One of the biggest government attacks on free press occurred under a presidential administration and the legacy media have collectively shrugged.
Why?
Because it was carried out by a Democrat administration and not President Donald Trump. It’s that simple.
On Tuesday, former special counsel Jack Smith—who served under former President Joe Biden—testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the tapping of communications by Republican senators as part of his investigation into the 2020 election.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in his opening statement at the hearing that not only did Smith target Republican senators, but that he also improperly seized journalists’ communications too.
“What I can say today is that Smith also obtained communications from members of the media, to include: ’60 Minutes,’ Associated Press, Bloomberg, CBS, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, LA Times, Mark Levin Show, Media Research Center, NBC, NPR, NY Magazine, Reuters, The Federalist, The Washington Post, Washington Times, and the Wall Street Journal,” Grassley said.
That’s quite a list. And if these allegations are true, it’s an absolutely shameful example of mass media surveillance.
Some of those who were allegedly targeted were understandably infuriated by the revelation.
Mollie Hemingway, the editor-in-chief at The Federalist, wrote on X that she was “sickened” when she learned that Smith had seized her “journalistic communications.” She vowed that “no amount of censorship or spying will prevent [The Federalist] from continuing our fearless investigative journalism.”
Talk radio host Mark Levin, another target of Smith’s media shakedown, called it a “clear and massive 1st amendment breach by a federal prosecutor.”
This is a major scandal and should be treated as such. But you wouldn’t think that given the media coverage—really, the lack thereof—immediately following the hearing
You should expect the media to rally around the aggrieved and condemn this brazen attack on their profession and seeming violation of the First Amendment. It’s not like they’ve hesitated to criticize a presidential administration on these grounds before.
After all, we’ve just gone through an extensive media cycle in which most legacy press outlets blasted President Donald Trump for his decision to ban several outlets from the White House.
Just do a quick internet search on Trump’s “attack on the free press” and you will find and almost endless string of articles about how the president is practically ending the First Amendment in America by limiting CNN, Politico, and MS NOW’s access.
One can certainly question whether that was a prudent move by the administration. I tend to believe the president comes off pretty well in his exchanges with the hostile press and he should let that continue.
But restricting access to privileged White House news coverage is a far cry from unleashing a quasi-legal executive branch special counsel to outright seize the communications of journalists.
One would think that champions of free speech and free press would at least be similarly outraged by the allegations against Smith.
Nope. Instead, what we get is practically crickets, even from outlets that were allegedly targeted by government surveillance. Sure, there was some coverage of the Smith hearing in general, but the attack on the media was virtually ignored on the day it broke and received only minimal coverage the day after.
NewsBusters editor Curtis Houck noted that “CBS and NBC ignored the Jack Smith hearing on their Tuesday night newscasts.” And while they eventually covered the hearing on Wednesday they mostly “buried the substance” of it to cover the exchange between Smith and Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo.
John Solomon, founder of Just the News, wrote on X that after days of rage at CNN getting bounced from the White House, “the legacy media mostly yawned at Sen. Grassley’s revelations that Smith gathered information on news outlets.”
He gave a rundown of some top news headlines, which glided over the real scandal.
This is all quite reminiscent of what happened during the years of President Barack Obama. Obama was hardly a friend to the free press. His Justice Department secretly obtained telephone records belonging to The Associated Press, and his administration occasionally weaponized the government against journalists. The legacy media rarely uttered a peep about it other than a few sheepish declarations that this was kind of bad.
But they loved Obama just as they’ve hated Trump. And so, these assaults on the First Amendment were whisked away and quickly forgotten, even as Obama has reemerged as some kind of responsible champion of media independence.
Please. What a load of nonsense.
It appears that the legacy media will let this scandal pass by too with scarcely any interest in uncovering the depths of it or even scraping the surface.
It’s egregious, but not surprising.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
