the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”
Instead of attacking it at every turn, Mr. Trump should welcome the latest step in the Mueller investigation. Only by cooperating can he credibly prove his innocence.
Mueller Has Early Draft of Trump Letter Giving Reasons for Firing Comey
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The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has obtained a letter drafted by President Trump and a top political aide that offered an unvarnished view of Mr. Trump’s thinking in the days before the president fired the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey.
.. Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, who believed that its angry, meandering tone was problematic
.. Among Mr. McGahn’s concerns were references to private conversations the president had with Mr. Comey, including times when the F.B.I. director told Mr. Trump he was not under investigation in the F.B.I.’s continuing Russia inquiry.
.. Mr. McGahn successfully blocked the president from sending the letter — which Mr. Trump had composed with Stephen Miller
.. But a copy was given to the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, who then drafted his own letter.
.. It rained during part of the weekend, forcing Mr. Trump to cancel golf with Greg Norman, the Australian golfer. Instead, Mr. Trump stewed indoors, worrying about Mr. Comey and the Russia investigation.
.. Mr. Miller and Mr. Kushner both told the president that weekend that they were in favor of firing Mr. Comey.
.. Mr. Trump ordered Mr. Miller to draft a letter, and dictated his unfettered thoughts. Several people who saw Mr. Miller’s multi-page draft described it as a “screed.”
.. Some present at the meeting, including Mr. McGahn, were alarmed that the president had decided to fire the F.B.I. director after consulting only Ms. Trump, Mr. Kushner and Mr. Miller. Mr. McGahn began an effort to stop the letter or at least pare it back.
Trump Attorneys Lay Out Arguments Against Obstruction-of-Justice Probe to Mueller
In meetings and memos, lawyers argue president didn’t obstruct justice by firing former FBI Chief Comey
Another memo submitted the same month outlined why Mr. Comey would make an unsuitable witness, calling him prone to exaggeration, unreliable in congressional testimony and the source of leaks to the news media, these people said.
.. Mr. Trump has given conflicting reasons as to why he dismissed Mr. Comey. At first, he said it was in response to advice from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had concluded in a memo for the president that Mr. Comey was an ineffective leader.
Two days after the firing, Mr. Trump told NBC News that the decision to fire Mr. Comey was his alone and that when he did it, “I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.”
.. Legal experts agree the president can fire the FBI director at will. That doesn’t mean Mr. Trump could act with impunity if his intention was to interfere with the FBI’s Russia investigation, some said. “Many people do lawful acts for corrupt motives and are charged with the crime of acting corruptly,” said Paul Rosenzweig, who was a deputy to special counsel Kenneth Starr during his investigation of Mr. Clinton. Bribery is a classic example, Mr. Rosenzweig said: A Pentagon official, for instance, may have the authority to award a contract to a particular company but he can’t do so legally in exchange for a bribe.
.. The Mueller probe is also examining whether Mr. Flynn, a former adviser to the Trump campaign, played any role in obtaining Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails from Russian hackers.