Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.com
Fox News does not want Americans to know about the rampant corruption and mismanagement in Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The right-wing propaganda network is covering up yet another Trump-era scandal in hopes of shoring up his unpopular presidency.
Anchor Bill Hemmer complained that “the left” is attacking EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, whining that “he’s got a target on him” from the left. He went on to praise Pruitt for “rolling back regulations all across the country.”
The real story is that Pruitt benefitted from a sweetheart deal where he rented out a condo in Washington, D.C., from a lobbyist for only $50 per night.
The same lobbyist represented a Canadian company, Enbridge Inc., which received approval in March 2017 from the EPA to expand a pipeline project.
A pay-for-play scandal, seen through the Fox News filter, somehow became a simple “housing arrangement” that “the left” is upset about.
As the story broke, Fox barely covered it. The corrupt exchange only merited a 20-second mention on “Fox & Friends,” Trump’s favorite show, which he often uses as the basis for his Twitter tirades.
The support for Pruitt on Fox echoes Trump himself, who reportedly called Pruitt and offered the administration’s full-throated support despite the scandals in his department.
Asked about Pruitt during a brief availability with the press, Trump said of Pruitt, “I hope he is going to be great.”
The EPA has taken its cues from Trump himself, allowing corruption to be the norm while using federal resources for private luxury.
Pruitt met with oil executives at Trump’s D.C. hotel (a nexus for Trump-era corruption), and then backed off on regulation for the industry.
Pruitt gave a failed banker whose bank had given Pruitt loans a federal job. He spent nearly $25,000 in tax dollars on a soundproof booth.
He billed taxpayers thousands for luxury first-class flights.
That is the sort of business Fox doesn’t want their audience to know about and dismisses simply as attacks from “the left.”
For the network to give appropriate coverage to these and other scandals (and there are so many) is to admit that the network backs corruption and turns a blind eye if Republicans are the guilty party.
Fox is failing at its mission. Millions of Americans know how corrupt Trump and his top lieutenants are. It’s just one of the reasons why Trump is such an unpopular figure.
But the propaganda machine is holding out and denying reality, hoping that the last few Americans who continue to back Trump remain clueless about what the current administration has done to their country in their name.
