THE DAILY NEWSLETTER - WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2022

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
Peter Doocy

Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy grilled Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in her first briefing since the FBI raided the home of Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

During Tuesday’s briefing, Jean-Pierre stated the White House had no advanced knowledge of the search and that the president learned about it from public reports like everyone else.

Doocy later cited past comments by President Joe Biden, who said he’d be “very fortunate” to run against Trump again.

“Does the president still want to think that he would be very fortunate to run against Trump in 2024 like he has said before?” Doocy asked.

“I’m not going to comment,” Jean-Pierre responded. “All I can tell you, Peter, is that the president plans to run in 2024.”

Doocy went a step further despite Jean-Pierre's evasiveness, asking if the White House is worried the raid will be viewed as politically motivated.

The comment led to a rather testy exchange, in which Doocy continued to press Jean-Pierre despite her refusal to comment on the FBI search. 

"Is this White House weaponizing the Justice Department and the FBI against political opponents?" Doocy asked at one point, eventually prompting Jean-Pierre to say, "The president believes in the independence of the Department of Justice."

Doocy continued to push for a "yes or no" answer from Jean-Pierre, who instead concluded:

"The president has been very clear. I laid out what his thoughts were back on January 7 in 2021 about how he saw the Department of Justice. I’m just going to leave it there. We are not going to comment from here from this White House on a criminal investigation that is currently happening."

MEDIA LOSER:
Jesse Watters

Jesse Watters spent a large chunk of Tuesday night spewing bipartisan conspiracies on the FBI raid of ex-President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.

“I’m angry," Watters said on Tuesday's The Five. "I feel violated."

The host later took special umbrage at reporting that suggested the search was related to the enforcement of the Presidential Records Act.

The National Archives confirmed in February that Trump improperly took classified material with him when he left office

“The Presidential Records Act,” he said incredulously, adding, "First of all, we can’t even trust this warrant wasn’t corrupt. I mean, they cooked up a fake warrant last time when they spied on the Trump campaign.”

Watters even suggested the FBI planted evidence during the search.

“How do we know they’re not planting evidence right now?” he continued before baselessly adding, “They planted evidence with crooked [Hillary Clinton] in the CIA and the FBI already.”

He also suggested the raid was political and aimed at stopping Republicans support for Trump.

And all of that is just what Watters said on The Five.

He continued his marathon of baseless conjecture on his prime time show, declaring that the FBI plants and doctors evidence.

“We know they doctor evidence! We know they plant evidence!” Watters said to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), without providing proof.

“We know they lie! We know they leak! This is not anything new! This has been years they’ve been doing this!" he continued. "These people are out of control, senator! This country is like we are on the edge of a cliff, man! I’m telling you. This country is at the edge of a cliff here!”

The A-Block

Trump pleads the Fifth 

Former President Donald Trump pleaded the Fifth while testifying in New York as part of an investigation by the state’s attorney general into his family’s business practices.

This comes amid a busy week for the former president, whose Mar-a-Lago home was searched by the FBI on Monday.

Trump shared a long rambling statement on his Truth Social account, in which he confirmed he refused to answer questions during an appearance before Attorney General Letitia James (D-NY) on Wednesday.

Trump began the statement by criticizing James for campaigning “on the policy of ‘Get and Destroy Trump,'” calling the deposition “her despicable attempt to fulfill that cynical, and very corrupt promise.”

The investigation into Trump’s family and business had “wasted countless taxpayer dollars,” Trump continued, while “New York is suffering its worst murder, drug, and over crime rate in many decades.”

“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?'” Trump wrote, referring to a 2016 claim he made that only "the mob takes the Fifth."

The answer, he said, was “[w]hen your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”

In his statement, Trump also mentioned the search warrant the FBI executed on Mar-a-Lago as another reason he had “absolutely no choice” because “the current Administration and many prosecutors in this Country have lost all moral and ethical bounds of decency.”


In Other News...

Jason Miller Claims Trump Was Lukewarm on 2024 Until FBI Raid: ‘It’s Almost Certain… Trump Will Run Again’

GOP Rep. and Trump Ally Says FBI Seized His Phone Day After Mar-a-Lago Raid

Trump Lawyer On Scene at Mar-a-Lago Says She Saw 15 FBI Vehicles ‘Including a Ryder Truck’ – Spoke to ‘Shocked’ Trump During Raid

‘This Is a Major Escalation’: Dan Abrams Posits Trump Raid and GOP Rep’s Phone Seizure Are Actually Connected to Jan. 6 Probe

RATINGS: Fox News Dominates Ratings For Coverage of FBI Trump Raid

Must See Clip

Yikes

Steven Seagal, an American actor turned Kremlin supporter, embraced and defended Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine in a new video published by a Russian state-owned news organization. 

The video was shot at the wreckage of Olenivka prison in east Ukraine, and features Seagal running with the baseless claims that the prison was destroyed by HIMARS or by Ukrainians attempting to silence  “one of the Nazis” held there.

“The interesting thing is that one of the Nazis that was killed is a Nazi that was just starting to talk a lot about Zelensky and Zelensky being responsible for ordering torture and other atrocities that violate not only the Geneva Convention, but also crimes against humanity,” Seagal said.

“If Zelensky was being implicated in crimes against humanity, I wonder if that’s why this guy got rocketed and killed … Just wondering.”

Watch the disturbing video here. 

Links We Like

- Jessica Levinson, MSNBC
Darcy on Lachlan Murdoch's apparent contempt for Trump
- Oliver Darcy, CNN
Trump's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week
- Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
So how did Schorsch land the FBI scoop?
- Elahe Izadi, The Washington Post
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