Kate Bedingfield’s Long Disinformation Campaign About Hunter Biden

Reporters welcomed White House communications director Kate Bedingfield to the briefing room on Tuesday, despite her long history of misinformation about President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

“I know I am not the redhead you’re accustomed to seeing at this podium,” Bedingfield joked at the top of the briefing, as she filled in for the coronavirus-stricken press secretary Jen Psaki. “But I hope you will hang with me nonetheless.”

Bedingfield is a familiar face on team Biden, serving him for years including in 2015, when the Hunter Biden story about his corrupt ties to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma first hit the New York Times.

Bedingfield’s response to the scandal then is familiar to reporters still asking questions about it today.

“Hunter Biden is a private citizen and a lawyer,” she said at the time, insisting that Biden had no involvement with Burisma and was an anti-corruption crusader.

Returning to team Biden for his 2020 presidential campaign, Bedingfield repeatedly defended Hunter from growing scrutiny over his connections with foreign business deals.

“Let’s not forget that this was covered on A22 of The Times in 2015, because it did not fall outside the White House’s ethical guidelines and was simply not a major story,” Bedingfield said for another 2019 New York Times article on Hunter’s role in Ukraine.

The renewed focus on the story, she claimed, was only because of Trump who she insisted was “lying” about the Biden family and Hunter’s role in Ukraine.

She taunted the New York Times for covering the story, accusing them of laying out additional scrutiny on the family on behalf of Trump.

“What’s different now?” she asked. “It’s that Donald Trump is aggressively lying about it every day in the hopes that it winds up on the front page.”

The Biden disinformation campaign continued in 2020, as the team tried to pre-empt Trump’s attacks on Hunter before the final presidential debate.

“If we see tonight from Donald Trump these attacks on Vice President Biden’s family, I think we need to be very, very clear that what he’s doing here is amplifying Russian misinformation,” Bedingfield told reporters before the debate.

Bedingfield said Trump was acting as a “bully” by attacking Hunter Biden and the family and taunted the opposing campaign for featuring it.

“Be our guest,” she said. “He’s been trying to land this for 18 months. It got him impeached. It hasn’t worked.”

When asked about Hunter Biden’s laptop, Bedingfield said she wouldn’t even “dignify” the question with a comment.

The latest confirmation of the authenticity of the laptop by the New York Times, The Washington Post, and even CNN raises the pressure for the Biden team to finally respond to some more questions.

 

Bedingfield is scheduled to be at the White House podium on Thursday but her time to be held accountable on camera for her lies and disinformation is limited to when Psaki returns from coronavirus leave.

When asked by Trump’s recent call for Russian President Vladimir Putin to release any damaging information he had about Hunter Biden and the Biden family, Bedingfield had a prepared answer to make the president’s long-time scandal all about Trump.

“What kind of American, let alone an ex-president, thinks that this is the right time to enter into a scheme with Vladimir Putin and brag about his connections to Vladimir Putin?” She asked. “There is only one, and it’s Donald Trump.”