Dan O’Donnell writes for the Federalist about the latest example of legacy media malfeasance.

Rarely is the collusion between the mainstream press and the Democratic Party as apparent as it was on Thursday, when CNN Jake Tapper launched an all-out assault on, of all people, Aaron Rodgers.

Within a day of the New York Jets quarterback emerging as a leading choice to run with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Tapper claimed Rodgers shared Sandy Hook conspiracy theories with CNN reporter Pamela Brown at a party following the 2013 Kentucky Derby.

“Hearing that [Brown] was a journalist with CNN, Rodgers immediately began attacking the news media for covering up important stories,” Tapper’s CNN.com story alleged. “Rodgers brought up the tragic killing of 20 children and 6 adults by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School, claiming it was actually a government inside job and the media was intentionally ignoring it.”

Brown did not record the alleged conversation, took no notes, and apparently told no one else about it for nearly 11 years, but on Thursday—the day after Kennedy first floated the possibility of adding Rodgers to his ticket—she was finally ready to report on their conversation.

CNN’s apparent lack of any editorial standards in publishing such an unprovable story notwithstanding, the timing of it was notable—especially after TMZ.com reported just a few hours after Tapper first broke the story that the Democratic National Committee was so scared of Rodgers’s potential to swing votes from President Biden and toward Kennedy that it was actively digging up dirt on the quarterback.

“DNC members acknowledge third-party candidates can easily play spoiler in a close election … so all the more reason to face Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and possibly Rodgers head-on,” TMZ reported Thursday afternoon. “Moving forward, we’re told Democrats will be looking through old Rodgers interviews and dredging up the skeletons in the QB’s locker. Essentially, they’re welcoming AR to a whole new kind of gridiron … one where Rodgers isn’t likely to get an unnecessary roughness call in his favor.”