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This week in the media, pundits and anchors repeated a claim by Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff that the Nunes memo “cherry-picked” information.
During a CNN interview on Feb. 2, Schiff, who is the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, asserted that the Nunes memo “cherry-picked” information about the FISA warrant the FBI obtained to spy on Carter Page.
“What it ends up delivering is criticism of a single FISA application involving Carter Page and its renewals that cherry-picks information,” Schiff said to anchor Wolf Blitzer.
The media quickly took note, repeating the claim on CNN and MSNBC without attribution to Schiff or Democrats in general. They even used the exact same wording, insisting that the memo was “cherry-picked,” despite having little means to prove that Schiff’s assertion was even true.
Without access to all of the information that House Intel has access to, the media relied on a simple talking point from a Democrat to drive the narrative surrounding the memo.
Just one day after Schiff’s interview with Blitzer, the phrase “cherry-picked” popped up on CNN’s “New Day.”