ProPublica’s investigation revealed that Trump's businesses and campaign have provided at least nine witnesses in his various criminal cases with “significant financial benefits” since his trials began. The detailed report describes several well-known names in Trump's circle, including campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn, campaign head Susie Wiles, lawyer Evan Corcoran, and Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg, among others, who have received “pay increases and other benefits [which] often came at delicate moments in the legal proceedings against Trump.” These revelations suggest possible efforts to influence their testimonies, which ProPublica explains “can be evidence of a crime if they come outside the normal course of business.” Additionally, the report notes, “Attempts to exert undue influence on witnesses have been a repeated theme of Trump-related investigations and criminal cases over the years.”

National news media largely ignored the alleged witness influencing scheme from June 3, when ProPublica’s report was published, through June 5. None of the major weekday broadcast news shows — ABC's Good Morning America and World News Tonight; CBS' Mornings and Evening News; and NBC's Today and Nightly News — provided any coverage of the alleged witness influencing scheme. 

Likewise, five of the top national newspapers — the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post — failed to publish any articles about the ProPublica report.

Cable news fared slightly better, with CNN and MSNBC providing scant coverage of Trump’s potential witness influencing scheme, but Fox News ignored the story completely. CNN aired just 1 segment about the story along with 2 teasers promoting it for a total of 7 minutes of coverage on The Lead with Jake Tapper. MSNBC’s coverage was a bit better, airing 3 segments totaling 17 minutes of coverage, including a panel discussion and 2 guest interviews. All of the coverage on CNN and MSNBC occurred on June 3, the day the report was published. Since then, the networks haven’t made any mention of the story.

The complete silence from corporate broadcast and print media on this potential scheme to influence witnesses, coupled with the limited attention from cable news, highlights a pattern of national media often giving Trump a pass on his primary policy stances and extreme positions alongside his barrage of scandals and alleged misconduct.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original episodes of ABC’s Good Morning America and World News Tonight; CBS’ Mornings and Evenings News; and NBC’s Today and Nightly News as well as all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for either of the terms “Trump” or “former president” or any variation of the term “ProPublica” within close proximity of any of the terms “employee,” “staff,” or “aide” or any variation of the term “witness” and also within close proximity of any of the terms “bonus,” “benefit,” “tamper,” “bribe,” “raise,” “campaign,” “severance,” “job,” “cash,” “testimony,” “perk,” “promotion,” “money,” “share,” “company,” or “committee” or any variation of the term “finance” from June 3, 2024, when ProPublica published its report describing the alleged witness-influencing scheme, through June 5, 2024.

We also searched print articles in the Factiva database from the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post for either of the terms “Trump” or “former president” or any variation of the term “ProPublica” within the same headline or lead paragraphs as any of the terms “employee,” “staff,” or “aide” or any variation of the term “witness” and also within the same headline or lead paragraphs as any of the terms “bonus,” “benefit,” “tamper,” “bribe,” “raise,” “campaign,” “severance,” “job,” “cash,” “testimony,” “perk,” “promotion,” “money,” “share,” “company,” or “committee” or any variation of the term “finance” from June 3, 2024, through June 5, 2024.

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when the alleged witness-influencing scheme reported by ProPublica was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the scheme. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the scheme with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the alleged witness-influencing scheme without another speaker in the segment engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the alleged witness-influencing scheme scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We rounded all times to the nearest minute.

Finally, we included print news articles, which we defined as instances when the alleged witness-influencing scheme was mentioned in the headline or lead paragraphs in any section of the paper. We included editorial, op-eds, and letters to the editor.