Former MSNBC Contributor and U.S. Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) claimed that social media censorship of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden “Laptop from Hell” story in the lead-up to the 2020 election caused the report to “receive far more attention” than if there had never been “any controversy.”
His claim regarding the censorship, which he dubbed a “controversy,” came during his questioning of Breitbart News Politics Editor Emma-Jo Morris at the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Thursday.
Morris, one of several witnesses at the hearing along with Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., broke the “Laptop from Hell” story at the Post, which was heavily censored across mainstream social media outlets as the 2020 election approached. The publication’s Twitter account was even locked for a period.
“And there is no doubt that this article received far more attention because of the controversy than it would if it had ever, ever been published without any controversy,” he declared.
Not only does his opinion neglect the fact that censorship, in many ways, discredited the legitimate report in public perception, but it suggests that censorship, in this case, was more beneficial to the story’s scope than if Morris’s reporting was not stifled. Further undermining the argument, a December TIPP Insights polling survey revealed “half of respondents said they would have voted differently had they known the Hunter Biden’s laptop revelations were authentic,” the Daily Mail reported.
Morris testified at the hearing that the Federal Bureau of Investigation “knew” before December 2019 that the laptop was real:
Goldman stated, “There was a laptop, it’s a computer, keyboard, screen — it is real,” before noting that Morris obtained a hard drive rather than the laptop itself.
He implied that the hard drive Morris obtained from Rudy Giuliani could be Russian disinformation. What Goldman neglected to acknowledge is that Morris verified the authenticity of the emails on the hard drive in contacting the recipients, like Hunter Biden’s one-time business associate Tony Bobulinski.
Earlier in the hearing, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) yielded his final 30 seconds to Goldman, who used the time to baselessly call Morris a “fringe-right reporter” without stating her name. She was not given a chance to respond to the Russian “Collusion” hoaxer’s aspersion.
WATCH: Breitbart’s Emma-Jo Morris Testifies at House Hearing on Censorship of LAPTOP FROM HELL Reporting