The corporate media has latched onto a new narrative in the ongoing Bragg trial against Donald Trump: the National Enquirer’s “catch and kill” scheme was really a ploy to influence the 2016 election. It’s ironic that the media is now clutching their collective pearls when this is exactly what they all did in 2020.

“Catch and kill” refers to a media strategy of purchasing the rights to a story and then not running with it. Critically, it’s meant to prevent anyone else from running with it as well. Whether for personal, professional, or political reasons, it’s used to suppress an inconvenient story.

This is what former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker accused his own organization of doing on Trump’s behalf in testimony Thursday. According to Pecker, “catch and kill” was a “common event” at the Enquirer, the Washington Post reported.

Trump stands accused of paying “hush money” to porn star Stormi Daniels through his then-attorney Michael Cohen in order to prevent a story of their alleged affair leaking to the press during the 2016 campaign. The case hinges on intent: whether Trump paid off Daniels for personal reasons or to protect his campaign from scandal.

Therefore, the prosecution turned to Pecker to establish a “pattern of similar strategies,” the Post reported. Pecker testified that he had used the catch and kill scheme to help Trump, his long time friend, in the past with similar accusations from ex-Playmate Karen McDougal. Pecker testified that he struck the $150,000 deal with McDougal to buy the rights to McDougal’s story and never run it, assuring her silence.

“Was your principal purpose in entering into the agreement with Karen McDougal to suppress her story so as to prevent it from influencing the election?” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked Pecker.

“Yes, it was,” Pecker replied.

But he went further, linking the McDougal case to the intent that prosecutors were looking for.

“It wasn’t ‘What would Melania say, or Ivanka?’ ” Pecker testified.

“His [Trump’s] family was never mentioned, and the conversation I had directly with Mr. Trump, his family wasn’t mentioned, so I made the assumption the concern was the campaign,” he continued.

Cohen allegedly went off on his own in the Daniels case only after Pecker declined to assist again, prosecutors argued.

F0r the corporate media, this is the smoking gun they’ve spent the last eight years willing into existence. “Pecker gave prosecutors just what they were looking for in Trump hush money testimony,” Politico gloated. A panel of MSNBC legal analysts all agreed that Pecker’s testimony was “revelatory.”  Slate called Pecker the “ideal opening witness.” TheWrap accused Pecker of using his publication as a “political tool” to “help Donald Trump.”

The key take away in virtually all media coverage was that Trump and Pecker conspired to influence an election by suppressing a story. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

The media might not have purchased the rights to the rights to Hunter Biden laptop from hell story, but they sure as hell worked in lockstep to shut it down.

The New York Post infamously broke the laptop story in the run-up to the 2020 election, perhaps the biggest October surprise to ever strike a presidential candidate. It was certainly the most important story of the election. In hindsight, 17% of Americans say they would have changed their vote if they had known about the laptop, according to a Media Research Center poll. Yet the corporate media now even conspires to discredit polls; it shows just how much they actually interfered in the 2020 election.

Rather than cover the Post’s reporting at face value, they called it “Russian disinformation.” They appealed to the “experts” — a letter signed by 51 Intel officials, now known to be coordinated by the Biden campaign — to write the whole thing off as a Russian plot to sway the election. Implausible as it was, they were happy to take the letter at face value. The Washington Post and The New York Times led the charge, only admitting they were wrong well after Biden took office. The managing editor of NPR spoke as the id of corporate media when he explained, “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories.”

On this basis, social media shut down the story online. Twitter not only blocked the Post’s account, but suppressed the story from being shared on the platform. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg later explained how his platform suppressed the story after being contacted by the FBI over “misinformation” concerns.

In hindsight, nearly 8 in 10 Americans believe that the cover-up changed the 2020 election. Using the same standard applied against Trump today, former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy even thinks that Twitter could be prosecuted for election interference.

As always, this just goes to show that if it weren’t for double standards, the left would have no standards at all. Whether they’re condemning election interference or committing it, the only goal is to get Trump.