Tribune Columnist on Fox News Compares Cohen Testimony to Being Witness Against ‘La Cosa Nostra’

[aleksandrored]

Clarence Page, columnist for the Chicago Tribune, appeared on Fox News Channel’s Media Buzz on Sunday to discuss how the media covered the testimony before congress by former Trump fixer Michael Cohen last week.

Host Howard Kurtz asked Page whether journalists were too quick “champion” and give a platform to the word of someone they’d previously bashed as a liar, who had in the past “yelled at or threatened journalists.”

“I don’t know about ‘championing’ him, Howard, but I’m delighted they gave him a platform, the Democratic house gave him this platform as well,” said Page. “It reminded me of the Valachi papers, which nobody’s old enough to remember but me apparently.”

Kurtz encouraged him to “educate us,” and Page explained that Joe Valachi famously informed on the mob to Congress back in 1963.

Valachi’s public testimony about La Cosa Nostra, a term for the Sicilian mob popularized by Valachi, “gave us insight into the inside world of organized crime,” said Page. “Now we have an inside look at Donald Trump’s organization.”

“Right now people are tweeting at you saying, ‘you’re comparing this to mobsters?'” said Kurtz.

“Oh I get tweeted making comparisons to a lot of different people,” said Page. “I mean, some people do call them the Trump crime family, some of the journalists who’ve written about them. It’s not that unusual to have that kind of reaction when you see people possibly colluding, possibly conspiring…”

“Well, we’ll see about that but I think the mob rhetoric goes too far,” said Kurtz.

“Well this is not a trial, remember, this is a House, this a political process,” Page said.

“This is a television show,” replied Kurtz.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tribune-col ... sa-nostra/