The New York Times broke the story of Peter Strzok being fired by the FBI by insisting that Trump had “seized” on Strzok’s biased text messages.
Rather than acknowledge that the texts — one of which promised to “stop” Trump — were biased, the Times instead framed their breaking tweet on the story around Trump’s criticism of the texts.
“Breaking News: The FBI fired Peter Strzok, whose anti-Trump text messages were seized on by the president to argue that the Russia inquiry was tainted,” the Times wrote on Twitter.
Breaking News: The FBI fired Peter Strzok, whose anti-Trump text messages were seized on by the president to argue that the Russia inquiry was tainted https://t.co/Ltr7ElWyMy
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 13, 2018
The sub-headline on the article also claims that the texts “handed a weapon to conservatives.”
In the article, the Times further focused on conservative opposition to Strzok, writing, “Mr. Trump and his allies seized on the text messages — exchanged during the 2016 campaign with a former F.B.I. lawyer, Lisa Page.”