The Drudge Report is pulling no punches as it covers the Trump document saga

The Drudge Report is pulling no punches as it covers the Trump document saga.

Backstory: In 1998, Drudge went public with word that Newsweek was sitting on a story about an intimate relationship between President Clinton and 24-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Hilary Clinton’s defense of her husband, as she appeared at his side and blamed the charges on a “vast right wing conspiracy”; Pres. Clinton’s evasive responses (quibbling over the definition of the word “is” and whether receiving oral sex counts as having sexual relations), his later admission that he lied, his impeachment for perjury, and Lewinsky’s status as a tabloid celebrity, have — with the help of conservative media voices like Drudge himself — long shadowed Hillary Clinton’s own political career.

The Drudge Report supported Trump in 2016, posting links to The Donald’s rallies as they happened, and later visited him in the White House; but by 2019 Drudge was linking to stories critical of Trump’s failure to deliver on campaign promises like a border wall and replacing Obamacare within 100 days of taking office. Drudge did not support Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. Predictably, Trump now considers Drudge just another “fake news” outlet, and Drudge has been consistently critical of Trump’s false claims about massive voter fraud.

I still consult the Drudge Report regularly, since it covers topics of great interest to the political right, but without simply amplifying Trump’s voice. People return to Drudge to get an early look at what topics the pundits will likely be reacting to for the next 24 hours.

Drudge typically writes his own tabloid headlines that attract attention and shape expectations, while clicking the headline usually sends a reader to a mainstream article published elsewhere. This particular shouty headline links to a perfectly neutral AP story with the more factual headline, “Feds cite efforts to obstruct probe of docs at Trump estate.”

As we can gather from the L-shaped reference ruler and the “2A” card, this redacted photo does not show that FBI agents found these secret documents arranged on the floor in this manner; rather, the photo seems to show evidence carefully arranged so it could be photographed in context. (On Truth Social, Trump seems to be suggesting that the FBI agents were themselves mistreating these important documents by laying them out on the floor, but he’s also insisting that he declassified everything the FBI found, and he’s also claimed that the FBI planted the documents they claim they found, and he’s also demanding that the FBI return the declassified documents that they planted because the documents are his property.)