Former federal prosecutor Larry Klayman has launched a new website to tackle complaints about the "leftist media" — and he tells Newsmax TV that his first target is with CNN.
Klayman, founder of LeftistMediaStrikeForce.org, says the cable news network founded by Ted Turner has turned dangerously "disreputable" and far to the left under the "Napoleonic" leadership of its president Jeff Zucker.
"They've violated their code of conduct, their ethics. The FCC maybe can't remove their license, but they can be severely fined …[Zucker is] very leftist, he's kind of Napoleonic in the way he runs it," Klayman said Tuesday to Steve Malzberg on "America Talks Live."
Klayman, who also founded the conservative political advocacy groups Freedom Watch and Judicial Watch, said the straw that broke the camel's back occurred on Wolf Blitzer's show "The Situation Room," a day before Donald Trump's inauguration as the nation's 45th president.
"CNN gave a road map on how a terrorist could assassinate President-elect Trump, and [said] if they got Vice President [Mike] Pence and the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan at the same time, an Obama Cabinet official would be able to be president," Klayman said.
"It's not funny, it was a way of telegraphing to assassinate the president of the United States and that's objectionable and that's outrageous and that's illegal, frankly.
"The Secret Service should have gone over there and at least questioned Zucker and Wolf Blitzer … If it had been you or me, we would have been arrested for doing that."
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He has also asked the Secret Service to investigate.
"I'm looking for the Secret Service to put the fear of God into them. They can't go around thinking that they can suggest how a president of the United States should be assassinated. I mean that's unbelievable beyond the pale," Klayman said.
"Frankly, it's become a disreputable network. It used to be called 'the most trusted name in news.' I would say it's now 'the most distrusted name in news.'"
He added: "CNN has become basically … the Communist News Network and they've gone so far left they're even outdoing MSNBC. They're vying for a leftist media."
Klayman also alleged that under Zucker, CNN has destroyed the objectivity of one its chief newsmen, Jake Tapper.
"I've known Jake Tapper for a long time. I remember when I was running Judicial Watch, he came up to me at an event that we did in Philadelphia during the Republican convention in the year 2000 and he wanted to come into a fundraiser we were doing," Klayman recalled.
"I said, 'Jake, you're with Salon, you're far left, you're not really welcome here.' And I didn't know him that well and he said, 'Larry, give me a break, I'm not really that way, I'm very even-handed.'
"And I always thought he was, but he's absolutely gone ape-you-know-what in the last months or so and I think what he's doing, he's toeing the line … [He] is a nice guy who had journalistic ethics but they've all gone crazy over there at CNN."
Other journalists have also been affected in CNN's turn to the left, Klayman alleged.
"Wolf Blitzer used to be a fairly credible journalist, you had Anderson Cooper, who wasn't too far left, you had Erin Burnett, and of course, Don Lemon … They've outdone MSNBC and it's getting to the point of worse than absurdity, it's just completely dishonest," Klayman told Malzberg.
"We're going to put them back on their heels because frankly, they're attempting to destroy the Trump presidency and they're not giving the guy a chance."
Over the past few weeks, Trump has ripped into CNN as a "fake news" outlet.
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