Project Veritas
Undercover Investigation: CNN Producer Admits Network Hyping ‘Mostly Bullsh*t’
Trump-Russia Scandal for ‘Ratings’
by Matthew Boyle 26 Jun 2017Washington, D.C.
James O’Keefe’s
Project Veritas has struck again: This time, a senior CNN producer was caught
on camera by one of O’Keefe’s investigators admitting that the network’s
relentless bashing of President Donald Trump with the Russia scandal lacks
proof.
“Could be bullshit. I mean, it’s mostly bullshit right
now,” the CNN producer, John Bonifield, said in a video O’Keefe’s Project
Veritas released on Tuesday, when asked about his thoughts on the Russia
investigation. “Like, we don’t have any giant proof. Then they say, well
there’s still an investigation going on. And you’re like, yeah, I don’t know.
If they were finding something we would know about it. The way these leaks
happen, they would leak it. They’d leak. If it was something really good, it
would leak…. The leaks keep leaking and there’s so many great leaks, and it’s
amazing. I just refuse to believe that if they had something really good like
that that wouldn’t leak because we’ve been getting all these other leaks. So, I
just feel like they don’t really have it but they want to keep digging. And so
I think the president is probably right to say, like, look you are witch
hunting me. You have no smoking gun. You have no real proof.”
WATCH: PROJECT VERITAS VIDEO INVESTIGATION OF CNN:
The video also shows Bonifield admitting that he has not
seen evidence that Trump has committed any crimes.
“I haven’t seen any good evidence to show the president
committed a crime,” Bonifield says in the video.
And even if Russia did try to influence the U.S.
election, Bonifield is heard saying in the video, that is not really much of a
scandal. He is seen arguing that Russian efforts to influence the election
would be normal, and that the U.S. government does the same thing around the
world all the time.
“Even if Russia was trying to swing an election, we try
to swing their elections, our CIA is doing shit all the time, we’re out there
trying to manipulate governments,” Bonifield says.
Bonifield is a supervising producer for CNN Health.
According to his
biography on CNN’s website, Bonifield works with the CNN Medical
Unit and “primarily with CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.”
These startling admissions from a CNN producer on hidden
camera video come amid many other comments the video shows him making that are
particularly problematic for a network in crisis. The Project Veritas video was
released on Tuesday amid the worst scandal in CNN history. Zucker, the network
president, is currently leading an internal investigation into a very fake news
hit piece that CNN published Thursday night then retracted late Friday after a
Breitbart News investigation. He is joined, per reports from BuzzFeed News, by
the head of HR inside CNN at the top of the investigation. Three of CNN’s
senior-most editorial staffers have
resigned as a result of the growing scandal.
In narration over the video, O’Keefe notes that “Bonifield
has worked for CNN as a journalist and producer for nearly 15 years.”
“He not only gave us a tour of CNN’s main newsroom, he
gave us a window into the editorial bias and anti-Trump agenda of the
organization,” O’Keefe says.
O’Keefe’s Project Veritas is billing this video as part
one of a multi-part investigation into what they call: “American Pravda.”
“Fake News: We start our American Pravda investigations
inside American media with part one: CNN,” O’Keefe says in the video. “Our goal
is to expose the real motivations behind the decision-making process at our
dominant media corporations. Fake News. One story has monopolized President
Trump’s time in office like no other, especially on CNN: Russia. In fact, since
the Inauguration, CNN has mentioned Russia on their air nearly 16,000 times. So
we sent our undercover reporters inside CNN to understand why and to determine
if CNN even believes if the story is even real.”
In addition to those aforementioned revelations in the
Project Veritas video, Bonifield is shown on camera saying the reason CNN
leadership and management is so focused on the Russia scandal despite the lack
of real proof is “because it’s ratings.”
“Our ratings are incredible right now,” the video from
Project Veritas shows Bonifield saying.
In the video, Bonifield says that CNN leadership
regularly axes coverage of other newsworthy stories to shift coverage back to
the Russia story. He provided as an example of the network’s coverage of
President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate
accords—which he is seen saying in the video lasted less than two days—before
management deliberately shifted coverage back to the Russia scandal.
“My boss, I shouldn’t say this, my boss yesterday we were
having a discussion about this dental shoot and he goes and he was just like I
want you to know what we are up against here,” Bonifield is seen saying. “And
he goes, just to give you some context, President Trump pulled out of the
climate accords and for a day and a half we covered the climate accords. And
the CEO of CNN said in our internal meeting, he said good job everybody
covering the climate accords, but we’re done with it let’s get back to Russia.”
When asked by the Project Veritas investigator if it was
the CEO of CNN—according to O’Keefe they were referring to CNN president Jeff Zucker—who
made that determination, Bonifield is heard saying: “Yeah.”
“So, even the climate accords, he was like a day or so
it’s okay but we’re moving back to Russia,” Bonifield says in the video.
“It’s a business,” Bonifield says in the video. “People
are like the media has an ethical … But, all the nice cutesy little ethics that
used to get talked about in journalism school, you’re just like, that’s
adorable. That’s adorable. This is a business. Especially cable news. Cable
news isn’t the New York Times, and it’s not even like NBC News. I mean NBC News
still gets 20 million viewers a night. Cable news is getting a million. So,
they got to do what they got to do to make their money.”
Bonifield is also seen saying in the video that CNN
treats President Trump much differently than CNN treated now former President
Barack Obama when he was in office.
“I think there a lot of like liberal CNN viewers who want
to see Trump really get scrutinized,” the CNN producer is seen saying in the
video.
“And I think if we would have behaved that way with
President Obama and scrutinized everything that he was doing with as much
scrutiny as we apply to Donald Trump, I think our viewers would have been
turned off. I think they would have felt like we were attacking him. And I’m
not saying all of our viewers are super liberals, I think there’s just a lot of
them.”
He adds that: “Trump is good for business right now.”
CNN
CNN Worldwide
is a division of CNN.
Note: Jeff Zucker is the
president of CNN Worldwide, and a director
emeritus for the Robin Hood Foundation.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Robin Hood Foundation, the Aspen
Institute (think tank), and the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace (think tank).
George
Soros was the chairman for the Foundation
to Promote Open Society, is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, and a friend
of Michael Douglas.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace (think tank).
Emma Bloomberg
was the chief of staff for the Robin
Hood Foundation, is a director at the Robin
Hood Foundation, Michael R.
Bloomberg’s daughter, and a director at the Bloomberg Family Foundation.
Michael R.
Bloomberg was a donor for the Robin
Hood Foundation, is Emma Bloomberg’s
father, and the founder of the Bloomberg
Family Foundation.
Bloomberg
Family Foundation was a funder for the Aspen
Institute (think tank).
Walter Isaacson is
a director at the Bloomberg Family
Foundation, the president & CEO for the Aspen Institute (think tank), and was the chairman & CEO for CNN.
Ted
Turner is the founder of CNN, the
founder of the Turner Broadcasting
System Inc., and a co-chairman for the Nuclear
Threat Initiative (think tank).
Vivian Schiller
was a Russian interpreter for the Turner
Broadcasting System Inc., and the SVP for the CNN Productions.
Michael Douglas
is a director at the Nuclear Threat
Initiative (think tank), and a friend of George Soros.
Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (think
tank) was a funder for the Nuclear
Threat Initiative (think tank).
Jessica Tuchman Mathews is a director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank),
was the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think
tank), a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think
tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Ed Griffin’s interview with
Norman Dodd in 1982
(The investigation into the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace uncovered the plans for population
control by involving the United States in war)
James F. Collins
is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(think tank), and was a U.S. ambassador for Russia.
Thomas R.
Pickering was a U.S. ambassador for Russia,
and a lifetime trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tank).
Bloomberg
Family Foundation was a funder for the Aspen
Institute (think tank).
Walter Isaacson is
a director at the Bloomberg Family
Foundation, the president & CEO for the Aspen Institute (think tank), and was the chairman & CEO for CNN.
Michael R.
Bloomberg is the founder of the Bloomberg
Family Foundation, Emma Bloomberg’s
father, and was a donor for the Robin
Hood Foundation.
Emma Bloomberg
was the chief of staff for the Robin
Hood Foundation, is a director at the Robin
Hood Foundation, Michael R.
Bloomberg’s daughter, and a director at the Bloomberg Family Foundation.
Jeff
Zucker is a director emeritus for the Robin
Hood Foundation, and the president of CNN
Worldwide.
CNN Worldwide
is a division of CNN.
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