Fox News’ Primetime Hosts Completely Ignore Latest Michael Cohen Bombshell

Fox News’ Primetime Hosts Completely Ignore Latest Michael Cohen Bombshell

On Tuesday afternoon, Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti dropped an absolute bombshell when he tweeted out that he’d discovered that Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen had received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a company run by a Russian oligarch. Avenatti further claimed that the money was received after the 2016 election and could have been used to repay the $130,000 hush payment made to Daniels.

The New York Times and Daily Beast would soon confirm key parts of what Avenatti was claiming, reporting that the investment firm Columbus Nova, whose biggest client is oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, gave roughly $500,000 to Cohen’s shell company that was also used to make the Daniels hush payment.

Besides confirmation that Cohen’s LLC had received money tied to a Russian oligarch who was recently questioned by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia probe, the Times also reported that Cohen’s company received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from Fortune 500 companies such as AT&T, Korea Aerospace Industries, and pharmaceutical giant Novartis. These previously undisclosed payments obviously raise questions regarding pay-to-play considering these companies’ current business and financial interests as it relates to the Trump administration.

With this news breaking late Tuesday afternoon, it understandably dominated conversation online and led to CNN and MSNBC spending quite a bit of airtime covering the story during the evening hours. But one network couldn’t be bothered to even mention Michael Cohen’s name during its primetime coverage.

Starting with Tucker Carlson Tonight and continuing through both Hannity and The Ingraham Angle, Fox News’ primetime hosts completely ignored this blockbuster development that could result in devastating repercussions for the president.

Now, to be fair, there was another major story that broke Tuesday that deserved quite a bit of coverage — the president announcing that the United States was pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal. And during the primetime hours, primary election results from four states were coming in. But the other networks were also able to cover those stories while devoting time to the Cohen developments.

Meanwhile, the three Fox primetime hosts decided it was best just to pretend that the Cohen news just didn’t happen.

Over on Tucker, while some of the discussions revolved around the Iran deal and primary results, we also got segments devoted to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s fall from grace and sports host Jason Whitlock praising Kanye West for his recent red-pilling.

Jump over to Hannity, and much of the broadcast was centered on celebrating the president’s decision to exit the Iran agreement, with the host devoting a lengthy monologue to fawning over Trump while slamming the deal itself. We got members of the Sean Hannity Expanded Universe, Seb Gorka and Dan Bongino, piggybacking on that narrative while tearing into the previous administration. We also got Hannity and his guests taking aim at Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the standoff between House Republicans and the Justice Department over sensitive documents.

During 10 PM’s Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham spent a decent amount of her broadcast going after progressives over the Schneiderman bombshell. She also brought on National Security Adviser John Bolton and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer to cheer America’s decision to exit the Iran nuclear agreement.

And that was that. Checking through the transcripts of all three shows, Michael Cohen’s name was not uttered once. It wasn’t until midway through the 11 PM program Fox News @ Night that the Cohen story was mentioned.

Of course, I’m sure the next time there’s a significant story these guys don’t think is getting covered enough on the other networks, they’ll be sure to highlight it on their shows. Meanwhile…

Justin Baragona

Justin Baragona is the founder/publisher of Contemptor and a contributor to The Daily Beast. He was previously the Cable News Correspondent for Mediaite and prior to starting Contemptor, he worked on the editorial staff of PoliticusUSA. During that time, he had his work quoted by USA Today and BBC News, among others. Justin began his published career as a political writer for 411Mania. He resides in St. Louis, MO with his wife and pets.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *