CNN ignores that former Trump staffer Alyssa Farah helped spread his election fraud lies

Written by Eric Kleefeld

Published

CNN on Tuesday morning helped a former Trump administration official to cover up her own record of helping to spread the former president’s lies about voter fraud in the 2020 election, instead presenting her as someone who had helped to push back against the Big Lie.

In its election day coverage of the California gubernatorial recall, the panel on New Day discussed the context of how the Big Lie has led to more false claims of election fraud in California. (Gov. Gavin Newsom later won the recall in a landslide.) While introducing his guest former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah, co-anchor John Berman said that she, “we should note, left largely because of the election lie that people in the administration were spewing at the time.”

Berman also later asked Farah about the Trump administration’s efforts in the two-month period after Election Day to overturn the results of the 2020 election: “You were there for part of it, not all of it, because you left. I mean, you had enough. But what's it like for you to see that now?”

“Well, listen, it’s odd. I've worked in politics for a long time. Losing is part of politics, winning is part of politics,” Farah said. “And to [CNN chief national affairs analyst Kasie Hunt’s] point, it's foundational to our democracy that we just accept it when we lose. We came up short. We knew that we didn't win. So to kind of see this last-minute scramble, most of which was after I left, is, I mean, it's beneath who we are as a country.”

Farah’s comments conflicted with her past comment about the 2020 election, and neither Berman, Hunt, or co-anchor Brianna Keilar noted it. (Click here for a transcript.)

From the September 14, 2021, edition of CNN's New Day With John Berman and Brianna Keilar

Farah had previously announced in early December 2020 that she was “leaving the White House to pursue new opportunities,” a move that was also reported as an acknowledgment that Trump had lost the election and that White House staffers would start looking for their next jobs.

Then later in the month, Farah appeared on Fox News, on the December 22 edition of America’s Newsroom, and publicly claimed that there was voter fraud in the election.

The segment began with Fox News hyping efforts to stop supposed fraud in the upcoming Georgia Senate runoffs, which would determine the partisan control of the U.S. Senate. Co-anchor Sandra Smith then asked Farah: “So, on that point, what is the GOP doing to ensure fair elections in January?”

In response, Farah mentioned the “irregularities and fraud” in the 2020 election, while also urging Republicans not to let those allegations deter them from actually voting in Georgia.

From the December 22, 2020, edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom

ALYSSA FARAH (FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR): The Georgia Republican Party has been taking efforts, they have efforts underway to ensure that we have signature verification, that we have poll watchers.

But what we’re really trying to convey to voters, and listen, understanding that millions of Americans have concerns about irregularities and fraud that we have seen — that we saw in the 2020 elections. But what we’re conveying to Georgia voters is if you care about — if you don’t want a rigged election, you absolutely have to get out and vote. You ensure a Democrat victory if you don’t get out and vote.

We are taking measures, we have them in place. We should be able to trust the results of this election. But the most important thing, here and now, is that Georgia Republicans get out and vote.

Farah appeared again with Smith on January 8, in the days following the attack on the Capitol building, and said that she had known “shortly after the election, when the race was called by many media outlets” that Trump had lost, an event that occurred on the Saturday after the election.

She also declared: “But I was very uncomfortable with the public messaging going out claiming that the election was stolen and was going to be overturned. It is not fair — it's not fair to viewers, it's not fair to voters and the 74 million people who supported the president to give them a false hope. And that was ultimately what drove me to step aside.”

However, this would also make her statements on December 22 about voter fraud “that we saw in the 2020 elections” a willful lie. Farah also continued to engage in fence-sitting over whether fraud had also occurred, saying, “It doesn't mean there weren't cases of fraud, that there weren't irregularities that should be pursued.”

So when mainstream media outlets seek to elevate one of the supposedly good Trump administration officials who had “left largely because of the election lie,” they should not lose sight of times that such people actually pandered to both sides.