This week’s Liberal Media Scream highlights the model of the media’s bias in the legal cases against former President Donald Trump — ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
The former Clinton White House communications boss opened his Sunday show, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, with a lecture against Trump and then brought on Trump lawyer Will Scharf to face left-wing talking points.
Scharf didn’t take it and challenged the Democratic talker, especially when Stephanopoulos tried to silence him for making points he didn’t like.
The actions by Stephanopoulos were reminiscent of the way he used to try to shut down reporters during the 1992 presidential campaign when numerous Clinton scandals were raised, a practice he and other aides continued while in the White House when facing troublesome stories, especially the Travelgate affair.
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From Sunday’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, and welcome to This Week. In 1774, John Adams said representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty. Two hundred and fifty years later, the heart and lungs of liberty are facing what may be the ultimate stress test. Twelve anonymous jurors rendered their verdict on Thursday, finding Donald Trump guilty on all counts. It’s the third time in the last two years that jurors have rendered verdicts against Trump.
Jurors have yet to consider charges against Trump for even more serious crimes: blocking the peaceful transfer of power, concealing classified documents, encouraging the filing of false electors. But for now, the New York jurors have already presented their fellow citizens with a choice: Do we want to be represented, to be led, for the first time in history by a convicted felon? That answer will come in November….
STEPHANOPOULOS: The ethics panel for the state of New York said the judge was not required to recuse….
STEPHANOPOULOS: If appearance of impropriety is the standard for recusal, then why shouldn’t Justice Thomas and Justice Alito have to recuse from the cases before the Supreme Court?….
WILL SCHARF: The weaponization of our legal system, the politicization of prosecution, these are all things that President Trump absolutely has to comment on. I think the fact that he labored under a gag order for as long as he did was manifestly unjust. So, yes, absolutely, President Trump needs to be carrying his message to the American people. And I don’t see how anyone can really poke holes at that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You talked about the weaponization of the legal system. Of course, it was former President Trump who threw out the 2016 campaign, led chants of “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton. But what do you expect from the sentencing process?
SCHARF: Well, but hold on a second, George, President Trump may have said that, but after he entered office, he certainly didn’t weaponize the Department of Justice to pursue his political opponents the way that we’ve seen … in the last couple years.
Remember, this case in New York, it was called the zombie case. It sat and sat and sat. It could have been brought at any point after 2020. And then suddenly, when President Trump announced his campaign for president, it was dusted off, rushed in front of a grand jury, and then rushed into court. You want to talk about the politicization of the legal system, I mean, this is Exhibit A. It’s absolutely unprecedented in American history. It’s not the way that our campaigns are supposed to be run. We contest elections at the ballot box, not in the courts, in this country.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That is true. But, of course, we’ve never had a former president or presidential candidate facing the kind of charges that the president faced because of his own activities. And, of course, the attorney general in Manhattan has nothing to do with the Department of Justice. Finally, what do you expect from the sentencing process?
SCHARF: I vehemently disagree that the district attorney in New York was not politically motivated here, and I vehemently disagree that President Biden and his political allies aren’t up their necks in this prosecution. I think the fact that the Biden campaign —
STEPHANOPOULOS: There’s no evidence here of that. Sir, there’s no — there’s not — I’m not going to let you continue to say that. There’s just zero evidence of that.
SCHARF: Well, how about the fact that Matthew Colangelo was standing over Alvin Bragg’s shoulder when he announced this verdict? I mean, Colangelo was the No. 3 official in the Biden Department of Justice who suddenly disappears and shows up as an assistant district attorney, right as Trump’s case in New York starts to proceed. You want to talk about political —
STEPHANOPOULOS: After the decision was made there —
SCHARF: You want to talk about political coordination, George, it’s right there in front of you.
STEPHANOPOULOS: This has nothing to do — this has nothing to do — no, it’s not. This has nothing to do with President Biden. Do you want to answer the question about the sentencing process or not?
SCHARF: I completely disagree that this has nothing to do with President Biden. With respect to sentencing, as I said before, we’re going to vigorously challenge this case on appeal. I don’t think President Trump is going to end up being subject to any sentence whatsoever. And we look forward to getting this case into the next court and taking this again all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary to vindicate President Trump’s rights.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Thanks for your time this morning.
SCHARF: Appreciate it, George.
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Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “A Sunday sermon followed by aggressive left-wing talking points aimed at not allowing legitimacy for views which do not comport with ‘the facts’ as the very liberal and very partisan Stephanopoulos sees them. We’re in for five more months of this from the media and left-wing activists in it like Stephanopoulos: aggressive disdain for anyone making a point on behalf of Trump, imbued with condescending sneering about how there’s ‘no evidence’ for that point when there’s plenty of evidence for it.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.
