John Durham, Almost the Media’s Invisible Man

Tim Graham is the Daily Signal’s Editor

There is no way to say that Trump-Russia collusion was dismissed or ignored in the news media. But it was quite the contrary. This was an inexplicable and long-running story.

Rich Noyes from the Media Research Center discovered that between Jan. 20, 2017, and July 20, 2019, evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, NBC, and NBC devoted an astonishing 2,634 minutes solely to Trump-Russian narrative.

On Feb. 12, the conservative media reported a “bombshell.” Well, the term “bombshell” is almost copyrighted as a journalism term for “Republican scandal deepener.”

Special counsel John Durham, tasked with investigating the origins of the FBI’s probe into Donald Trump and Russia, reported a client for Hillary Clinton’s law firm, Perkins Coie, was monitoring internet traffic at Trump Tower, Trump’s Central Park West apartment building, and the Executive Office of the President. They wanted information to sell a “narrative” of Trump-Russia collusion.

RELATED: Hillary Clinton snubs a reporter who asks about Durham’s claim that her campaign paid to spy on Trump

What is the coverage of ABC, CBS and NBC? None. Others networks and newspapers rebuffed it. They then stepped in and denied that it was anything.

From the beginning, liberal partisans like Rep. Adam Schiff have trashed Durham’s probe as “tainted” by Trump’s desires for an investigation. On ABC in 2019, Schiff denounced it as automatically “illegitimate” because “when you win an election, you don’t seek to just prosecute the losing side, but this is what Bill Barr is seeking to do.”

The winning candidate for the 2016 election was pursued by Schiff four times. Saying a probe is “tainted” by partisan desire displays an incredible lack of introspection.

While the networks spent more than 2,600-plus minutes on the Trump-Russia narrative, they’ve done next to nothing on Durham. Let’s review just how much coverage Durham has received from the Big Three networks since Attorney General William Barr put him on the case in the spring of 2019.

ABC gave Durham’s probe nine mentions over the last two years and nine months. CBS had five. NBC was home to six.

These were often brief mentions. On ABC, they came from Republican panelists on the Sunday show “This Week.” On CBS, two came in questions as Trump-hating FBI employee Peter Strzok sold his liberal-hack book on two CBS morning shows. (Has Durham reached out to you? No.) No.

Durham is anti-Mueller. His findings are not newsworthy. The media treats him as “tainted,” like he’s a news leper. “Unclean! Unclean!” Durham’s team isn’t loaded with liberal Democrats who leak juicy details to other liberal Democrats in “objective” media.

The media used the Mueller probe to constantly paint a black cloud over Trump’s presidency and present it in real time as perpetually doomed—even when it wasn’t. The walls were always “closing in” because that was the song they couldn’t stop singing.

RELATED: Fox News’ Howard Kurtz Says Mainstream Media ‘Absolutely Determined To Ignore’ Durham Hillary Revelations

To the media elite, Durham’s probe is only useful to the “right-wing media wormhole.” Facts don’t come first. The truth isn’t more important than ever.

Imagine if the Justice Department dockets were turned around. Can you imagine what the “news” would sound like if we took all the enormous and incessant coverage of the DOJ prosecutions and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi investigations of the Jan. 6 riot and awarded that to the Durham probe? The Jan. 6 probes were buried in the ashes.

Facts on media coverage show that today’s media elite are a Democratic machine. That’s why most Americans don’t trust the “news.” Like Clinton’s shady lawyers, they are all about creating a partisan narrative, not reporting events “without fear or favor” as they unfold.

The Daily Signal permission granted permission for this syndicated article.