Fox “News” released a statement today saying it “mistakenly” edited President Trump out of a photo showing sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, his recently indicted recruiter Ghislaine Maxwell, and the then Melania Knauss, who later became Trump’s third wife, CNN reports.
The photo edit was immediately picked up on social media and by media critics as an overt attempt to disconnect Trump from Epstein, whom Trump once described as a “Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
The photo edit was featured on the network while they were discussing the arrest of Maxwell, who recruited young girls for Epstein and others.
Conservative media and trolls have repeatedly tried to connect Bill Clinton with Epstein, while trying to disassociate Trump from the child trafficker.
The apology was not aired on television, and no on-air correction was issued.
Fox “News” has a number of incidents of manipulating photographs to meet its editorial bias. Last month, Fox “News” was caught photoshopping armed rioters into photos of Seattle protests of police justice.
One of its most egregious manipulations happened when they augmented photos of two New York Times writers who were critical of the network and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, in 2008.