FILE – This Jan. 17, 2001 file photo shows pedestrians entering CNN Center, the headquarters for CNN, in downtown Atlanta. The latest rough patch for CNN illustrates the two contradictions at the network’s heart. In a brutal time for the news business, CNN is one of the few media organizations thriving while its most visible part in the United States, prime-time on the flagship network, is hurting. The company has built its brand on nonpartisan reporting, while CNN’s audience tilts Democratic as much or more as Fox News Channel’s audience is Republican. (AP Photo/Ric Feld, File)
CNN broke a story on Wednesday about the foreperson from the Roger Stone jury coming out in defense of the four prosecutors who’d quit after senior DOJ officials called the sentence they were recommending in the case excessive and pulled back the recommendation. A senior DOJ official said that the prosecutors recommendation of 7-9 years was not what had been previously discussed with DOJ leadership and they thought a more moderate sentence was going to be recommended.
CNN trumpeted her remarks in support of the prosecutors in an article, “Stone juror says she ‘stands with’ the prosecutors.” The article highlighted her Facebook post, that she wanted to “stand up” for the prosecutors who withdrew.
From Daily Caller:
“I want to stand up for Aaron Zelinsky, Adam Jed, Michael Marando, and Jonathan Kravis — the prosecutors on the Roger Stone trial,” Hart wrote in the Facebook post. “It pains me to see the DOJ now interfere with the hard work of the prosecutors. They acted with the utmost intelligence, integrity, and respect for our system of justice.”
“As foreperson, I made sure we went through every element, of every charge, matching the evidence presented in the case that led us to return a conviction of guilty on all 7 counts.”
What CNN left out was Tomeka Hart’s background as a Democratic politician or anything about her anti-Trump social media posts. She ran for Congress in 2012 as a Democrat and as we reported earlier, she not only had many anti-Trump posts including one in which she has a quote referring to Trump as a ‘Klan President.’ She also called Trump supporters “racists” and even retweeted a tweet which mocked people who had a concern about the excessive nature of Roger Stone’s arrest.
When she was vetted during jury selection she was required to fill out a questionnaire. The judge also asked her further questions about her knowledge about the case. She indicated to the judge that she hadn’t followed the matter closely and that the fact that he was a Republican or Trump supporter wouldn’t interfere with her ability to render an impartial decision. Yet her social media posts indicated that she had been following the Mueller investigation and had extremely strong feelings about Trump and Trump supporters. They also appear to have been familiar with the fact that she ran for Congress as a Democrat but she wasn’t dismissed for that.
Not only did CNN leave out anything about her background, they also described the DOJ officials actions toward the prosecutors as having “undercut them” as opposed to what may have been actually the other way around. At the very least they could have taken a neutral position. But, it’s CNN, so not so much.
According to the Daily Caller, CNN did not respond when they tried to find out why they hadn’t included anything about Hart’s background.
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