This is infuriating. It’s one thing to work tirelessly to find some (frequently false) equivalency, to preserve the ideal of BOTH SIDES BOTH SIDES BOTH SIDES that has infected the political press and nearly all of cable news.
But it feels like not just the political press, but the entire national press and nearly 100% of cable news is ignoring a very real, easily proved, corruption scandal that is massively relevant to the presidential election.
To quickly recap:
Trump University and Donald Trump were under threat of investigation in Florida and Texas. Trump, who bragged, “I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them, and they are there for me” did exactly that:
Trump made this substantial contribution to Bondi at just the moment when her office was evaluating whether to bring legal action against Trump's 'Trump University' real estate seminar scam. Indeed, Bondi admits she reached out to Trump to solicit the contribution just as the decision was on her desk. She eventually declined to take legal action against Trump, overruling the recommendations of career investigators.
A mounting legal case was also underway in Texas, by career investigators under then-Attorney General and now Governor Greg Abbott. Abbott overruled the investigator's recommendation for legal action. Shortly thereafter Abbott got $35,000 from Trump. In this case Trump at least made the contribution without the commingling of nonprofit funds that go them in trouble in Florida.
It’s recently come to light that these donations (bribes) were paid out of the Trump Foundation. Whether that was through deliberate intent or incompetence is immaterial, because this is an actual, real, meaningful scandal with two – two! – smoking guns. This is exactly the sort of thing that the New York Times, CNN, and all the biggest names in journalism are looking for as they relentlessly go after the Clinton Foundation, as well as Bill and Hillary Clinton.
There is nothing to be uncovered there, because there is no “there” there, and there is almost complete and utter silence about Trump’s two successful efforts to buy off politicians – and not just politicians, but the Attorneys General of two different states!
Josh Marshall writes The New York Times appears to be revisiting its 'whitewater' glory days with its increasingly parodic coverage of the Clinton Foundation, and I think he’s right.
The Times uniquely, though only as a leading example for the rest of the national press, has a decades’ long history of being lead around by rightwing opposition researchers into dead ends which amount to journalistic comedy - especially when it comes to the Clintons. But here, while all this is happening we have a real live specimen example of direct political and prosecutorial corruption, misuse of a 501c3 nonprofit and various efforts to conceal this corruption and the underlying corruption of Trump’s ‘Trump University’ real estate seminar scam. It’s all there - lightly reported here and there - but largely ignored.
The story the media wants to write about the Clintons exists, but it looks more and more like it won’t be written, because it’s about Trump.
Edit: Cleaned up some mistakes, and thanks for the recs.