Reuters says Trump ‘offers no evidence’ his campaign was spied on

You may have noticed the media adopted a new standard for presidential utterances as soon as Donald Trump took office. As soon as Trump became president, the media immediately began reporting every statement Trump made along with the editorial comment that he had spoken “without evidence” to back up whatever he said. That’s funny. I don’t remember them telling us when Barack Obama offered no evidence his critics were racist, or that Harry Reid offered no evidence Mitt Romney hadn’t paid taxes for 10 years, or that Hillary Clinton offered no evidence of the vast right-wing conspiracy, or that Bill Clinton had offered no evidence the federal government could spend people’s money better than they could spend it themselves.

Because the practice of demanding evidence to support every word out of the president’s mouth was only invented when Trump became president. And it’s become so rote that the media now lazily trot out this line even when their own story tells us – in the lead, no less – what the president’s evidence was. Behold, the latest dispatch from Reuterville:

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that documents released by the FBI relating to a former adviser’s ties to Russia showed that his campaign for the 2016 presidential election had been illegally spied upon by U.S. law enforcement, but offered no evidence to support his assertion. In a series of Twitter posts, Trump also accused the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice of misleading the courts during a probe of Russian interference in the election, but did not elaborate. The FBI documents released on Saturday showed how in 2016 the bureau requested surveillance of the former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page, as part of that investigation, saying the bureau believed he had been collaborating with the Russian government.

So let’s break this down: Trump says the FISA warrant application shows that the FBI spied on his campaign. Reuters reports that Trump made the spying claim but “offered no evidence.”

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Obama DOJ spied on Carter Page under false pretenses

You see the problem here? See the passage I put in bold above? The FISA warrant application is the evidence Trump cites. Reuters mentions it in its own lead. Is Reuters so obtuse that it doesn’t realize this? No. Reuters is being dishonest. Trump haters are doing their best to construct a narrative that claims the FISA application doesn’t support the notion that the Obama DOJ spied on Trump under false pretenses for baldly political purposes. As part of that effort, Reuters is treating the FISA application as self-evidently not supportive of Trump’s claim, and thus when he cites it, Reuters pretends Trump cited nothing at all. We’ve already explained why the FISA application does indeed show that the Obama DOJ spied on Carter Page under false pretenses. If you disagree, that’s fine, although I really don’t see how you can once you hear Andrew McCarthy explain the problems with it. But I understand some people are determined to believe the worst about Trump and the best about his enemies no matter what the facts may show. You do you.

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This is why no one trusts the media anymore, and no one should

But it’s one thing to disagree with how the evidence is being interpreted. It’s another thing entirely to pretend no evidence at all was cited, especially when your own story clearly indicates what the evidence was and makes clear that the president did indeed cite it. The twisted irony here is that the news media are the ones who keep telling us how much Trump lies. How much more can you lie than to claim the president made a statement without citing evidence, even as your own story clearly identifies the evidence he cited? This is why no one trusts the media anymore, and no one should.