Justice Department slams NBC’s Meet The Press for ‘deceptive editing and commentary’ after cutting short a clip of AG William Barr defending the dismissal of charges against Michael Flynn – sparking an apology from the network
- A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice accused NBC’s Chuck Todd of deliberately editing a clip of Attorney General William Barr
- Todd asked Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan about recent remarks Barr made regarding the dropped case against former national security adviser
- The clip saw Barr being asked how history might view his efforts to dismiss charges against Lt. Gen. Micheal Flynn
- In the CBS clip Barr was seen to fully justify his actions but in the excerpt used by NBC the clip was cut short implying Barr did not make the case for his decision
- Todd accused Barr of not mentioning anything about ‘the rule of law’ when in reality, the attorney general was heard to say the ruling ‘upheld the rule of law’
- Late Sunday night, NBC admitted to ‘inadvertently and inaccurately cutting short a video clip’ and have apologized for making the error
The Department of Justice has accused NBC’s Sunday flagship news program, Meet the Press of deceptively editing a sound bite from Attorney General William Barr when responding to an question about the dismissal of charged against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
During Sunday morning’s edition of the program, anchor Chuck Todd played an excerpt of an interview recorded by CBS but the clip was ‘inadvertently cut short.’
NBC later apologized for the poor editing on Sunday evening.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice accused NBC’s Chuck Todd of deliberately editing a clip of Attorney General William Barr as he defended the dismissal of charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn
Todd asked Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan about recent remarks Barr made regarding the dropped case against former national security adviser
Today on Meet The Press, @chucktodd wildly took context out of an answer AG Bill Barr gave about his decision to drop the case into Gen. Michael Flynn.
I cut Todd’s segment along with Barr’s full answer together. Look at how blatantly dishonest this is. pic.twitter.com/tODOEwL48V
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 10, 2020
The clip NBC played showed CBS reporter Catherine Herridge asking Barr how history might view his efforts to dismiss charges against Flynn.
‘Well, history’s written by the winners. So it largely depends on who’s writing the history,’ Barr replied.
Todd then added he was struck by ‘the cynicism of the answer. It’s a correct answer. But he’s the attorney general. He didn’t make the case that he was upholding the rule of law,’ Todd reacted. ‘He was almost admitting that, yeah, this is a political job.’
However in an extended clip, shown in full by CBS News, Barr is seen responding with further justification of his actions: ‘Well, history is written by the winners. So it largely depends on who’s writing the history. But I think a fair history would say that it was a good decision because it upheld the rule of law. It helped, it upheld the standards of the Department of Justice, and it undid what was an injustice.’
A spokesperson for the Justice Department, Kerri Kupec ended up tweeting a side-by-side transcript of the CBS interview compared with the excerpt used by NBC’s Meet The Press.
Very disappointed by the deceptive editing/commentary by @ChuckTodd on @MeetThePress on AG Barr’s CBS interview.
Compare the two transcripts below. Not only did the AG make the case in the VERY answer Chuck says he didn’t, he also did so multiple times throughout the interview. pic.twitter.com/PR1ciceMmE
— KerriKupecDOJ (@KerriKupecDOJ) May 10, 2020
In the CBS clip Barr was seen to fully justify his actions but in the excerpt used by NBC the clip was cut short implying Barr did not make the case for his decision
Kupec stated she was ‘very disappointed by the deceptive editing/commentary.’
‘He didn’t make the case that he was upholding the rule of law,’ said Todd during his segment on Sunday. ‘He was almost admitting that, yeah, this is a political job.’
However Kupec noted that Todd’s clip specifically left out the rest of the attorney general’s response, in which Barr referred to the rule of law.
‘Not only did the AG make the case in the VERY answer Chuck says he didn’t, he also did so multiple times throughout the interview,’ she tweeted.
Late Sunday night, NBC admitted to ‘inadvertently and inaccurately cutting short a video clip’ and have apologized for making the error
Late on Sunday night, NBC admitted to ‘inadvertently and inaccurately cutting short a video clip’ and have apologized for making the error in a tweet.
‘Earlier today, we inadvertently and inaccurately cut short a video clip of an interview with AG Barr before offering commentary and analysis. The remaining clip included important remarks from the attorney general that we missed, and we regret the error,’ Meet The Press tweeted.
Critics of Barr have suggested that the decision to drop charges against Flynn was politically-motivated protect or keep scrutiny away from President Trump.
Barr was long critical of the counterintelligence investigation that led to Flynn’s ouster and conviction for lying to FBI investigators.