The length to which ABC, its news division, and its parent company (Disney) have gone to protect and curry favor with the Clintons is almost impossible to grasp. To begin with, in 1996, ABC News hired George Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton campaign and White House official. Within a few years he would become the ABC new division’s chief anchor and political reporter.

Then, just today, we learn that ABC News and Stephanopoulos are involved in a massive conflict of interest — a $50,000 donation Stephanopoulos made to the Clinton Foundation.

That’s right, the symbol of ABC News has an ongoing relationship (involving large sums of money) with Bill and Hillary Clinton, a relationship that he and ABC News attempted to cover up from viewers.

All of that, however, is just a small part of an incestuous and corrupted relationship that has gone on for more than a decade.

Back in September of 2006, for the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Touchstone Television (a division of ABC) produced a two-part miniseries that looked, in great detail, at the events that led up to that tragic September morning.

The 240 minute series was meticulously researched by award-winning screenwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh (who has worked on similar historical dramass with the likes of Oliver Stone) and focused, in part, on what the Clinton administration did right and wrong in their attempt to capture or kill 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Nevertheless, once the Clintons got wind that a network miniseries might commit the sin of accurately dramatizing some of their mistakes, all hell broke loose. The Clintons complained publicly and privately to their Disney/ABC pals.

And in an act out of outright McCarthyism, Senate Democrats threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcast license if the miniseries wasn’t censored to benefit the Clintons.

Not only did ABC happily comply, after its initial broadcast, ABC went even further in burying forever its $40 million investment.

Rather than risk upsetting the Clintons, Disney/ABC  instead chose to cave to government threats and lose tens of millions of dollars in the revenue that almost certainly would have come from a “Path to 9/11” home video release and re-broadcasts, not just on ABC, but its other cable networks.

If you look down from 30,000 feet at the whole, what we have here is no coincidence, or in the case of the “Path to 9/11,”, a television network that’s a victim of government intimidation…

This is a relationship; a cozy and corrupted relationship between a mega-corporation, its news division, a former president, a former Secretary of State, and a likely future president.

 

John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC