On Tuesday night, hours after former President Donald Trump was indicted on charges related to his improper removal of government documents from the White House at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Fox News chyronized the part bottom of the screen calling the current president Joe. Biden, a “would-be dictator” who used his powers in office to arrest his “political rival.”
The chiron, which appeared below both men’s live video feeds, has no basis in fact, there is no evidence that Biden had any role in the decision to prosecute Trump. Indeed, the decision to do so came after the Department of Justice (DOJ), presenting evidence of Trump’s embezzlement in the case, convinced a Florida-based federal grand jury to indict Trump on 37 criminal charges. .
Despite the lack of evidence to support their claim, Fox News broadcast the words at the bottom of the screen as if they were true, during prime time viewing hours, giving their impressionable audience the false idea and unfounded which was indisputable.
“WANNABE DICTATOR SPEAKS AT WHITE HOUSE AFTER ARRESTING HIS POLITICAL RIVAL,” the chyron read in full.
Biden has said on record that he had no role in the decision-making process to file charges against Trump. Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was selected to lead the investigation because Trump announced himself as a presidential candidate in 2024, has extensive experience investigating and prosecuting high-level figuresincluding prominent politicians, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and has also prosecuted members of both major political parties in the United States.
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The former president appeared visibly tense and sad during his appearance in Miami, multiple sources reported.
Critics harangued Fox News for its editorial decision to call Biden a dictator.
“For a network with ‘News’ in its title to broadcast an outright lie is appalling,” wrote Mother Jones news writer Abigail Weinberg. “But even more troubling is the hint of the kind of tactics the right-wing media might deploy as the presidential race continues. Why dive into the intricacies of a complicated impeachment when you can paint it as a motivational success politics and call it a day?
The wording of the chiron matches the baseless accusations Trump allies and Trump himself have leveled against Biden, Smith and the DOJ throughout the investigation and especially in recent days.
In his speech on Wednesday night, delivered at his Bedminster, New Jersey, home to a crowd of supporters, Trump blasted the investigation, calling it the most “evil and egregious abuse of power in the history of our country”. “, and described Smith as a “thug” as well as a “raging, out-of-control Trump hater.”
In a Truth Social post last nightTrump also attacked Biden, stating that he “will forever be remembered not only as the most corrupt president in the history of our country, but perhaps, even more importantly, the president who, along with a band of his thugs, misfits and closers “. Marxists, we tried to destroy American democracy!”
Trump made the comment without realizing the irony behind it, as it was his actions after the 2020 presidential election that sought to undermine democracy through his attempts to overturn the results of his loss in front of Biden. The DOJ is also investigating Trump in connection with this matter.
Despite overwhelming evidence against him showing that he indeed stored highly classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left office and stalling efforts by government agencies to recover them, Republicans in Congress, including GOP leadership, have defended Trump. , repeating his baseless talking points that researchers are targeting him politically to be Biden’s opponent in the upcoming presidential election.
Last week, for example, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) promised to “hold accountable this blatant weaponization of power.” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) also called the accusation a “farce” and claimed that “Joe Biden is arming his Justice Department against his own political rival.”
However, while Republicans have come to his defense, Trump has shown his own hypocrisy, vowing to “go after” Biden if he wins the 2024 presidential election.
If elected, “I will appoint a real special ‘prosecutor’ to go after the most corrupt president in US history, Joe Biden, the entire Biden crime family and everyone else involved in destroying our elections, borders and the country itself !” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post this week.
Since his first presidential election in 2016, Trump has vowed to use the presidency in similarly brazenly abusive ways. He promised, for example, to prosecute former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, making it a point of contention in both the 2016 and 2020 races, even after investigations into her conduct had failed. no legal offense. While in office, Trump was repeatedly rebuffed by his legal aides who told him in no uncertain terms that he could not use his office to spearhead investigations of his opponents.
Trump did it anyway, beyond using the legal apparatus at his disposal. In 2019, Trump infamously asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy find him political dirt on Biden, then the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, before he agreed to send aid to that country, which was facing an escalating Russian military presence on its borders. That lawsuit led to the first of Trump’s two impeachments.
Despite claims being unfairly targeted, many legal experts say the charges against Trump are solidbased on the available evidence, some even went so far as to say that the former president will one day be convicted on the charges.
Norm Eisen, a senior fellow for governance studies at the Brookings Institution, noted earlier this month that he and other legal experts compiled a model impeachment memo that detailed “there is a strong case to impeach Trump.” In a tweet late last week, after the indictment was unsealed, Eisen played down that statement.
“Now that I’ve seen the indictment, I feel it even more strongly,” Eisen said. “Trump will very likely be convicted.”
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