Media

CNN’s Brian Stelter’s Hypocrisy On Trump Spying

Brian Stelter (screenshot - CNN)
Amber Athey Podcast Columnist
Font Size:

CNN’s Brian Stelter has called President Trump’s claims that the FBI was spying on his campaign a “conspiracy theory,” but that doesn’t square with Stelter’s own history with spies.

Trump has suggested that the FBI was using an informant to spy on his campaign during the 2016 election. Stelter wrote on CNN Wednesday morning that the spying claim is a “full-fledged conspiracy theory” and repeated the common spin that the FBI was simply talking to Trump advisers rather than spying on them. (RELATED: Cambridge Professor Spied On Trump Campaign Advisers)

Interestingly enough, as Matt Wolking pointed out on Twitter, Stelter once lobbied his own accusations of spying at Fox News.

In 2016, Stelter claimed that when he was merely a college student, Fox News sent a “low-level staffer” on dates with him so she could spy on him.

“I thought these were dates. They were not dates,” Stelter said. “She was actually reporting back to Fox News about me. She was reporting back about what I thought of her and about CNN and MSNBC and Fox. Because I was a reporter on the beat, they were actually spying on me that way.”

He added that Fox was “sending out private investigators” to tail other reporters.

So was Stelter’s date a spy or was Fox simply using a “confidential source to talk” to him? Interesting.

UPDATE (1:21 PM Eastern):

Stelter responded to this piece on Twitter and suggested that this media reporter ought to be covering “Russia’s attack on our country” versus his “offhand remark.”

Follow Amber on Twitter