CNN Ties Raise Questions

Good that Princeton in the nation’s service included Asha Rangappa ’96, an erudite alumna who served with the FBI for five years (Princetonians, Oct. 23). Excellence is needed at all levels of law enforcement and the military. But when I read her comment about President Trump’s assertion that he had been wiretapped (“This is impossible! I know how this stuff works”), I paused to regroup. What did she make of the May 16, 2017, story in The New York Times subtitled “Trump Campaign Wiretapped”? Or the imminent inspector-general’s report on FISA warrants that facilitated surveillance on Donald Trump?

How does a Princeton education morph into an alignment with CNN as a paid national-security analyst with scant awareness of countervailing news? But then her final observation — about the depressing trend of efforts to reject news “as biased” when viewed as unfavorable — is more an indictment of her colleagues in national news and CNN’s daily negative prattle, isn’t it?