ABC News, CBS News and NBC News all largely ignored revelations that the FBI “failed to preserve” five months’ worth of text messages between two anti-Trump employees during their Monday and Tuesday broadcasts, according to reports from the Media Research Center (MRC).
The three networks failed to cover the missing trove of text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, FBI officials previously involved with both special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia collusion probe and the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
Although CBS and NBC broke their silence on Tuesday, ABC News failed to broach the topic at all that day.
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“If the liberal media ignore a liberal scandal, you know there’s more to it,” MRC president Brent Bozell tweeted Tuesday. “This one is getting worse and worse. How deep the rabbit hole goes is anyone’s guess, but I do know one thing. The nets MUST cover this.”
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The FBI said it “failed to preserve” text messages between Strzok and Page from Dec. 14, 2016, through May 17, 2017. May 17 was the day Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller to head the investigation into potential collusion between President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and elements linked to the Russian government. The bureau blamed the misplaced text messages on technical issues with Samsung devices.
CBS became the first network to cover the missing text messages on Tuesday’s “CBS This Morning” when it devoted more than three minutes of airtime to the topic, MRC reported. CBS allotted a mere 36 seconds of coverage to the controversy on Tuesday evening.
“The White House claims the investigation is biased,” CBS White House correspondent Major Garrett said Tuesday on “CBS Evening News.” “At a White House meeting Monday, attended by Sessions, White House counsel Don McGahn, and FBI Director Christopher Wray, the main topic was five months of missing text messages between high-level FBI employees, some of which have been released publicly and do demonstrate a pattern of political bias against Mr. Trump.”
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NBC spent 27 seconds reporting the story Tuesday on “NBC Nightly News.” NBC White House correspondent Kristen Welker said that Trump “is escalating his battle with the very department that’s investigating him” while Mueller’s probe “gets closer” to him.
ABC remained mum on Tuesday.
Trump addressed the missing FBI messages in two tweets Tuesday.
“In one of the biggest stories in a long time, the FBI now says it is missing five months’ worth of lovers Strzok-Page texts, perhaps 50,000, and all in prime time. Wow!” Trump tweeted. “Where are the 50,000 important text messages between FBI lovers Lisa Page and Peter Strzok? Blaming Samsung!”
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PoliZette writer Kathryn Blackhurst can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter.
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