How the media ‘pardon’ political criminals

News outlets paper over the ugly pasts of right-wing extremists

original sketch: Jane Rosenberg | Reuters

Donald Trump is on a pardon spree.

Did you plot to use fake electors to steal an election?

You get a pardon.

Are you a crypto king convicted in a money laundering operation who gave the Trump family a financial windfall?

You get a pardon.

Are you a former Tennessee House speaker convicted of wire fraud?

You get a pardon.

But Trump isn’t the only one trying to paint over people’s ugly pasts. The news media do it too.

When news outlets quote someone in a report, the person’s credibility matters, which means their criminal past matters too, especially when they’ve been convicted of committing fraud or making false statements. But major media often fail to note the criminal records of MAGA figures, effectively helping to rehabilitate them as newsmakers.

Take Steve Bannon.

He was charged with defrauding donors in a private border-wall project, but Trump pardoned him before his federal trial. Bannon was convicted on a state charge in the same scheme, but avoided jail time. He did, however, spend four months in prison for defying a congressional subpoena.

Bannon is an ex-con. But it’s common for news reports about Bannon to make no mention of his criminal past and describe him as “a populist who played a key role in Trump’s political rise” (NBC), “Donald Trump’s former aide” (The Guardian), a “MAGA podcaster” (ABC), or someone “who once served as Trump’s chief strategist and helped lead his 2016 Republican campaign” (Associated Press).

National Public Radio’s Steve Inskeep broadcast an 11-minute report in April that was a shameful whitewashing of Bannon’s image. Inskeep described Bannon as ”a sometime presidential adviser” and failed to provide even a hint that he was a convicted con artist.

To their credit, some journalists have not gone along with this trend. In a recent story, USA Today cited Bannon’s past crimes prominently. And last month, the New York Times called him a “pro-Trump podcaster and convicted fraudster.” That should be a much more common practice.

Then there’s political trickster Roger Stone, who was convicted of seven felonies in connection with the Mueller probe of Russian election interference. The crimes included witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and making false statements. Trump commuted his sentence and later pardoned him.

The AP included Stone in an embarrassing story in July headlined, “A year after Trump’s near-assassination, friends and allies see some signs of a changed man.” Stone was described as “a longtime friend and informal adviser” of Trump, with no mention of his past legal issues or Trump’s pardon. AP quoted Stone as saying Trump “told me directly that he believed he was spared by God for the purpose of restoring the nation to greatness.”

Why was Stone considered credible enough to be included in this story? After all, he was convicted on five counts of lying to Congress (even though AP didn’t tell its audience that).

Of course, the criminal-in-chief himself sometimes gets the “pardon” treatment from the press, too. Trump’s 34 felony convictions for falsifying business records have been in the news recently because he filed an appeal. But when there’s no news directly about the case, the media have rarely brought it up. Before Trump took office in January, CNN journalists were told to go easy on his criminal past. And indeed the phrase “convicted felon” was not uttered on CNN on Inauguration Day.

Imagine how much more aware people would be about White House corruption if news stories stopped saying “Trump said…” and instead said, “Trump, a convicted felon, said…” I can see why constant use of the phrase “convicted felon” would come across as heavy-handed. But at the very least, why not use it when Trump accuses someone else of a crime?

After a Trump social media post said some of his political opponents were “guilty as hell” and should be prosecuted, NBC wrote about it without noting Trump’s own felony convictions. Same for the New York Times, Axios, AP, and CNN.

Even when a person has not been convicted of crimes, there may be facts that are relevant to their character – or lack of character. For example, far right Rep. Ralph Norman, who’s running for governor of South Carolina, has benefitted from the media’s failure to bring up a disturbing incident from his past.

Three days before Joe Biden was to be sworn in as president in 2021, Norman sent a text to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows: “Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!”

Even though he didn’t know how to spell “martial law,” Norman was secretly calling for a military-backed coup to keep Trump in office.

That text wasn’t revealed until late 2022, and the New York Times’ coverage of it has been pitiful, perhaps because the story was first reported outside of mainstream media, by Talking Points Memo. The NYT’s first mention was on Dec. 14, 2022, in a roundup of late-night comedians’ quips, noting that Jimmy Kimmel had joked about the text. The NYT also mentioned the text in the 7th paragraph of a Jan. 3, 2023 story about House Republican politics.

Since then, the NYT has memory-holed Norman’s call for martial law. Not a single mention in two years and 10 months, even though the paper has included Norman in 78 separate news reports, not even counting simple lists such as roll calls.

I’m not saying Norman’s text should have been cited in all of those 78 stories. But not once? Really?

The New York Times has given Norman its version of a full pardon.

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