05/14/2019

Written By: Kanta

Featured websites as of 3:42 AM CST

Breakdown of 5-14-2019 Coverage of reports of The new Russia investigation

Featured News Stories:

• Associated Press: Barr opens a second investigation of Russia probe
  • “Attorney General William Barr has appointed a U.S. attorney to examine the origins of the Russia investigation and determine if intelligence collection involving the Trump campaign was ‘lawful and appropriate,’ a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Monday.”
• Fox News: Barr assigns US attorney in Connecticut to look into government surveillance involving Trump campaign (Note: Fox had several articles. I selected this on based on relevance to topic)
  • “Attorney General William Barr has appointed a U.S. attorney to examine the origins of the Russia investigation and determine if intelligence collection efforts targeting the Trump campaign were ‘lawful and appropriate,’ a person familiar with the situation told Fox News on Monday evening.”
• Washington Times: William Barr appoints U.S. attorney to investigate Russia probe origins
  • “Attorney General William P. Barr has tapped the U.S. attorney in Connecticut to examine the origins of the Russian election-interference probe, according to reports late Monday.”
• CNN: Top federal prosecutor in Connecticut to review origins of Russia probe
  • “The top federal prosecutor in Connecticut is assisting Attorney General Bill Barr in his review of the genesis of the 2016 Russia investigation, according to a source familiar with the review. “
• USA Today: Attorney General taps top Connecticut federal prosecutor for review of Trump-Russia inquiry
  • “Attorney General William Barr tapped Connecticut’s chief federal prosecutor, John Durham, to assist in an investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation and the FBI’s surveillance activities, a person familiar with the matter said Monday.”

The substantive facts seem to be agreed upon by all, across the spectrum: the attorney general has appointed U.S. attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Mueller investigation. The devil is in the details, The AP gave a fairly neutral view, as it usually tries to, being the wire-service from which everyone takes their cues. They carefully pointed out both that the FBI obtained warrants for their investigations and that Mueller did not recommend charging Trump for criminal conspiracy.

Fox wrote a longer article, suggesting that the Democrats are the ones who actually colluded with a foreign power. They also repeated more of Durham’s virtues according to Barr, presumably to drive up hype for this Trump-approved investigation. They also remind us of another probe by the DOJ Inspector General into FBI surveillance, and yet another started by Sessions that’s still ongoing after his departure. They made sure to note that the redactions to the Mueller report are limited, it exonerates Trump, and that Democrats have been berating Barr. It ends by talking about how the Mueller investigation was supposed started by the Steele dossier.

The Washington Times article seemed mostly to rely on old news for context and, “No statement yet,” for everything else. Really, the headline says more than the article there.

CNN called Durham a Trump appointee and highlighted the controversy of Trump’s administration investigating this at all. Then they brought up Trump’s tweets. They too brought up the other two investigations. It is actually impressive that their perspective made it into an article only slightly larger than the AP release, where Fox needed several times the space to make theirs clear.

Finally, USA Today spoke about how Barr revealed this at a senate hearing, summarizing what he said there before giving a short quote about how important this is. They describe him as having, “Sided with Trump,” in the view of unnamed Democrats and quote the FBI director saying he’s not aware of any evidence that they acted improperly and objecting to the word, “Spying.” They also quote a former second in command saying that their original investigation was justified.

All in all, The AP outlined the facts, and everyone else used them to either obviously spin the side you would expect them to have or get clicks for saying nothing.