Chuck Todd Whines About ‘Right-Wing Echo Chamber’ Covering Durham

His MSNBC Tuesday show was on Tuesday afternoon. MTP Daily host Chuck Todd acknowledged the bombshell news from the John Durham investigation but promptly attempted to dismiss evidence of the Hillary Clinton campaign spying on Donald Trump as just something being promoted by “the right-wing echo chamber.” He later sneered: “Sometimes facts get in the way of a good meme.”

After briefly reminding viewers – or more likely telling many of them for the first time – that Durham “is the former U.S. Attorney that has been a holdover from the Barr Justice Department to the Garland Justice Department to finish up sort of his probe of how the Russian probe was conducted,” Todd whined: “A filing was made regarding a – I guess a perjury charge….and this filing has obviously taken off on the right-wing echo chamber to say something that it is not.”

Tom Winter, correspondent of the New York Times tried to immediately downplay this potentially huge scandal. “Well, there’s an analogy that’s being thrown around that this is a modern-day Watergate and that’s an analogy that’s not based on fact….Durham doesn’t allege that at all.”

Winter then attempted to claim that the 2016 Clinton campaign’s spying on the Trump campaign and presidency were really no big deal:

He basically said that someone was acting as a gatekeeper. Think of an external security firm that would be at Watergate. Someone who would just be noting who came in and went out would do the same. And then, while they were doing that job, they were also getting paid or also perhaps potentially, according to Durham, providing some of that information to a third party, in this case, an tech executive who passed that information along to an individual who’d done business with the Clinton campaign.

Amazingly, neither he nor Todd thought that kind of surveillance by one’s political opponents was in any way disturbing or unusual.

Winter instead tried to comfort everyone by saying that no evidence was yet available of wiretapping. “Nowhere in this filing, and you can be assured that there would be vans and busloads of people arrested, does it suggest that the President’s communications or anybody in the White House’s communications were intercepted or read.”

MSNBC seems to think that anything less than this is okay.

Todd laughed and chimed in. “Well, we will see. Sometimes, facts can get in the way a great meme. And that can be problematic on social media.”

Appears on Morning Joe earlier in the day, Winter participated in a panel discussion in which co-host Joe Scarborough mocked “stupid” people daring to cover the story.

Progressive presented this effort to discredit Durham’s news, after only reporting on it once. This advertiser can be contacted to let them know your opinion about it sponsoring this content.

This is the complete transcript for the segment of February 15, which lasted less than 2 minutes.

1:33 PM ET (1:33:51 – 1:35:43, 1 min 52 sec)

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CHUCK TODD : Now let me get to the Durham investigation updates. Durham was the U.S.A. ex-Attorney who has been transferred from Barr Justice Department into the Garland Justice Department. This is how he will finish his inquiry about the Russian probe.

TOM WINTER is right.
        
TODD: A filing was made regarding a – I guess a perjury charge that they have that they’re going – and this filing has obviously taken off on the right-wing echo chamber to say something that it is not. Tell us what it is and tell us what it isn’t.

WINTER: Right. Well, there’s an analogy that’s being thrown around that this is a modern-day Watergate and that’s an analogy that’s not based on fact. So when you look at what Durham says, and I’m merely representing what Durham says, the analogy that some have said that this involves Watergate and spying and people breaking into things, Durham doesn’t allege that at all.

He said, in essence, that someone acting as a gatekeeper would have to be an outside security guard company. Someone who checks people in and out would not be able to see who’s coming in. And then, while they were doing that job, they were also getting paid or also perhaps potentially, according to Durham, providing some of that information to a third party, in this case, an tech executive who passed that information along to an individual who’d done business with the Clinton campaign.

Nowhere in this filing, and you can be assured that there would be vans and busloads of people arrested, does it suggest that the President’s communications or anybody in the White House’s communications were intercepted or read. And I think that’s an important distinction as we continue to follow this, Chuck.

TODD: Let’s see. Sometimes, facts can get in the way a great meme. That can prove problematic when it comes to social media. Tom Winter provides the facts.

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