Fox News contributor quits over Trump administration coverage

NEW YORK — A military analyst for Fox News said Tuesday that he was quitting the network because he believed it had turned into a propaganda machine for President Donald Trump’s administration. Ralph Peters, a retired U.S. Army officer, said he told Fox at the beginning of the month that he did not want his contributor contract renewed.

“Over my decade at Fox, I was long proud of the association,” Peters wrote in an email that was distributed to colleagues at Fox News, and first reported by BuzzFeed News. “Now I am ashamed.”

Fox said in a statement that the network did not want attributed to a specific spokesperson that Peters was entitled to his opinion, “despite the fact that he’s choosing to use it as a weapon in order to get attention.” Fox said it was proud of its opinion programming and prime-time hosts.

Peters said he believed Fox had “degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration.”

He criticized prime-time hosts for “profoundly dishonest assaults” on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community and special counsel Robert Mueller, who is conducting an investigation into the Trump administration’s dealings with Russia. He accused the network of “scaremongering” with lurid warnings of deep-state machinations.

Peters did not mention any names, but Fox’s leading prime-time host, Sean Hannity, has been the most vocal defender of the president while talking of a “deep state” and casting doubt on justice officials. Trump has been an avid watcher of Fox, most notably its morning “Fox Friends” program. The network is consistently the top-rated cable network each week with a prime-time lineup of Tucker Carlson, Hannity and Laura Ingraham.

The network had an intramural debate of its own last week when news anchor Shepard Smith, who just renewed his contract, said in an interview with Time magazine that Fox’s opinion hosts “don’t really have rules” and can say whatever they want. He said the opinion lineup is there primarily as entertainment. That led Hannity and Ingraham to fire back, saying their shows have made news.

Peters said it appalled him that “hosts who made their reputations as super-patriots” now advance the agenda of Russian President Vladimir Putin by making light of Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Peters was suspended by Fox for two weeks in 2015 for using a crude word to describe then-President Barack Obama during an appearance on the Fox Business Network.

The retired Army colonel said he did not apply his criticisms to Fox Business, who he called “the grown-ups,” and Fox’s news reporters.

Share and Enjoy

FBI Investigated Sessions for Possible Perjury Over Russia Denials

The investigation was first reported by ABC News.

Perjury investigations based on congressional referrals are common, and the F.B.I. frequently investigates but seldom charges. But the fact that the attorney general himself was a focus of the Russia investigation, even if only peripherally and temporarily, shows how entangled the Trump administration has become in the case. Mr. Sessions is recused from any aspect of the investigation.

The investigation also adds a new layer to Mr. McCabe’s firing. Mr. McCabe’s lawyers have said that he did not lie and acted quickly to fix any inaccuracies or misunderstandings. Mr. Sessions has offered a similar defense, saying he never intended to mislead Congress.

A spokeswoman for Mr. McCabe, Melissa Schwartz, had no comment.

A person close to Mr. Sessions said the attorney general was not aware of the investigation into his congressional statements when he fired Mr. McCabe. The investigation never came up during the negotiations over whether Mr. Sessions would fire Mr. McCabe, according to two people with knowledge of those discussions.

The testimony in question surfaced as part of Mr. Sessions’s confirmation hearing in January 2017. Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, asked Mr. Sessions about a recent CNN report that Trump campaign surrogates and Russian government intermediaries had exchanged information during the campaign.

“If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?” Mr. Franken asked.

“I’m not aware of any of those activities,” Mr. Sessions replied. “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn’t have — did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.”

After The Washington Post revealed that Mr. Sessions had met privately with the Russian ambassador, Mr. Sessions returned to Capitol Hill and said his testimony had been accurate if read in the context of Mr. Franken’s larger question. He said he met the ambassador in his capacity as a senator, not as a campaign surrogate.

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story

“You don’t believe that surrogates from the Trump campaign had communications with the Russians?” Mr. Franken asked in October.

“I did not, and I’m not aware of anyone else that did,” Mr. Sessions replied. “And I don’t believe it happened.”

That only compounded Mr. Sessions’s problems because court documents and news reports soon revealed that Mr. Papadopoulos, a young campaign aide, had boasted about his Russian ties in a meeting with Mr. Sessions and Mr. Trump. Mr. Sessions returned to Congress and again denied lying.

“I have always told the truth,” Mr. Sessions told the House Judiciary Committee in November. He said he stood by his previous testimony because “I had no recollection of this meeting until I saw these news reports.”

Mr. McCabe’s allies have pointed in recent days to these clarifications and asked why Mr. McCabe did not receive the same benefit of the doubt as the attorney general. But it is impossible to compare the cases because the Justice Department’s inspector general has not released his report explaining his concerns about Mr. McCabe’s candor.

Mr. Mueller is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election and whether anyone in the Trump campaign participated in those efforts. Mr. Trump has repeatedly said there was “no collusion,” and his aides initially flatly denied any contacts between the campaign and Russia.

But journalists and investigators have uncovered repeated examples of those contacts, including one in which a Kremlin-connected lawyer met with top campaign officials at Trump Tower after promising politically damaging information about Hillary Clinton. And Mr. Papadopoulos has testified that he learned from an intermediary to the Russian government that Moscow had damaging emails about Mrs. Clinton before that was publicly known.

Mr. Mueller interviewed Mr. Sessions early this year as part of his investigation. Mr. Mueller’s office recently told Mr. Cooper that he could publicly say that the attorney general was not under investigation and was considered a witness in the case.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly called the special counsel investigation a witch hunt, and his lawyer recently called for it to be shut down. Mr. Mueller has indicted Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman on tax and foreign lobbying charges and 13 Russians on fraud charges related to election interference. Two former campaign aides and Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser have pleaded guilty and are cooperating.

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story

Mr. Mueller has also requested to interview Mr. Trump. Defense lawyers are negotiating the terms of such an interview, which carries great risk for a president known for hyperbole and inaccurate statements.

Continue reading the main story

Share and Enjoy