The themes advanced by conservative commentators have been wildly supportive of the president and hostile toward impeachment, often painting an alternative reality of a brutal, bullying, illegal and unfair plot against Trump.
Jeanine Pirro, on her eponymous Fox News show, recently groused: “There’s been a lot of talk about constitutional crises – but the only constitutional crisis right now is the lawless attempt to impeach the sitting president.”
Fox Business’s Lou Dobbs celebrated a Republican protest saying, “the Republicans, God bless them for actually doing something. I am so impressed.” He also described the inquiry as the “illegal efforts of the radical Dems who are holding secret hearings in their attempts to unseat the president”, Columbia Journalism Review noted.
On the far-right news website Breitbart, some of the recently trending topics were “Hoaxblower Madness” – a reference to the anonymous whistleblower, whose complaint ultimately spurred the impeachment inquiry. One Breitbart headline about the House intelligence committee chair, Adam Schiff, claimed: “Adam Schiff Makes Up New Rules for Impeachment Inquiry; Restricts Republican Witness Questions.”