MEDIA LOSER: Jesse Watters Jesse Watters falsely claimed that Hillary Clinton paid hackers to plant fake evidence in an effort to show Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government. The Fox News host then used his mischaracterization of the filing to state as fact that Clinton had attempted to frame Trump. Last week Special Counsel John Durham filed a motion alleging Clinton hired a tech executive, confirmed to be Rodney Joffe, with legal access to non-public, non-private internet data, some of which was allegedly used in an effort to link Trump to Russia... ICYMI. Durham is investigating the probe into Trump that culminated in the Mueller Report, which found no evidence Trump conspired with Russia, but that Trump nonetheless welcomed the country’s help during the 2016 presidential campaign. Watters certainly isn't alone among conservative media figures making sensationalistic and false claims about the filing, but the allegation that fake evidence was planted stands out. He told his audience Durham's documents "show that Hillary Clinton hired people" who hacked Trump and "planted evidence that he colluded with Russia." "Yeah. You heard that right," Watters emphasized, saying again, "Her hackers planted evidence, fabricated evidence connecting Trump to Russia, then fed that doctored material to the feds and the media." The obvious problem is Durham’s documents don’t show this – at all. Not even close, actually. This goes past wildly speculative on the part of Jesse Watters. It's irresponsible for a news channel, it's deliberately deceptive to the audience for the sake of being provocative, and the reporting on the story from his own network does not support the wild claim. And this wasn't even the only false thing said on-air last night that's contradicted by the Fox's own reporting. People spend a lot of time talking about media bias, which is a real thing and can go both ways. But this isn't that. This was bad, wrong, Media Loser "fake news." |