CNN debases itself by acting as DOJ’s free PR contractor

CNN needs to rethink its relationship with some of its sources. It is doing its reputation no favors by serving as the Justice Department’s go-to source for spin and friendly coverage.

On April 30, the Daily Signal, a creation of the conservative Heritage Foundation, landed a scoop. Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, had lied under oath during her Senate confirmation. 

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked then-nominee Clarke specifically, “Since becoming a legal adult, have you ever been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime against any person?”

In a written response submitted under oath, Clarke answered with a simple “No.”

Her answer was untrue.

Clarke was arrested in 2006 following a domestic dispute in which her then-husband alleged she attacked him with a knife. A criminal case against Clarke was initiated later that same year but was eventually dismissed without trial. Clarke then sought an “Order for Expungement of Police and Court Records,” which was granted in 2008. Her divorce was finalized the following year.

The Daily Signal began its investigation of Clarke’s confirmation in February. In April, it published its findings. In all that time, the Justice Department ignored the publication’s multiple requests for comment. But then the story broke, and the senators who confirmed Clarke had questions for the department’s high-ranking officer.

At last, this had become a problem that the Justice Department could no longer ignore. So, what did Clarke do? She ran to CNN with an “exclusive” statement, claiming she had failed to disclose her arrest when asked under oath because she was a victim of domestic abuse.

CNN somehow failed to recognize this as the insult it was — that it had become the choice for sympathetic coverage by those in power. The network allowed itself to be used by the Justice Department, one of the world’s most powerful organizations, when officials there became desperate for good crisis communications. Even worse than churning out credulous and sympathetic coverage for the benefit of federal officials, CNN disparaged the Daily Signal’s original reporting.

“The leader of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, Kristen Clarke, said in an extraordinary personal statement shared with CNN that she was a victim of years-long domestic abuse and chose not to disclose an expunged arrest record from that period during the Senate confirmation process,” reads the opening line to a CNN report titled “Exclusive: DOJ civil rights leader says she was a victim of abuse in extraordinary statement.”

In the statement she gave to CNN, Clarke claimed that she had left that “terrorizing and traumatizing period” in the past for her own “personal health, healing, and well-being,” and that she “didn’t believe during my confirmation process and I don’t believe now that I was obligated to share a fully expunged matter from my past.”

In a statement to the Daily Signal, Clarke’s ex-husband denied her allegations of abuse.

From there, the CNN report went on to dismiss the Daily Signal’s original journalism as just another case of “conservatives pounce.” As an extra petty cherry on top, CNN didn’t even bother linking to scoops authored by the Daily Signal’s Mary Margaret Olohan. (Full disclosure: Olohan is a regular guest speaker at events hosted by my organization.)

“Clarke’s now-expunged arrest,” CNN reports, “which reportedly occurred during a domestic dispute, quickly became a cause célèbre among right-wing media and lawmakers who claim she lied during her 2021 Senate confirmation hearing, with some calling for her resignation.”

“Claimed she lied?” What word should we use when a person knowingly answers a question falsely? 

Put aside whether we should call it a “lie.” Put aside the legalities surrounding expunged records. Clarke is a Justice Department official. Did she think this would never come out? She should know better about the dangers of playing fast and loose with a Senate confirmation hearing. And if she didn’t know better, then what sort of people are they recruiting at the Justice Department?

Perhaps Clarke’s more charitable critics can see a way around characterizing her response as a lie, but they must at least concede that her answer was extraordinarily ill-advised for a person nominated for a position of such power — so ill-advised, in fact, that she hardly seems fit for the role.

And just to be clear here, let’s review: a top Justice Department official lied under oath. Pressed to explain the matter, the department blew off the reporter who uncovered Clarke’s lie. The department then ran to CNN with an “exclusive” statement after the story became too big to dismiss.

The Justice Department’s defense is that yes, the official did a little perjury, but it’s okay because she is allegedly a victim of domestic abuse. CNN publishes this perjured official’s statement without verifying it. CNN then attacks other people for doing the journalism that put this statement into CNN’s lap in the first place.

I don’t know what CNN thinks it accomplished here, but it wasn’t journalism.

Becket Adams is a writer in Washington and program director for the National Journalism Center.