We told you something smelled bad about this new Donald Trump Jr phone call story
On Thursday evening, multiple major news outlets reported the dubious claim that the Senate Intelligence Committee had just obtained evidence that Donald Trump Jr didn’t speak on the phone with his father just before his Trump Tower meeting with the Russians, but instead spoke innocently with two random business associates.
Palmer Report quickly pointed out the numerous holes in this reporting. For instance, if Donald Trump Jr had phone records all this time that exonerated his father, why would he have sat on them for the past year and a half? In addition, what were the odds that this evidence conveniently found its way into the hands of a Republican-controlled committee just one day after Trump Jr’s fate was all but sealed on perjury charges?
Most alarmingly, none of the reporters involved appeared to have actually seen the records themselves; instead they were merely taking the word of inside “sources.” Of course these sources could only really be Donald Trump Jr and/or people within the Trump Organization, which would mean they can’t be believed at all. Now the story has taken an even more absurd turn.
Now the New York Times is claiming that the phone records show Donald Trump Jr spoke on the phone with NASCAR chief executive Brian France just before his Trump Tower meeting with the Russians. This seems legit; I know I always talk with the head of NASCAR just before I walk into meetings where I intend to commit treason [insert eyeroll]. Give me a break.
This whole thing couldn’t be any more ridiculous. And if these news outlets really are taking the Trump Organization’s word for it that evidence has been turned over to the Senate Intel Committee, then the news outlets in question are committing a form of journalistic treason.
