Opinion

Clinton Campaign Finance Scandal Exposes Media Double Standard

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Ted Harvey Chairman, Committee to Defend the President
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Over a week has passed since Michael Cohen’s plea deal, and the left-leaning mainstream media is still beating the war drums.

From The New York Times to MSNBC, the liberal media remains fixated on President Trump’s alleged $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, even though it came from personal finances, not campaign funds.

Vogue went so far as to feature Daniels in a profile piece, titled “Stormy Daniels Isn’t Backing Down.” CNN then proceeded to highlight the piece, describing it as an “extraordinary story” that “grace[s] the pages of high fashion’s Bible.”

Know what else is extraordinary? Hillary Clinton’s well-documented $84 million campaign finance scandal, which the liberal media simply refuses to cover. That’s right: $84 million — 647 times more money than is involved in the Daniels case, which amounts to an insignificant Federal Election Commission (FEC) reporting issue.

Whereas it’s likely that President Trump did not violate campaign finance law in any way, his 2016 opponent is implicated in America’s largest campaign finance scandal to date.

Last year, the Committee to Defend the President filed a complaint with the FEC, documenting “an unprecedented, massive, nationwide multi-million dollar conspiracy” carried out by the Clinton machine. The Committee’s 101-page complaint was built entirely on FEC reports filed by Democrats, memos authored by Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook, and public statements from former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile, among others.

It’s been over 250 days since the complaint was filed — and counting.

The Democrat Party establishment stands accused of steering $84 million in illegal straw man contributions to Clinton’s campaign — an exponentially more sophisticated money laundering scheme than the one carried out by conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza in 2012.

D’Souza was sentenced to eight months in a community confinement center and five years of probation for a campaign finance violation that amounted to $20,000.Clinton’s money laundering scheme is more than 4,000 times larger. In other words, the $84 million scheme amounts to the single largest campaign finance scandal in U.S. history.

And yet the liberal media has deemed the scandal unworthy of its coverage, even though the Committee’s complaint has resulted in an ongoing federal investigation. Months have passed since that investigation was opened, and the likes of The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC refuse to cover it. Ditto for CBS, ABC, and NBC — only crickets.

Clearly, President Trump is in the White House and Hillary Clinton is not, so he’s a more relevant topic of conversation. Americans can be thankful for that.

But Clinton was the 2016 presidential nominee for one of our two major political parties, and she remains one of America’s most recognizable political figures. For an $84 million campaign finance scandal in which Clinton is implicated to garner virtually no mainstream coverage defies belief.

A better explanation than media apathy is media bias. Just imagine if President Trump was implicated in an $84 million scandal of any kind. We’d see wall-to-wall news coverage, congressional calls for impeachment, and outrage on overdrive. The #Resistance would make it their top 2018 campaign issue, not to mention making signs out of it for future women’s marches.

There is certainly room for non-Trump-related coverage. The liberal media has found time to fawn over socialist candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—the “next Obama” in some left-wing corners—and prop up Michael Avenatti, Daniels’ lawyer, as a viable 2020 candidate. Yes, Michael Avenatti. Apparently, there is also room for the liberal media to willfully ignore the latest Clinton scandal.

Clinton and the other complicit Democrats are being investigated for their 2016 transgressions, so they may yet be held accountable. It just won’t be the liberal media doing the job.

Fake news rolls on.

Ted Harvey is chairman of the Committee to Defend the President.


The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.