(Headline USA) A government ethics and watchdog group on Wednesday called upon the Commission on Presidential Debates to withdraw Kristen Welker, NBC’s White House Correspondent, from moderating Thursday’s debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
In a letter, National Legal and Policy Center blasted the commission for choosing Welker despite her pro-Democrat bias and for fabricating a quote from President Trump.
NLPC cited news reports showing that Welker’s family have been strong Democrat financial supporters and photos of her with her father posing with the Obamas at a 2012 White House Christmas party.
NLPC also cited its August 11 letter to NBC brass calling for the suspension of Welker as a White House correspondent for making up a quote from President Trump in reacting to the shooting on the White House grounds in early August.
When asked by Welker if he was “rattled at all” by the incident, Trump calmly responded, ‘I don’t know, do I seem rattled?”
Shortly thereafter, Welker reported on NBC that in response to her question, “he said, ‘Of course.’”
“The American voter doesn’t need a biased moderator who acts as additional adversary to one of the candidates,” said NLPC Chairman Peter Flaherty.
“Sadly, none of the Commission’s criteria for selecting a moderator requires even a semblance of neutrality,” added Paul Kamenar, Counsel for NLPC who drafted the complaint.
Last weekend, President Trump tweeted that Welker has “always been terrible and unfair, just like most of the Fake News reporters.”
Trump has questioned why Welker had disabled her Twitter account after C-SPAN’s Steve Scully claimed — falsely, he later admitted — that he had been hacked. Scully was to have moderated an earlier debate that was canceled.
NBC said the halt to Welker’s Twitter account was temporary and done for security, not to hide anything she may have tweeted in the past.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
