Joseph diGenova
While Newsmax hosts celebrate GOP lawyer and conspiracy theorist Joe diGenova’s appointment to a post overseeing investigations of President Donald Trump’s political foes, their counterparts at Fox News — which apparently banned diGenova from appearing years ago — have mentioned the news just one time, in passing, on Sunday afternoon.
News broke over the weekend that Trump’s former personal lawyer and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had appointed diGenova, a figure in numerous right-wing pseudoscandals over the last three decades who represented Trump’s 2020 campaign in election fraud lawsuits, as his counselor and tasked him with overseeing the Justice Department’s “Grand Conspiracy” probe. That investigation unifies a hodgepodge of “deep state” conspiracy theories touted by right-wing media into a single framework seemingly intended to defeat statutes of limitations and target a vast swathe of Democratic politicians and former federal law enforcement officials.
Newsmax hosts celebrate as the DOJ hires Joe diGenova
On Newsmax, where diGenova has appeared regularly in recent years, hosts cheered the news.
“We have congratulations to share with Joe diGenova," Newsmax’s Greg Kelly said on the network’s flagship prime-time show. “Good luck, Joe. Did you hear? He's got a big gig at the Department of Justice. One of our favorite guests on this show will be counselor to the attorney general. That is a big-deal role.”
“He knows what they did to President Trump,” Kelly claimed. “And he wants justice. He has said it many, many times right here on this show. I think it's part of the reason why he may have the job now. It's so awesome.”
Kelly also praised diGenova as a “superstar” and someone who “thinks creatively, ethically, honestly, but creatively” and claimed the lawyer “is so fired up for this role."
On-screen text during the segment read, “A regular on the show gets a new job."
Newsmax’s Carl Higbie likewise touted the news, calling diGenova a “friend of this network” who will be overseeing what Higbie called “the DOJ probe into this Russian origin thing.” (Trump and his media allies argue that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was corrupt and its perpetrators should be prosecuted; previous attempts to turn their conspiracy theories into federal cases failed after a three-year special counsel probe by a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney.)
While Newsmax’s stars throw a parade over diGenova’s appointment, their Fox counterparts have been largely silent. Thus far, the entirety of the network’s coverage since the news broke late Friday has been a single passing mention on Sunday afternoon.
“The Trump administration is dismantling the deep state,” host Tomi Lahren said at the top of a segment on The Big Weekend Show. “The DOJ has now tapped former Trump attorney Joe diGenova to spearhead the probe into ex-CIA Director John Brennan and others over the Russian hoax."The news went unmentioned on Monday, including on the network’s flagship “straight-news” program, Special Report, and the scandal-happy programs hosted by Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, and Sean Hannity.
Why Fox may have trouble swallowing diGenova’s new post
Fox is in a strained position, because while the network spent years feverishly demanding and supporting the prosecutions of Trump’s enemies over dubious premises, its leaders are seemingly also aware that diGenova is not credible.
DiGenova made more than 100 appearances on Fox News weekday programs in 2018 and 2019, and dozens more on its sister channel, Fox Business — but both networks appear to have banned the GOP lawyer in late 2019. He has not appeared on Fox News weekday programs since October 8, 2019, according to our database.
DiGenova and his wife and legal partner, Victoria Toensing, disappeared from Fox News following a sequence of events that demonstrated their lack of credibility.
DiGenova used a Fox appearance to call then-Fox senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano “a fool” for suggesting earlier that day that Trump had committed a crime by soliciting campaign aid in a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
A few days later, diGenova and Toensing lashed out at then-Fox anchor Chris Wallace for reporting that they had been working “off the books” with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, on his effort to smear Joe Biden over Ukraine.
The day after diGenova’s final Fox interview, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — who had been working alongside diGenova, Toensing, Giuliani, and conservative columnist John Solomon on the Ukraine disinformation plot — were arrested by federal law enforcement en route to Vienna, Austria, to reportedly help set up an interview between Hannity and Viktor Shokin, the corrupt former Ukrainian prosecutor at the heart of the disinformation campaign
Their appearances on Fox Business, however, continued for a few more weeks — until diGenova used one to utter a widely condemned antisemitic screed, at which point the couple stopped appearing there as well.
Then in February 2020, The Daily Beast reported on a 162-page internal Fox News research briefing book detailing the “unrelenting disinformation campaign originating from Ukraine.” “Notable are the roles of Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing in spreading disinformation and their parroting of beneficial narratives while employed by [pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry] Firtash,” the document noted. It also highlighted their “non-disclosure of financial motives and representation of Firtash while spreading false and misleading stories."
DiGenova and Toensing subsequently became Newsmax contributors.
Now someone Fox’s own research division panned for “spreading disinformation” will be running the Trump administration’s latest efforts to criminalize their opponents. The network has spent years feeding the flames of the conspiracy theories that diGenova will now be investigating — but highlighting his new role might force the network to confront what it means that someone it’s apparently deemed unreliable is leading that charge.
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters
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