In the meantime, NBC had Andrea Mitchell interview Rice. One would think that any interview would begin where Rice had left the controversy just last month in an interview on PBS Newshour. Rice was asked about the allegations of unmasking raised by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes and responded with a categorical denial: “I know nothing about this. I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today … So today, I really don’t know to what Chairman Nunes was referring. But he said that whatever he was referring to was a legal, lawful surveillance and that it was potentially incidental collection on American citizens.”
It would seem a rather newsworthy place to start, right? Yet, in the segment, Mitchell asked nary a single question on the prior statement. Not one. Instead, she spent time discussing the “politicized” investigation of the House Intelligence Committee and outrage over Trump’s tweets. She never got around to noting that Rice was saying something diametrically at odds to her prior statement on this very controversy.
She was not alone. ABC News ran an interview with Rice and again never mentioned to the viewers that she said the opposite on a national news program just weeks ago.
Instead, the media actively sought to focus on aspects of Rice’s statement that could still be supported. Media insisted that that was no proof that Rice leaked the information. Indeed, Rice said that she has never — ever — leaked anything as a high-ranking government official. If so, she would be in one of the smallest groups of Washington (that could be a difficult question under oath in a future hearing). The threshold question is whether Trump aides were indeed subject to surveillance and were indeed unmasked. Alternatively, the media hit on the fact that such surveillance is legal. Of course, the use of lawful surveillance in an abusive way could still be abusive and, yes, newsworthy.
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